Which test site courses = which general ed?

[Ideas]

For Public Speaking, most people prefer Straighterline or study.com. With the DSST, it's harder to find a test location or proctor since you need the room to yourself. They assign you a topic and you don't have long to prepare a whole speech. Then you deliver it. Some people fail it.

[Ideas]

A lot of people like English Comp I and II at Straighterline, but they're probably a little more expensive than some other options.

Also Public Speaking there is probably a little easier than study.com, but it seems a lot more expensive due to the study.com scholarship. It's one of the more expensive exams at SL. I am going to take it at study.com.

Are you going to take 30 credits at Ashford then? It looks like they only take 90 in transfer.

[a2jc4life]

Yes, I'll take the 30 at Ashford. Wasn't my first choice, but at least they have a degree in my field, which is nice. (At TESU I was going to be creating a LDAS, so it would be pretty generic.) The public speaking course at Study.com doesn't look too bad. You're right about the DSST; I looked up the requirements and it seems a little scary! haha Just a few minutes to prepare for a speech taking a position on a topic of their choice -- and if the timing is wrong it's an automatic fail? Yikes!

I think I might push for English Comp credit at Ashford based on what I already have. It makes little sense to me that they'll take credit-by-exam if it's a CLEP, but if I challenged the course itself through my school (with whom they have an articulation agreement) they won't count it. But both of these courses (English 101 & 201) were challenged by taking the school's final exam, which in the case of these courses was actually final papers -- and I have the actual actual rubric tally with notes and a letter grade for each paper. So maybe they'll let me use that as the basis of a portfolio to demonstrate I really did challenge the class.

And much to my surprise, since they won't take any of this credit-by-exam as transfer from my school, it appears they may actually take TECEPs, so the Critical Thinking TECEP might be an option.

I'm currently checking to find out if it's possible to confirm that the other ACE courses will transfer to the appropriate categories. (ACE does recommend history as one of the options for World Religions, so we'll see on that one.)

[dfrecore]

I think I might push for English Comp credit at Ashford based on what I already have. It makes little sense to me that they'll take credit-by-exam if it's a CLEP, but if I challenged the course itself through my school (with whom they have an articulation agreement) they won't count it. But both of these courses (English 101 & 201) were challenged by taking the school's final exam, which in the case of these courses was actually final papers -- and I have the actual actual rubric tally with notes and a letter grade for each paper. So maybe they'll let me use that as the basis of a portfolio to demonstrate I really did challenge the class.

And much to my surprise, since they won't take any of this credit-by-exam as transfer from my school, it appears they may actually take TECEPs, so the Critical Thinking TECEP might be an option.

Wouldn't a TECEP be considered a Challenge-By-Exam??? I can't tell what the difference is between a TECEP and another school's CBE.

[dfrecore]

How big a pain is the essay portion of the English CLEP with essay? That's my whole frustration, is I'm tired of writing random essays for no good reason.

Not sure if they will accept it, but TESU will now take the College Comp Modular CLEP (no essay) for English I, and then the new Principles of Advanced English Composition DSST (no essay) for English II. You may want to ask Ashford if that's a possibility for you (they didn't have anything on DSST's on their website).

[a2jc4life]

Wouldn't a TECEP be considered a Challenge-By-Exam??? I can't tell what the difference is between a TECEP and another school's CBE.

It doesn't make any sense to me, either. I had assumed they wouldn't take a TECEP because they said they wouldn't take the CBE from my school. But I just saw a reference to TECEPs in some of their documentation today. (I don't remember exactly what it said. It wasn't an outright endorsement, but the implication was that it would be accepted as similar to a CLEP.)

[rlw74]

Study.com's public speaking course is really, really easy - one of the easiest ones I took. I finished it up in a couple of days while I had the flu. So if you have the scholarship, I recommend it.

I noticed you have Saylor listed for sociology. I believe its only worth 1 credit, not 3 credits. Definitely check on that before you take the exam. When I looked into it a while ago I had planned to take it since it's only $25 an exam. I ended up paying for a month of study.com and taking the course through them to get the 3 credits.

[Ideas]

Study.com's public speaking course is really, really easy - one of the easiest ones I took. I finished it up in a couple of days while I had the flu.

This is good to know. I think I will only be able to allot myself 3 days for the public speaking course + the Business Communication Saylor.

[a2jc4life]

!! It occurs to me that maybe the problem is not that they won't take my test credits, really, but that they're confused by the transcript. I'm wondering if they can't TELL from the transcript that the tests were taken through the school, so they assume it's transferred-in test credits and therefore (obviously) won't take it because they assume there will be test transcripts elsewhere. I'm going to be contacting the school I just finished my AAS with and asking them if they can either notate the transcript differently so it's clearer (I don't know if they're able to do that) or contact Ashford's registrar's office and add some clarity. Crossing my fingers that will be enough to give me back my English and science credits.