Study.com (SDC) WARNING - new credit/exam policy change

[HogwartsSchool]

Hello Community,

READ this study.com WARNING before you signup and begin taking courses from them.

I'm new, first time posting on the community message board; however, I have been an observer for the past year. I spent a significant amount of time researching and developing out a degree plan using study.com (SDC). I was planning on using them for 30 courses (TESU's credit limit). 

I have completed 20 courses/and all quizzes on study.com, and I had begun taking the final proctor exam for the courses. I took and passed five courses so far this month, and when I attempted to purchase the next exam last night, I received a message on study.com's website saying the following.


"You've passed five exams in the last 30 days. 
Well done! Since you have earned credit for five courses this month, please wait until your next billing cycle to take more exams, and contact support if you have questions."

Thinking this was some mistake or error because there's no mention on study.com (SDC) website about an exam limit, I emailed support, and they replied with the following.

"Thank you for your question!  With a college Accelerator subscription to Study.com, you will now be able to take up to 5 exams per month.  We enacted this policy to maintain alignment with the academic standards of our partner schools.  If you have any urgent questions or concerns about this, please let me know!"


Has anyone else come across where study.com is limiting the purchase of new exams each month? Please share your feedback and what is the communities' suggestion about this MAJOR problem?

[bjcheung77]

Thanks for sharing, they did recently change this and was mentioned a couple of weeks in this thread below.
You just need to remember, in the case for TESU, they allow up to 90 credits from one ACE/NCCRS source.
There are workarounds though. Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Exam-Limit

It's not going to do too much of an issue in terms of slowing you down, as you can always supplement them with other course providers. Or in the event the course has assignments, you can do the assignments on the downtime. I usually recommend 4-5 courses a month at most with current providers to "learn" the material.

Even if you have time on your hands, I would recommend doing other courses slowly to retain the information. Further to that, for someone who has done a course in 1 day from StraighterLine/Study.com, they are still the best provider in my mind even with this MINOR limitation.

[HogwartsSchool]

I am a career veteran of 20 years, I know the material and in fact, I have already completed 20 courses, videos, and exams on SDC platform except taking the final proctor exam. I have spent a great deal of time going through all twenty courses and it's quizzes. Taking the courses elsewhere would be like starting completely over again.

[suzycupcake]

I am a career veteran of 20 years, I know the material and in fact, I have already completed 20 courses, videos, and exams on SDC platform except taking the final proctor exam. I have spent a great deal of time going through all twenty courses and it's quizzes. Taking the courses elsewhere would be like starting completely over again.

I don't believe he is saying to take them all over again somewhere else. He's saying you may want to supplement with another provider in between the 5 exam rule if you want to continue to take classes and not have a break.

Are you saying you completed 20 courses in 1 single month with SDC (just not the finals) and your plan was to start taking the finals for all of them and they stopped you at 5? Just want to make sure I'm getting what you are saying.

[HogwartsSchool]

Yes, I completed 20 courses, (more than a single month), however, at the time I could not afford to purchase the proctor final exam for the courses. I was able to secure financing to take the proctor exams now. Yes, study.com has stopped where I can't take more than five proctor exams each month. I will miss the deadline to register for the August capstone at TESU (BSBA), being unable to graduate in December.

I don't understand why I want to supplement with another provider for the 20 courses when I have already done all the work except take the final proctor exam? I lack 60 credits to graduate from TESU.

[Merlin]

As was mentioned in the other thread, Study.com changed the exam policy to avoid conflicts with academic integrity standards at its partner colleges. I don't blame them since people completing a bunch of courses in a single month does look suspicious, even if they were able to do it honestly.

Personally, I'd rather see SDC implement a 5 exam per month policy if the alternative is that colleges stop accepting their credits. This actually happened to Shmoop last year because someone completed a ton of courses in a short period of time and submitted them to TESU. TESU flagged this as suspicious activity and then stopped accepting all credits from Shmoop. They still don't accept any Shmoop credits and likely never will.

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

I don't understand why I want to supplement with another provider for the 20 courses when I have already done all the work except take the final proctor exam? I lack 60 credits to graduate from TESU.

Someone can stop me if I'm misunderstanding, but I believe the advice is just that since you can't take more than 5 exams per cycle now, if you hope to earn more than 5 exams' worth of credits, you would need to jump ship anyway and receive them through other providers after taking those next 5 exams. It's just a means to accelerate your progress beyond the 5-exam limit.

Maybe you can use your banked knowledge and take several exams from similar providers in their similar courses? Someone else can give more substantial advice here though, sorry.

[jsd]

what courses were you planning to finish with SDC? There might be some cheaper alternatives for some of those courses you that would be just as fast, that you wouldn't have to "start over" in any way, and can use your SDC knowledge from the videos. For example, with Saylor Academy's credit courses you can skip right to the final exam without going through the course or any intermediary quizzes/assignments, and would only cost you $25 for online proctoring instead of $200/month + $70 for extra takes at SDC.

[HogwartsSchool]

Personally, I'd rather see SDC implement a 5 exam per month policy if the alternative is that colleges stop accepting their credits. This actually happened to Shmoop last year because someone completed a ton of courses in a short period of time and submitted them to TESU. TESU flagged this as suspicious activity and then stopped accepting all credits from Shmoop. They still don't accept any Shmoop credits and likely never will.

If I understand the Shmoop situation correctly, someone took non-proctored exams at Shmoop and transferred them to TESU. This caused the issue. 

SDC - all exams are proctored. If I am taking the exams while being proctored, why does it make a difference how many I can take each day/week/month?

Then it's admitting someone is only smart enough to take X number of proctored exams each month otherwise it becomes suspicious. This rationale makes no sense. 

an example, I can go take 10 CLEP exams in two weeks, and there wouldn't be an issue of possible suspicious activity, so why would there be an issue from another provider like SDC?

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

...people completing a bunch of courses in a single month does look suspicious, even if they were able to do it honestly.

I am not addressing the OP, and coming from a low-income, first-gen background I can definitely get the desire to cut down on higher ed costs, but this is one of my concerns about the push to rapidly move through online courses.

If I were assessing transfer credits that were earned at a much quicker pace than usual, I know I would personally feel impressed, but that feeling would also be tempered with a curiosity to figure out how much learning is actually going on. Then again, to be fair, I'd have those same concerns with anyone cramming for anything anywhere. Maybe a lifetime of accumulated experience is resting behind those exam scores, which for some degrees, are all only taken anyway to get that piece of paper saying they know how to do what they essentially already knew how to do.

I feel like there is a danger of this process reaching some kind of critical mass--whatever that might be--and this avenue for earning a degree becoming severely restricted due to concerns about quality. I wonder if Study.com's new limitation is really a reaction rooted in perceptions of quality, if it's more of a financial decision to prolong subscriptions, or some mixture of both.