Tampamom3 Wrote:Yes, I also noticed that the majority of my classmates at COSC did not seem to be aware of the testing option. Both my husband and I graduated from COSC. When I met him he was working as an engineer at a medical device company when human resources sent around a sheet wanting everyone to list what degrees they held. Since my husband had not finished his last semester, he did not have a degree. We went back to his private (and very expensive) university to see what he would need to complete his degree. We were shocked to discover that they would not give credit for many of the courses he took with them! He then had all of his records transferred to Charter Oak where he found that he needed one gen ed course (history) to graduate. I remember him coming home from the test center mad as a hornet and convinced he failed the exam. He passed and graduated with high honors from COSC and even more importantly kept his job! So, does this mean he is inferior to those he works with because his degree is from Charter Oak and not University of Hartford?
I, on the other hand, love to test and used as many as I could toward my degree. Every student has a different story to tell and should be evaluated on what they bring to the table as far as experience, attitude, motivation, ect rather than just the school they graduated from. Just something to keep in mind you hiring managers....

sklineho Wrote:Wow, yeah this is shocking. Although even I only will have taken about 24 hours worth of tests but still, I assumed most everyone was doing it. They really don't advertise it at all. none of the brick and mortar schools I've been to ever advertised it either.

Ace_King Wrote:Crazy... hey Sanantone any percentage of students who use 99 credits or majority of the credits with ACE or non-ra credits instead of testing? I fit in that category!!

Katzepatra Wrote:I have had a lot of people at my community college, specificly advisors, talk down to me just selecting classes when I insisted for online only classes. I even had to argue with a dean just to be approved for 3 classes in an accelerated session - the advisors said no one does that, its "too hard". I've also scared every advisor except 1 when I said I'm going to CLEP out of classes - the only advisor who wasn't afraid was this wonderful older woman who looked at me and said "dear, if you think it, you can do it and who am I to stand in your way."

The only person I've been able to talk to it prior to finding this forum was a very ambitious friend of mine - this 28 year old woman is currently in a doctorate program while working a full time job and part time job. She did the same thing while doing her double masters degree and she didn't test out of anything, in fact until I mentioned it to her she had no idea what CLEP was let alone every other credit earning method on this site. She's already trying to talk to me about grad school, something I wasn't considering due to price but after some of the recent postings I may look into it.

I feel like I've already learned so much from this forum and really wish I found in last year when I was going through so much trouble with my school. None of this feels strange at all, instead I feel like I'm making my college experience one that is meaningful to me at the pace and price that works for my life. That friend I mentioned owes 6 figures for her education so far and is doing grad school since her full time job is paying for half of it and it allows her to defer her student loans. I know we've gotten a bit off topic but really, the comparison between what people on this forum are doing/have done vs. what people like my friend do makes me wonder if traditional education is really the crazy idea.

Just for the record, I will be schedualing my first test with the assesment center this week - CLEP English comp. - I'm excited!