Sophia & Study questions

[CM1999]

I'm wondering if someone can explain the differences in these.  

My son is doing a bunch of Straighterline courses and liking the format ---mostly because he can do well enough during the course to not have to stress/worry about the final too much (exam anxiety).   

Are any of the other three like this?  

he's going to need some UL classes for his Lib Arts degree at excelsior and it looks like Study.com has some, a few at Sophia...I have not checked Saylor....are there any others that we should check that have a similar format where you dont have to do super well on the final? 

---he's actually doing fairly well on the finals so I'm hoping the anxiety passes but knowing that he is doing well enough to pass definitely makes it better for him.

[rachel83az]

Saylor is 100% final exam. There are no quizzes or assignments to split the grade.

Sophia is entirely open-book. You need to score at least 50% on a Milestone (Sophia's version of an exam) to pass. Depending on how well you scored in the rest of the course, you may or may not need more than that for a final score of 70% or more in the entire course. But, since it's all open book, it's pretty easy to not score BELOW a 70% on most Milestones. Each Milestone has a practice Milestone to take. Taking this makes the actual Milestone easier.

Study.com could definitely work. SDC UL courses have quizzes, assignment(s), and a final exam. Each of these has 100 points available and you need 210 out of 300 points to pass. If you get 95% on the quizzes (relatively easy on most courses; it's entirely possible to score a perfect 100 for some courses) and then 90 points on the assignment(s), that's 185 points. Only 25% or more would be needed for the final exam.

[dfrecore]

I think SL was harder than both Sophia and Study.com - and that's with LL SL courses, and UL Sophia/SDC courses. I thought their format was terrible (very textbook-specific questions).

[bjcheung77]

@OP, Depends on your situation, Study.com might not be better in regards to people just looking for quick lower level credit. If that is the case, I recommend Sophia.org over Study.com, for upper level credit it's a different story. Study.com pricing is pretty affordable for upper level credit, it's pretty good for lower level courses that might not be found elsewhere as well...

Sophia.org changed their pricing from $329 per course to unlimited courses during the Pandemic in March 2020 to "cash" in on the sheer number of subscribers, I think I read anywhere from 150 thousand total subscribers over that period. Then they added the $149/year special, which also added a few thousand subscribers... Before Sophia.org making that radical pricing change, my recommendation for lower level was StraighterLine.

Previously, StraighterLine for lower level, Study.com for upper level as both of these are subscription based, you need to work on multiple courses at a time to take advantage of the monthly fee. Now, Sophia.org/Study.com combo as Sophia.org leapfrogged StraighterLine as my go to for lower level recommendations. One reason StraighterLine is #3 is because there are some courses not offered at Sophia.org, the majority can be found on Study.com

My ranking is Sophia.org, Study.com, StraighterLine, Saylor.org - Straighterline beats out Saylor as some of their courses are open book exams and most can be passed before you get into the proctored final exam, whereas, Saylor.org is a on that one final exam... somewhat time consuming/stressful for people like me! Obviously, there are some courses that are free/cheaper, it all depends on what your situation is and what your needs are...

TLDR: Sophia.org is probably the cheapest/easiest/fastest ACE set of courses you can get for $99/month subscription all you can take - two courses at a time. They've leapfrogged StraighterLine to become my #1 for Lower Level credits, Study.com remains my #2 choice as they provide the most Upper Level courses. StraighterLine is #3 as they have some selective courses not available at Sophia.org/Study.com (Calculus II, science labs, etc)

Last but not least, some providers have 'discounts' available for the institution you want to go to, for example, if you take a few courses at any of the previously mentioned providers above, and take 12 credits at Excelsior, you'll get 20% off the tuition. If you take StraighterLine, you may also be eligible for a scholarship that pays for the StraighterLine courses at WGU, there was one for COSC too, and so on...

[smarterby1degree]

I'm wondering if someone can explain the differences in these.  

My son is doing a bunch of Straighterline courses and liking the format ---mostly because he can do well enough during the course to not have to stress/worry about the final too much (exam anxiety).   

Are any of the other three like this?  

he's going to need some UL classes for his Lib Arts degree at excelsior and it looks like Study.com has some, a few at Sophia...I have not checked Saylor....are there any others that we should check that have a similar format where you dont have to do super well on the final? 

---he's actually doing fairly well on the finals so I'm hoping the anxiety passes but knowing that he is doing well enough to pass definitely makes it better for him

We liked Straighterline the least out of all of them and they were also more expensive so I would switch to Sophia for lower division. My daughter took classes on Study.com, Sophia, and Coopersmith for Excelsior University. She used Study and Coopersmith for UL but preferred Coopersmith because there were no papers for their UL classes. I'm not sure how old your son is but my daughter did them throughout high school while homeschooling and it was great.