Racking up credits to transfer to WGU?

[Jwheels27]

Thank you to all the people that answered my last couple of questions. But i've decided an associates degree from one of the Big Three is too expensive for a transfer into WGU. Seems more economical to rack up credits from different sources such as Straighterline then transfer them in. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Can you tell me how you went about it? And how many credits you got to transfer in? I appreciate any advice you guys can give me thank you!

[rowan555]

Thank you to all the people that answered my last couple of questions. But i've decided an associates degree from one of the Big Three is too expensive for a transfer into WGU. Seems more economical to rack up credits from different sources such as Straighterline then transfer them in. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Can you tell me how you went about it? And how many credits you got to transfer in? I appreciate any advice you guys can give me thank you!

This is what my son is doing - you can see the courses he has done in my signature. He's also about to add Managing Information Systems from Ed4Credit to the list - they have a 50% off one course code on this forum, good through tomorrow. WGU doesn't have a maximum number of credits for transfer - you simply follow their transfer guidelines and you're all set. My son will be transferring 90 credits in and completing 30 at WGU, hopefully in one term.

Your best bet is to go ahead and apply to WGU, then when you are assigned an enrollment counselor you can get them to send you the current transfer guidelines for your program, and they can answer course-specific transfer questions.

[jsd]

Which degree are you looking at? Not all courses are transferable. Particular colleges within WGU might accept things that other colleges won't. For example, WGU's College of IT will not accept "Principles of Management" from any source for transfer, even brick and mortar school. But last I checked, College of Business accepts it transferred in.

[teacher2]

I second jsd's posts. It depends on what you are pursuing. Sometimes the credit varies from degree to degree with them for example: they will let you transfer SL statistics into a BA in math for teaching 5-12 but will not let you transfer it in on a BA in in math for teaching 5-9. I am currently in the admissions process for the 5-9 option and here is a excerpt from what my enrollment counselor sent me:

I’ve heard back from our Transcripts Department about options to fulfill some of the transfer credit that you’re considering. Here’s the following information:

Shmoop University, Inc.
P.O. Box 0935
Los Altos CA 94023-0935
1. College Geometry - Geometry does not transfer into the BAMA9 or BAMA12 program.

StraighterLine
1. Western Civilization: to count for WGU’s Survey of World History -for BAMA9, -this can potentially transfer
2. American Government: to count for WGU’s Survey of the United State Constitution and Government -this can potentially transfer
3. Introduction to Communications:to count for WGU’s Elements of Effective Communication -this can potentially transfer

CLEP Tests
1. Introduction to Educational Psychology: to count towards WGU’s Fundamentals of Educational Psychology -this can potentially transfer
2. Pre-Calculus: to count towards WGU’s Pre-Calculus -this can potentially transfer
3. Calculus: to count towards WGU’s Calculus course. -this is not a transferable course for BAMA9

I have emailed my enrollment counselor about Study.com's educational courses to see if they will transfer in as well. Not sure if this is side-tracking or helpful!!!

[dfrecore]

I agree that it's not cost-effective to get an AA first, and that you should just transfer into WGU with as many credits as possible which will enable you to finish your BA in 1 term.

So, tell us what degree you want to get, and we can probably help you figure out a preliminary degree plan.

[Jwheels27]

I've been looking at their business management degree, if that helps at all.

Another thing I thought about, would it be a better option(as far as price/efficiency) to get a BSBA from a big three school?

[jsd]

This may be a little out of date because they mix up their degree plans fairly often, and this is from May of 2016, but this tells you how you can satisfy a lot of their coures. Compare it to their current course map on their website:

https://partners.wgu.edu/_layouts/15/Wop...on=default

(I've always had trouble getting these links working on mobile, but you should be good on desktop/laptop)

[dfrecore]

I've been looking at their business management degree, if that helps at all.

Another thing I thought about, would it be a better option(as far as price/efficiency) to get a BSBA from a big three school?

WGU's BSBM is comparable in terms of price to the BSBA from one of the Big 3 IF you get it done in 1-2 terms. That means that you need to plan it out so that you're done in that timeframe. If you want to do it in 1 term, then it's probably cheaper, but you would have to take a bunch of credits ahead of time and transfer them in. If you want to do it in 2 terms, then you really need to buckle down and finish. There are a lot of courses to finish in a short time frame.

I think WGU can be riskier than the others, because you could go slower than you think, and end up needing an additional term that you didn't plan on to finish. With the Big 3, you are only putting out money for credits you're actually earning, and then you don't put out big money until you enroll and take the cornerstone and/or capstone, after you've already earned most of your credits. So there's no real risk there.

[rowan555]

WGU's BSBM is comparable in terms of price to the BSBA from one of the Big 3 IF you get it done in 1-2 terms. That means that you need to plan it out so that you're done in that timeframe. If you want to do it in 1 term, then it's probably cheaper, but you would have to take a bunch of credits ahead of time and transfer them in. If you want to do it in 2 terms, then you really need to buckle down and finish. There are a lot of courses to finish in a short time frame.

I think WGU can be riskier than the others, because you could go slower than you think, and end up needing an additional term that you didn't plan on to finish. With the Big 3, you are only putting out money for credits you're actually earning, and then you don't put out big money until you enroll and take the cornerstone and/or capstone, after you've already earned most of your credits. So there's no real risk there.

This is true, but at least for the Business school, it's pretty easy to get 90 credits and enroll needing only 10 courses to graduate - doable if you work your butt off for 1 term, but pretty easily doable if you plan on 2 terms. 5 classes in 6 months isn't all that much to accomplish. Particularly when a few of them are pretty basic courses and the cornerstone.

[dfrecore]

This is true, but at least for the Business school, it's pretty easy to get 90 credits and enroll needing only 10 courses to graduate - doable if you work your butt off for 1 term, but pretty easily doable if you plan on 2 terms. 5 classes in 6 months isn't all that much to accomplish. Particularly when a few of them are pretty basic courses and the cornerstone.

I didn't say it wasn't doable - I just said that it needs to be planned out. AND, once you start adding up the costs of taking the courses you want to transfer in first, it starts to get more expensive. For instance, if you could get all of your courses for an average of $100 per course (completely doable, and probably on the high end, you can probably do it for a little less) - then the cost for the courses is $2700, and then the $2850 for WGU, making the degree $5550. A little less than TESU or COSC.

BUT, if you don't complete the 10 courses you need in a single term, then you're at $8400. A lot more than it would have cost to go through TESU or COSC which are about $6500. So it definitely does not pay to do it this way. You really need to plan out the degree, take all of your courses, and then commit to finishing in a single term no matter what.

If you want to do a 2-term program, then it's $5700 for those terms, and so to make it less than TESU, you could only take about 8 courses ahead of time, and then do 30 classes at WGU in 2 terms. I think that seems like a LOT of work.

So again, my advice is to plan it out carefully, to make the most of your time at WGU. That might mean taking everything you can ahead of time, and maybe even studying up on the courses you're going to take at WGU ahead of time as well, so you can breeze through them while you're there. For instance, maybe you have a Study.com membership, and you take courses for credit. But, you also take Digital Marketing, Marketing Research, and Global Marketing - all not for credit so no paying extra - to make it easier to get through the Marketing Applications course at WGU. Or you take the Intro to Computing and Info Systems courses to prepare you for Intro to IT. Or the MS Excel Certification course to prepare you for spreadsheets. Not saying you SHOULD do this, as I have no clue. Just saying that you could find some ways to get ahead of the curve before you enrolled at WGU.