WGU's "core subject areas" & certs for BS-Data Analytics

[rvm]

After getting my neighbor onboard with finishing his degree at tesu or cosc, he has suddenly decided to switch to WGU for BS in Data Management / Data Analytics.  He's been in IT in varying roles for 20-something years and now wants to get into data analysis. He plans to enroll after he gets all his Gen Ed courses done and possibly a certification or two, as well.  

(I wish he'd join this forum but he seems to be comfortable with me asking.  We have many parallels like careers in IT.  He feels like I've been on this journey so long, I must be giving him good advice.  I keep telling him most of the credit belongs to you all.)

He's currently doing the courses in Udacity's Data Analyst Nanodegree, though not actually enrolled in the Nanodegree - just doing the free courses.  He might be able to transfer to the nanodegree and knock this out before he enrolls at WGU, as well.

He's looking for recommendations on how to fulfill his Gen Ed deficiencies. He likes formats like clep, dsst, teex, etc. - study, take quizzes & take the final.  I told him study.com might also be a good option.

Anyhow... WGU's website seems to be a bit ambiguous on the "core subject areas" needed for a BS in DM/DA. So I'm having a bit of difficulty suggesting what exam(s) he should take.  We're using this page on WGU's site.  We've searched for other pages on wgu's site, as well.  If you know a better link, please advise.  https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/da...ogram.html

Does WGU allow courses or exams to be substituted for certifications like CompTIA, Oracle Dbase Admin & Oracle SQL?

So far, he has the following credits.  What do you think WGU will accept and what does he need to knock out before applying?  Thank you for helping!  

B&M credits:
World Hist to 1500 (3 cr)
World Hist after 1500 (3)
Phys Ed (1)
Library Sci (1)

1980's tech college:
* These two courses were quarter hour courses that I've converted to semester hour credits.
Survey of Data Procssg (2 sem hrs)
S/W apps (Lotus 1-2-3)  (2)

Recent exams:
Aleks, Prin of Stats (3)
Aleks, College Algebra (3)
Aleks, Trig (3)

Dsst, Anthropology
Dsst, World Religions (3)
Dsst, Ethics in America (3)
Dsst, Intro to Comptg (3)
Dsst, MIS (3)
Dsst, Health & Human Dev (3)
Dsst, Personal Finance (3)
Dsst, Prin of Supervision (3)
Dsst, Hist of Soviet Union (3)

Total credits: 48

[quigongene]

The transfer guidelines are going to be your friend here. WGU is ACE friendly (Study.com, Straighterline, Saylor) and takes CLEPs/DSSTs in a pretty straightforward manner.

https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/BSDMDA.aspx

[dfrecore]

WGU used to have a list of exams you could take that would satisfy their degree programs, esp for CLEP, DSST, ALEKS - but those disappeared quite a while ago.  They do have one for Saylor: https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/Single.as...769&pid=73

And the ones for Study.com and SL are on their own websites.

Major thing to remember with WGU - make sure you take and transfer all of the courses that you want to BEFORE ENROLLING.  Once you enroll, they will not take any additional courses. And they will push you to enroll, even if you don't have all of your courses transferred, so be careful.

Also, you need to plan out the degree carefully, to maximize it.  You want to take enough outside courses that you can easily finish in 1 or 2 terms.  But you don't want to take so many that you overpay for the degree.  So figure out how many courses you can complete in a single term, and figure out which courses you'd have to take to be able to do that, and figure out the price.  And then figure out how many courses you can do in 2 terms, and figure out the costs.  Then compare, and get about the business of taking your courses.  There are ways to make the courses themselves cheaper, like utilizing ModernStates/CLEP, or taking more than 2 courses in a month on Study.com, or taking multiple courses through SL in a single month, and using coupons.  So my spreadsheet is actually kind of a worst case scenario in terms of price.

[rvm]

The transfer guidelines are going to be your friend here.  WGU is ACE friendly (Study.com, Straighterline, Saylor) and takes CLEPs/DSSTs in a pretty straightforward manner.

https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/BSDMDA.aspx

Thank you Quigongene.  That's very helpful.  One thing I don't like about WGU is their website.  It has limited information.  Searching for something is like looking for a needle in a haystack.  At one point, I think I found an internal search engine on their website, but it is not prominent, like it should be, and I can't seem to find that feature again.  

I'm going to recommend John give them a call.  I'm good with helping him but there's a point where he needs to take control.  Though... this is all helpful to me because I've discovered WGU as a possibility for my graduate degree.

---

WGU used to have a list of exams you could take that would satisfy their degree programs, esp for CLEP, DSST, ALEKS - but those disappeared quite a while ago.  They do have one for Saylor: https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/Single.as...769&pid=73

And the ones for Study.com and SL are on their own websites.

Major thing to remember with WGU - make sure you take and transfer all of the courses that you want to BEFORE ENROLLING.  Once you enroll, they will not take any additional courses. And they will push you to enroll, even if you don't have all of your courses transferred, so be careful.

Also, you need to plan out the degree carefully, to maximize it.  You want to take enough outside courses that you can easily finish in 1 or 2 terms.  But you don't want to take so many that you overpay for the degree.  So figure out how many courses you can complete in a single term, and figure out which courses you'd have to take to be able to do that, and figure out the price.  And then figure out how many courses you can do in 2 terms, and figure out the costs.  Then compare, and get about the business of taking your courses.  There are ways to make the courses themselves cheaper, like utilizing ModernStates/CLEP, or taking more than 2 courses in a month on Study.com, or taking multiple courses through SL in a single month, and using coupons.  So my spreadsheet is actually kind of a worst case scenario in terms of price.

Thank you Dfrecore! Thank you for sharing your spreadsheet, as well!  A few questions:  If John applies and has his transcripts reviewed, will WGU tell him what sources and respective courses they will accept to complete the Gen Ed courses before he enrolls?   He said he wants to do this in one term so he needs to knock as much up front as possible and balance it with not over-paying but yet knowing life happens when you have kids and work and sometimes we don't get to do everything as we planned.

[dfrecore]

---

WGU used to have a list of exams you could take that would satisfy their degree programs, esp for CLEP, DSST, ALEKS - but those disappeared quite a while ago.  They do have one for Saylor: https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/Single.as...769&pid=73

And the ones for Study.com and SL are on their own websites.

Major thing to remember with WGU - make sure you take and transfer all of the courses that you want to BEFORE ENROLLING.  Once you enroll, they will not take any additional courses. And they will push you to enroll, even if you don't have all of your courses transferred, so be careful.

Also, you need to plan out the degree carefully, to maximize it.  You want to take enough outside courses that you can easily finish in 1 or 2 terms.  But you don't want to take so many that you overpay for the degree.  So figure out how many courses you can complete in a single term, and figure out which courses you'd have to take to be able to do that, and figure out the price.  And then figure out how many courses you can do in 2 terms, and figure out the costs.  Then compare, and get about the business of taking your courses.  There are ways to make the courses themselves cheaper, like utilizing ModernStates/CLEP, or taking more than 2 courses in a month on Study.com, or taking multiple courses through SL in a single month, and using coupons.  So my spreadsheet is actually kind of a worst case scenario in terms of price.

Thank you Dfrecore! Thank you for sharing your spreadsheet, as well!  A few questions:  If John applies and has his transcripts reviewed, will WGU tell him what sources and respective courses they will accept to complete the Gen Ed courses before he enrolls?   He said he wants to do this in one term so he needs to knock as much up front as possible and balance it with not over-paying but yet knowing life happens when you have kids and work and sometimes we don't get to do everything as we planned.

No, WGU isn't going to say "so you can go take the Humanities CLEP to fulfill your Humanities requirement, and you can take the Saylor College Algebra exam..." Their job is to get you to go there and take courses.  That being said, I've heard they will give you better answers than TESU if you ask specific questions.

Instead, if I were him though, I would just create a plan, and post it here with specific courses/exams, and people on here can tell you if it will work.  Plenty of people on here have brought in alternative credit to WGU.  In general, they will take all CLEP/DSST/Study.com ACE courses/SL courses for credit.  ALEKS too.

[allvia]

WGU is free to apply, very quick to evaluate and once you know what they put where - you'll know what is missing.  Then would be the best time to figure out what S/he needs - just complete and transfer in the missing before enrolling.   You only can't transfer in after you enroll, it is not dependent on when you apply.

[rvm]

---

WGU used to have a list of exams you could take that would satisfy their degree programs, esp for CLEP, DSST, ALEKS - but those disappeared quite a while ago.  They do have one for Saylor: https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/Single.as...769&pid=73

And the ones for Study.com and SL are on their own websites.

Major thing to remember with WGU - make sure you take and transfer all of the courses that you want to BEFORE ENROLLING.  Once you enroll, they will not take any additional courses. And they will push you to enroll, even if you don't have all of your courses transferred, so be careful.

Also, you need to plan out the degree carefully, to maximize it.  You want to take enough outside courses that you can easily finish in 1 or 2 terms.  But you don't want to take so many that you overpay for the degree.  So figure out how many courses you can complete in a single term, and figure out which courses you'd have to take to be able to do that, and figure out the price.  And then figure out how many courses you can do in 2 terms, and figure out the costs.  Then compare, and get about the business of taking your courses.  There are ways to make the courses themselves cheaper, like utilizing ModernStates/CLEP, or taking more than 2 courses in a month on Study.com, or taking multiple courses through SL in a single month, and using coupons.  So my spreadsheet is actually kind of a worst case scenario in terms of price.

Thank you Dfrecore! Thank you for sharing your spreadsheet, as well!  A few questions:  If John applies and has his transcripts reviewed, will WGU tell him what sources and respective courses they will accept to complete the Gen Ed courses before he enrolls?   He said he wants to do this in one term so he needs to knock as much up front as possible and balance it with not over-paying but yet knowing life happens when you have kids and work and sometimes we don't get to do everything as we planned.

No, WGU isn't going to say "so you can go take the Humanities CLEP to fulfill your Humanities requirement, and you can take the Saylor College Algebra exam..." Their job is to get you to go there and take courses.  That being said, I've heard they will give you better answers than TESU if you ask specific questions.

Instead, if I were him though, I would just create a plan, and post it here with specific courses/exams, and people on here can tell you if it will work.  Plenty of people on here have brought in alternative credit to WGU.  In general, they will take all CLEP/DSST/Study.com ACE courses/SL courses for credit.  ALEKS too.

Great suggestion.  Looking at his credits to date, do you think will accept them as substitute something US Politics for World History?  I know it's not the same.  I saw somewhere on their site where they allow substitutes in some cases.  They have a term for it but I don't remember that term and can't seem to find it again.

---

WGU is free to apply, very quick to evaluate and once you know what they put where - you'll know what is missing.  Then would be the best time to figure out what S/he needs - just complete and transfer in the missing before enrolling.   You only can't transfer in after you enroll, it is not dependent on when you apply.

Thank you Allvia.  This sounds like his next step or perhaps speaking with WGU rep.  Once he applies, how long does he have before he has to enroll, or is there a time limit?  As long as he doesn't enroll, can he submit new transcripts after his initial transcript evaluation?

[quigongene]

This sounds like his next step or perhaps speaking with WGU rep.  Once he applies, how long does he have before he has to enroll, or is there a time limit?  As long as he doesn't enroll, can he submit new transcripts after his initial transcript evaluation?

Basically you can keep sending transcripts to them until you pay for a term. There is no time limit until then.

[rvm]

This sounds like his next step or perhaps speaking with WGU rep.  Once he applies, how long does he have before he has to enroll, or is there a time limit?  As long as he doesn't enroll, can he submit new transcripts after his initial transcript evaluation?

Basically you can keep sending transcripts to them until you pay for a term.  There is no time limit until then.

Very cool.  Thank you!  Btw, I like your handle.  Is it Gui-Gong or was that coincidence?

[quigongene]

Very cool.  Thank you!  Btw, I like your handle.  Is it Gui-Gong or was that coincidence?

It's a spin on the Star Wars character Qui-Gon Jinn :-). I'm a nerd.