Why Thomas Edison over Excelsior

[Florida_Brad]

I'm sure it's been asked, and if I search for TE or EC, needless to say, a ton of results.

I see a lot of posts about Thomas Edison. Why does it seem the majority are going with them say over Excelsior?

I know Excelsior has a BS in LA that you can transfer in 117 credits, taking only the Captsone... and for this program, credits don't expire. That said, residency option requires 12 credits through Excelsior.

Not knocking Thomas Edison at all. In fact, I work at a large Coast Guard base and a Thomas Edison Rep visits almost monthly. Thanks.

44 y/o and just getting back into it.. I only have 3 actual college courses, no CLEPs/DSST yet, and Excelsior told me I'm about 33 credits away. Fortunately, I got my AA through Excelsior and have 7 of the 12 credits required for Residency, so, I'll be taking only the Capstone and ENG COMP through Excelsior.. CLEP/DSST the rest, hopefully.

Brad

[mednat]

I'm sure it's been asked, and if I search for TE or EC, needless to say, a ton of results.

I see a lot of posts about Thomas Edison. Why does it seem the majority are going with them say over Excelsior?

I know Excelsior has a BS in LA that you can transfer in 117 credits, taking only the Captsone... and for this program, credits don't expire. That said, residency option requires 12 credits through Excelsior.

Not knocking Thomas Edison at all. In fact, I work at a large Coast Guard base and a Thomas Edison Rep visits almost monthly. Thanks.

44 y/o and just getting back into it.. I only have 3 actual college courses, no CLEPs/DSST yet, and Excelsior told me I'm about 33 credits away. Fortunately, I got my AA through Excelsior and have 7 of the 12 credits required for Residency, so, I'll be taking only the Capstone and ENG COMP through Excelsior.. CLEP/DSST the rest, hopefully.

Brad

For me, it was specifically how each school evaluated my tests/credits. TESC gave me UL on my credits much more frequently. Had I went through Excelsior I would have had to take alot of extra classes to fulfill my UL requirements. I'm not familiar with the LS degree, my experience has been with BSBA related classes.

[Exfactor]

I think people are more inclined to project individuals towards their school, based on the experience they had instead of a school they have little to no experience with. I think many of the things on this forum works in cycles. If you are to look at many of the archived threads most were about Excelsior from Excelsior students, the last one to three years, more TESC threads, now I'm seeing more COSC threads.

[Florida_Brad]

For me, it was specifically how each school evaluated my tests/credits. TESC gave me UL on my credits much more frequently. Had I went through Excelsior I would have had to take alot of extra classes to fulfill my UL requirements. I'm not familiar with the LS degree, my experience has been with BSBA related classes.

Good point about the UL. Excelsior did mention I needed an additional 13 UL during their pen and ink review. Still waiting for the official evaluation, at which point I will engage about UL and other issues I think I'm going to have with their eval.

I am a pilot in the U.S. Coast Guard with 26 years of service, and only have the AA. Need the 4-year'er to make myself more competetiv with the airlines. At this point, just looking for the easiest and least expensive path for the degree. I'll make contact with Thomas Edison rep and see if she can do better. Thanks.


By the way, this is the program I recently enrolled with Excelsior.

https://my.excelsior.edu/documents/78666...b19936b2c3

Bachelor's in Liberal Arts Degree Credit Requirements

Bachelor of Science option: Minimum of 120 semester hours. Within that total, at least 60 semester hours must be earned in the arts and sciences with at least 21 of those 60 semester hours earned at the upper or advanced level. The remaining 60 semester hours, of which at least 9 must be earned at the upper or advanced level, may be earned in applied professional courses, additional arts and science courses, or a combination of both. See the credit requirements in chart form.

[rebel100]

For many the issue is cost. TESC and COSC are both cheaper than EC. In the past year or so TESC really beat out the others in price with the use of TECEP to fill residency. This changes based on what you bring in...in your case maybe EC is the best choice, your already there and familiar with how they work.

Probably best to work up a mock degree plan based on what you have with all three then you can make an informed decision on which path to take. One isn't really any better than the other. All three are regionally accredited legitimate schools.

[EI2HCB]

I think people are more inclined to project individuals towards their school, based on the experience they had instead of a school they have little to no experience with. I think many of the things on this forum works in cycles. If you are to look at many of the archived threads most were about Excelsior from Excelsior students, the last one to three years, more TESC threads, now I'm seeing more COSC threads.

Exfactor has hit the nail on the head right here. I've been on this forum about 3 years and it certainly runs in cycles, TESC made some decisive changes with their testing out options fulfilling residency. There are also a lot of people currently active on this forum encouraging TESC for its benefits.
As a CG pilot you may qualify for "military" rates at Excelsior which mean that seven credits for residency there is very little or equal to going somewhere else. Since the price is much reduced at EC. Have you asked to speak with a Military advisor to see if the USCG qualifies in their eyes?

[JTP]

Honestly anytime I hear the name Excelsior I can only think of Al Gore from an episode of South Park where he yelled it periodically while wearing a cape and pretended to fly around.
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Other than that completely useless tidbit I personally chose COSC because they gave more credits for my IT certs and they had just announced the Cybersecurity major, which looks great to my employer.

[Prloko]

In the few years I've been a member, I have only noticed ONE recent member truly champion a school. We all know who that was.

Exfactor is right, Excelsior was the king of this forum, especially since people used to migrate here from BAin4weeks, who was an Excelsior grad. COSC was the least popular mostly from what I seen because of their cornerstone requirement, their treatment of Business CLEPs as LL and their GS degrees, this is now changing as they have a BSBA.

TESC has become wildly popular lately as Rebel100 said because upfront costs have reduced significantly. I'm sure over the next few catalog changes, these cycles will change again, and who knows maybe one day we'll start discussing other schools. I already see WGU and Patten picking up steam.

[sanantone]

When I was working on my first bachelor's, Excelsior was more popular. A member on another forum was pushing for me to enroll at COSC because they had the best customer service. I got an evaluation at all three schools. Excelsior's evaluation was very vague. They wanted me to enroll to have my credits further evaluated, and I wasn't going to pay them $1,000 for that. For my initial evaluation, they had only awarded me 20-something or 30-something credits. On the other hand, COSC and TESC awarded close to 60 credits. At the time, TESC still awarded upper level credits for community college courses. They don't do that anymore, but I think I still would have gone with TESC without that just because of the ease of meeting the UL credit requirements for a social science or psychology degree.

Also, at the time, TESC didn't have a capstone requirement and COSC had an enrollment fee on top of its capstone and cornerstone requirements, so there wouldn't have been much cost savings if any. COSC is the only one of the Big 3 that accepts FEMA credits directly now, but when I was completing my bachelor's, TESC was the only school doing it. Uexcels were the main source of UL credit for a psychology degree at COSC and Excelsior in the past, and those used to cost a few hundred dollars each. Most of them are now $95, but they've recently added a $50 testing fee for Pearson.

The Per Credit Tuition Plan is one reason why some people are choosing TESC now. However, I think the main reason why people are choosing TESC is because they are either having their current credits matched up to degree programs here or are receiving an evaluation at TESC. In the past, a lot of people wouldn't even consider TESC because Excelsior was the most popular option and COSC was touted for its customer service. Therefore, they wouldn't even know if TESC would be the best option for transferring their credits. Additionally, TESC students are more active on the wiki with publishing test-out plans for a variety of degree programs. When you have a roadmap laid out for you, it makes navigating the system less daunting. If I were starting from scratch with testing out with the current policies, I would either choose COSC or TESC for most degree programs. TESC has the advantage of requiring less UL credits, awarding UL credits for more tests and ACE/NCCRS courses, and the cost savings of the Per Credit Tuition Plan. COSC has the advantage of low cost if one does not want to use the Per Credit Tuition Plan, but some people don't like that they have mostly concentrations instead of majors. They will be starting a BSBA soon and have a few other majors.

Edit: COSC and Excelsior had the advantage of awarding grades for 2-digit DSSTs, but those are no longer an option. They still both award grades for Uexcels whereas TESC treats those as pass/fail.

[Florida_Brad]

Thanks for all your replies. I have sent TE an email with what Excelsior has evaluated to see if they can do better.

Curious, which school gave you 4 credits for which TEEX courses?