Study.com pros & cons

[rpmranger]

I agree, and I am just an adult learner juggling study with everything else, in a sense the complaints of others about one platform or another have guided me so far. Including all the study tips, and heads up. I am very grateful for this forum, I got 57 credits from Sophia.org during the freebie period, which I would have never known had I not discovered the forum, so yes, this forum is priceless.

I am completely new to study.com and nowhere on their website it states their courses can only be taken once if one fails, so it is a real bummer as they have all the UL courses I need.... .(edit out for space)

It is perfectly fine to have a list of deal breakers for what you look for in a business....

I agree with you that what works for one person does not mean it works for all. and I'm also grateful for learning about sophia, and SDC and coopersmith, and all kinds of things.

Here is my experience that may help you with your personal decision to use SDC or not.So far nothing with my experience has been even close to a deal breaker for me but mileage will vary.  After I did the first class, I thought why was I worried? But I was worried at the start with SDC (would my web cam work, would I do good enough on writing assignment for UL...  would the exam video be reviewed in time to not be charged for next month?!?  )  but it was all good in the end.

I may be repeating some stuff from up the thread.

This is written to the general "you" and not personally directed at original poster I quoted.
You only need 70% to pass the course.  
You don't need to get 100 on all the quizzes to pass the courses (even if they roll over in related courses).  There is something about a certain percentage on a quiz to continue, but that's different issue.    
You get 3 tries to reach 100% on each quiz.  Take your time. Don't rush. Read and find answer as needed for quiz.  It will tell you which ones you got right, and which were wrong.  So you can find the correct info for that 2nd or 3rd try.  

I didn't have courses that had roll over quiz issues. So I have no input on that.

Even if some of the quizzes you never get 5/5 you can still score very well percentage wise over the whole course. I had one question on one course that I never got the right answer.  Oh that meant a 99/100 average on quizzes.  LOL.  not a worry.
I have not had trouble seeing the scores for each quiz as I took it. I know which number of try I was on.
Don't rush through them and you should be able to do well with this.  I know others who are able to speed through the course without videos and just zip through questions and can do 5 courses a month. I did not do that route. I cannot work that quickly and learn.  I watched. I read along. Much of the material was new to me.  I could learn it.  your mileage will vary.  I have not experienced anything that feels shady business practice about the quizzes.

Assignments:
Follow the rubric for written assignments to get good grades on that.  and remember a conclusion so you don't miss 2 points for that. just saying!  You will get an email with that score.  It will not show up on dashboard until your final exam score does.  But you know the score from the email they sent.  I really liked how fast their graders returned assignments.  Both times for me it was same day. Followed the rubric. all good. I didn't need to submit it again for higher score or anything.

Once the quizzes are done it is really easy (versus scrolling through) to see the "final score" for that on dashboard.  yes, there's something in their FAQ about having to make a certain score to continue in the course. I never had an issue with that because I could get 5/5 by try number 3.   Now you have your essay scores (for courses with those), and your quiz score. so you can see (and they tell you on dashboard) the percentage that you need to Pass the course for all of it together.   If something goes really bad, and you don't get enough points on final, that final can be taken again (if you have exam left in subscription) 3 days later.

so in other words, they are really trying to help students be able to pass the course.  If you haven't seen this on their site, please re read about retake procedure for exams https://study.com/academy/popular/how-to...-exam.html
They want to help the student pass the course in my opinion.  I guess people can and do fail the courses?

Billing: I was able to pause account with no trouble. I was not billed for the 2 months of pausing.  I have read the BBB reviews and I have read SDC's refund the first 30 days policy (which is not an automatic refund).  Since I wasn't trying to get risk free money back, I don't have personal experience with that.  Based on reviews and how the website states not automatics, then Yes, I think they need to make some of that a little more captain obvious in the wording.  But I don't think it is shady. I think it's not captain obvious you have to email for it.  opinions will vary. But if you know it going in, then you know what to do.

Hopefully with more of that knowledge of experiences with SDC can help one decide if it's going to work for you as well as it worked for me.

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Major problem with Study.com right now is getting a proctored test reviewed. It takes FOREVER. Quite annoying to pay $199 and nobody will even bother to look at the test you took over a week ago.

I don't understand why I can get a graded assignment back the same day but nobody reviews the exams.

agree. that was my point of annoyance.

In June this year, I was feeling the stress of waiting 9 days for exam review. I was nervous about getting billed extra month and contacted them. And I was nervous it wouldn't be done in time for another deadline.  I'd see posts on here about it taking 4 days. but it was longer!  That was frustrating and annoying .

but oh they were fast with essays and sending transcripts.

What makes it even worse is now TESU is downgrading some of their course to things that unusable. If you miss the deadline you wasted your time and money.

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I have gotten Study.com test grades back the same day before. The pandemic has slowed them down, just like everyone else

That is an invalid excuse. They are likely taking in even more revenue due to the pandemic, and the job of reviewing test proctoring can easily be done from home by anyone. They just aren't willing to pay people to do it.

[jsh1138]

Well you just made that up out of thin air but sure.

[LevelUP]

If you are worried about billing, use Paypal.  You sign a contract with study.com when you sign up so don't blame them when they do billing.

The delays in reviewing the test video don't matter too much.  It is what it is.  You know what you scored already and know if you passed or not so its just a delay in getting the score finalized.  On the plus side, it's free to transfer transcripts to TESU and TESU delays reviewing transfers anyhow.

[P226mem]

The delays in reviewing the test video don't matter too much.  It is what it is.  You know what you scored already and know if you passed or not so its just a delay in getting the score finalized.  On the plus side, it's free to transfer transcripts to TESU and TESU delays reviewing transfers anyhow.

agree.

I remember being concerned about "but what if I want to cancel before end of billing cycle and they still haven't reviewed it. How would I request transcript on an inactive account? eeek!". But this link in their support, made me relax a bit. And it didn't happen that way for me (even with 9 day wait, it was still before billing cycle ended that month that scores were back) so it didn't matter at all. But according to think link, I think even that was thought about and planned to be easy to do.

https://support.study.com/support/soluti...-study-com-
look for section "If you have canceled your Study.com account or changed to a lower membership level, here's how to start:"


The other thing that had me concerned was if the course would show completed as day of exam or day of review of exam. It made a difference for me which side of June 30 it was due to other reasons. I've heard on this forum that someone appealed the date (showing as day of review) and had it changed to "day of completion of course".

but what's pro's for me, are not always pros for others. Hope the details help random someone see the unseen. Overall very positive experience as SDC customer and transfer to tesu.

[Merlin]

I remember being concerned about "but what if I want to cancel before end of billing cycle and they still haven't reviewed it.  How would I request transcript on an inactive account?  eeek!".  But this link in their support, made me relax a bit.  And it didn't happen that way for me (even with 9 day wait, it was still before billing cycle ended that month that scores were back) so it didn't matter at all.  But according to think link, I think even that was thought about and planned to be easy to do.

You definitely do not need an active account to request transcripts. I haven't had an active account (or even logged into the Study.com portal once) since I completed my last course with them in the fall of 2018. I have requested my SDC transcripts multiple times since then (most recently about a month ago) without incident.

[rpmranger]

The delays in reviewing the test video don't matter too much.  It is what it is.  You know what you scored already and know if you passed or not so its just a delay in getting the score finalized.  On the plus side, it's free to transfer transcripts to TESU and TESU delays reviewing transfers anyhow.

The issue of delaying the review becomes concerning when TESU is downgrading a course at the end of the month to something unusable. If you can't get a score reviewed, the course is not finished in time for the cutoff date.