What are Cert. exams?

[MagicATC]

I was looking at my student credit hour layout from Excelsior and was wondering what cert. exams are? They awarded credit from the following list: Resident, Transfer, Service School, MOS, CLEP, DSST,ECE and Cert. exams. Also what about Service School? I have credit from my MOS for military sooooooo what else could that be?
Any ideas?

[Braylen]

I think they are referencing technical certifications. In the Excelsior Student Guide and Assessment Catalogue there is a big list at the end for a variety of them. The cool part is that some of them count for upper level - if you are highly MS certified, there's a good chance you can get a lot of credit for these.

The only downside (at least for me) is that these are all Applied Professional credits, which depending on your degree program, has a cap (and I'm all capped out there).

I'm not 100% sure about the Service Schools, but I'm guessing they are referring to military technical training schools - my program through the Air Force years ago conferred them as Community College of the Air Force credits though, and not service school credits.

The only problem with this is that despite the fact that the bulk of my 80+ credits are in courses that are upper level programs in traditional colleges, because they were conferred by a Community College, they (and all other schools) will only recognize them as lower level credits. Go figure.

I hope that helps.

[fondue]

The only downside (at least for me) is that these are all Applied Professional credits, which depending on your degree program, has a cap (and I'm all capped out there).

How many applied professional credits does Excelsior allow towards a BS degree?

The limit is 6 toward your concentration at Charter Oak and I'm beginning to believe I choose poorly, since I have 14.

[Braylen]

It depends on the program - I'm in the Bachelors of Science in Liberal Studies, and it allows for a max of 60. Some of the other programs only allow for 30 though.

I don't think there's a specific limitation in a particular concentration, but considering that all of the business classes are Applied Professional (at least at Excelsior) that limit of 6 doesn't make a lot of sense. For example, I have to have two concentrations so I'm going with Psychology and Business, so I could have 15 AP for the business side (although they are counting my Business Ethics toward it, which is otherwise a humanities/philosophy course).

[MagicATC]

I'm not 100% sure about the Service Schools, but I'm guessing they are referring to military technical training schools - my program through the Air Force years ago conferred them as Community College of the Air Force credits though, and not service school credits.


I hope that helps.

Yes, it does help. Thanks. But still not sure about the Service Schools. I was given credit for my military training as MOS credits, not service school. I wonder if it is just a branch of service thing?

By the way, what did you do for the Air Force? I will switching branches from Army to Air Force within this next year. Life looks a lot nicer on the other side!

[Braylen]

I was in Medical Laboratory - got lots of nice credits from the tech school that don't do me a lot of good as anything other than electives. I did lots of work researching various schools trying to figure out the best way to apply them.

That was over 20 years ago, but I'm sure some things haven't changed - being active duty in the AF is certainly going to be more laid back than in the Army.

Good luck!