Hi everybody,

I'm getting close to the end of my rather ambitious goal of achieving an Excelsior BSGB in 60 days. I took my first CLEP on 11/27/07, and here's what I have left as of today:

ECE World Population (taking it tomorrow -- 01/15/08)
Penn Foster Managerial Accounting (expected it Friday, hasn't shown up yet)
DSST Principles of Finance (want to take it Friday -- 01/18/08)
DSST Fundamentals of Counseling (also Friday -- 01/18/08)
EC Business Strategy (started 01/07/08)

Sixty days from 11/27/07 is 01/25/08 -- a week from Friday. There is a lot to do, but I can make it if I stay on course. Here's what I need to do:

1) Finish preparing for World Population today and tomorrow morning -- the exam is at 1 p.m.
2) Read two chapters of Business Strategy every day for the rest of this week, and complete the online quizzes. I should also do at least two posts per chapter on the discussion board.
3) Read three chapters of Corporate Finance Demystified every day until Friday, to prepare for the Principles of Finance exam.
4) Run through the IC Fundamentals of Counseling flashcards once a day until Friday.
5) Accomplish one "lesson" (usually two or three chapters) per day of Managerial Accounting once the materials arrive.
6) Schedule and take the proctored Managerial Accounting exam.
7) Do my Business Strategy case study project next week, completing it by Friday 01/25.

Now that's really not as bad as it looks. I'm taking the time off work, so that's not an issue, and I have very few other commitments (jazz band rehearsal Tuesday nights is about it). I really have a good twelve hours a day to devote to this, as long as I don't slack off.

Here are the challenges:

a) The Business Strategy text is frightfully dull. The chapters are not terribly long (20-30 pages) but it is really taxing my concentration to stick with the reading.
b) I haven't seen the Managerial Accounting text yet, but if it's anything like the Financial Accounting text that Penn Foster supplied, then it's even worse than Business Strategy. But I do have a copy of Management Accounting Demystified, so that may help mitigate that problem.
c) Obviously, I can't afford to fail anything. As a matter of fact, I still have the ECE English Composition and TECEP Operations Management exams outstanding. If either of those comes back bad news, I'm afraid I may give up the whole project.
d) Believe it or not, I'm a terrible procrastinator. Part of the reason I'm putting myself on such a tight schedule is that, in my neurotic mind, if I'm not accomplishing something really extraordinary, I'm afraid I won't finish at all.

So with all that in mind (and I apologize for the length of this post) I am calling on any of you who are willing to help keep me on course for these next two weeks. Please use this thread to insist that I update you on my progress, and please scold me and kick me in the hindquarters as needed.

Thanks in advance for your help and good wishes!

-Gary-

Has anyone used LSU for the IS Math?
I'm taking an English course there now, and wanted to do College Algebra for the TESC "College level Math course". I was curious if anyone has tried that?

I'm not even going to attempt a CLEP/DSST for it, and it's about the cheapest and quickest I can find, other than PF's Tech Math and no one at TESC will even tell me if they will take that (other than I was told "we take Math from an RA school", hence why I'm considering LSU since I know for a fact they take that- I was able to specifically ask about LSU before he told me I had to enroll hilarious )

Anybody have some good resources to recommend for this one? There are no IC flashcards. *sniff*

I've been studying for the college algebra CLEP off and on for several months. I've been working on this almost non-stop for the past 2 weeks, and I still don't understand what the heck I'm doing. Currently, I'm working my way through "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Algebra", and have watched a few of the standard deviants videos. I'm not sure what else to do (I do NOT want to take this class!) Do any of you have any other suggestions? This is really starting to get to me. Some of the concepts I've grasped pretty easily while working through that chapter in the book, but then I completely forget how to do it when I see those types of problems later. Some of the other things (radicals, factoring, etc.) I'm not catching on to very well. If any of you had problems with this & ultimately passed this CLEP, I would appreciate any other suggestions you may have...or info. on any good (& reasonable) algebra tutors in the Baltimore area! I didn't want to go that route, but I may not have any choice.

I am going to take the Principles of Management and Principles of Marketing CLEP. From what I've read, it appears there is some overlap in the material that is on each of these exams, so I'm considering taking both of them in one day. I've never taken more than one exam at a time, so I'm wondering if I'm going to take on too much?

Thanks!

I just took the World Population test from Excelsior and I had studied using Week's Population book, notes and references from here and IC. I felt confident when I sat down, but after 10 or so questions, I felt like I was in trouble. I have mixed feelings on my overall performance now.

I know the test book says that they only count the questions that are right. My question is excactly how many questions do you need right to pass? There was 130 total.
Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I've been lurking around here for a week and decided to join and am signing up for IC here in a bit as well. I had a questions about when I should try and apply to Excelsior though and thought you might give me some guidance.

I currently have 24 credits from the University of Georgia 3 of which are from getting a 4 on my AP English test 7 years ago (gasp! has it been that long really?) I was only in school for a year when some circumstances forced me out into the working world so now I want to try and go back for my BSGB and after about a month of research I've decided EC is a good choice for my credit by exam adventure.

My question is this: Should I go ahead a apply with just my UGA and AP credits and get my CLEP and DSST tests sent to them as I take them or is it better to go ahead and take all the exams I plan on and then apply after sending them along with my application? Does it make a difference at all and when they do their unofficial eval will they want to know what my plan is for exams and such? Same thing with actually enrolling, do I wait to enroll until I am down to just the credits I have to get through EC or do I go ahead and do it while I am still taking exams?

Here is my plan:
Reqirement Credit Hours Needed

Written English 3
AP Credit UGA

Humanities 9
CLEP Humanities
Intro Philosophy at UGA

Social Sciences/ History 15
Microecon Clep Principles of Micro
Macroecon CLEP Principles of Macro
Intro Psych at UGA
CLEP Social Sciences/History
Natural Sciences/ Math 6
Math above Pre-cal Math at UGA
Stat Dantes SE 450 Principles of Stat

Remaining Arts and Science 27
Physical Science at UGA
Language at UGA
History R&R at UGA
CLEP Natural Science
CLEP Intro to Edu Psych
CLEP American Gov
CLEP Into to Sociology
Dantes Criminal Justice

Additional Credit 15
Info Literacy Information Literacy at EC or CC class
Dantes Drug and Alcohol Abuse
Dantes Here's to your health
Dantes Fundamenals of Counseling
Dantes Principles of Supervision
ECE World Population

Business Core 45
Ethics Ethics at UGA
Organizational Behavior Dantes Sf/SG 531 Org Behavior
Financial Accounting CLEP Financial Accounting
Managerial Accounting TBD
Intro to Business Law CLEP Intro Business Law
Computers CLEP Info Sys and Comp App
Principles of Management CLEP Principles of Management
Principles of Marketing CLEP Principles of Marketing
Financial Management Dantes SF/SG 524 Pinc of Fin
Production/Operations Mngt EC cource or TESC test or (more likely) CSU-Pueblo independent study course (thanks auminer49r)

Business Policy EC cource BUS 495

Dantes SF 534 Bus Law II
Dantes SE 551 Mngt Info Sys
ECE BUSx410 Human Resource Management Or DSST
ECE BUSx360 Labor Relations Or DSST Money and Banking

Sorry for such a long first post but I appreciate the help and if anyone sees something wrong with my plan or has a suggestion for a better/easier exam that would be awesome too. Thanks!

Looking through the degree rquirements for TESC, I noticed I needed a Nuclear Elective preferrably, Instrumentation and Control. Now, TESC offers it through PLA. Has anyone undergone such a route? I could quailfy EWS but I really don't want to. Any help?

I am currently taking my final 2 classes at American Military University for a BA in Homeland Security. I would like to transfer my credits to TESC for completion of a BA in Criminal Justice, as that was my previous major before I switched to Homeland Security. I know there is a fee and they would tell me what I would need to take to finish. What is the process for sending the credits for the final 3 classes I would need to graduate from TESC, I'm taking a freshman math class and believe I would need atleast 2 more CJ courses for completion. Thank you in advance for your help.

Jason

I have been reading this forum as well as another one for about a year and I have been inspired to get started. I have no excuses that can hold me back from achieving my goal of earning my BA degree. I have heard it said that a goal without a plan is just a daydream and I am tried of daydreaming! I need a little help with the plan.

I will be either enrolling at TESC or Excelsior but I am going to wait to get a lot of my general classes knocked out so I can make sure I am done within one year.

I have a few classes to transfer in from almost 20 years ago: All lower level
English 101 - 3 credits
Micro Economics - 3 credits
Macro Economic - 3 credits
College Math - 3 credits
Psyc - 3 credits
History of the Soviet Union - 3 credits **
** I took this one at the end of the cold war! We didn't use our books much at all but brought in the local new paper to get history in the making!

I am a licensed insurance agent with both my property/casualty and llife/health license. I also have a lot of FEMA credits and I will be getting as many of these as I possible can transfer either transfered raw to TESC or through FCC (which is a my local college) to Excelsior.

I want my degree to be in History but it does not need to be. I will be able to move forward with my career path regardless of what the degree is in. I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. I have a daughter turning 16 soon so I would love to be able to get the hang of testing out so I can help her do the same thing for a lot of her basic courses.

I want to test out of all courses and from what I have read that does seem doable. I also would like to keep cost down as much as possible so I am wondering if it is possible to use CELP and DANTES for all of my courses.

To sum up my questions:

Can it be done using just CLEP and DANTES? I know that Excelsior has a Literacy 1 credit course...so except that one.

How many upper level credits are needed for a BA degree?

I am going to start next week with the CLEP Growth and Human Development. Any recommendations of what to take next. I am weak in Sciences.

I will take any and all advise! Thanks in advance for your input!