Online Degrees and CLEP and DSST Exam Prep Discussion
Degree by Christmas? - Printable Version

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Degree by Christmas? - happydegreegirl - 04-26-2017

Hi guys I've been lurking for months and I'm finally posting. This forum is a game changer. I'm looking to go to Law school but first I need to get my BA! I picked Excelsior because they take NA credits. They took about 40 credit hours so I am 80 away. Does anyone think that the Liberal Arts degree is doable by Christmas? I've already gotten the guardian scholarship (personal finance down, 5 more to go) and I completed the free sophia and institutes insurance ethics courses..Any help or feedback is appreciated Wink


Degree by Christmas? - rowan555 - 04-26-2017

happydegreegirl Wrote:Hi guys I've been lurking for months and I'm finally posting. This forum is a game changer. I'm looking to go to Law school but first I need to get my BA! I picked Excelsior because they take NA credits. They took about 40 credit hours so I am 80 away. Does anyone think that the Liberal Arts degree is doable by Christmas? I've already gotten the guardian scholarship (personal finance down, 5 more to go) and I completed the free sophia and institutes insurance ethics courses..Any help or feedback is appreciated Wink

I think it's doable as long as you have the time to devote to it. My son completed 15 courses at Straighterline in 3 months - and one of those months he was only working on SL part time as he was also doing Study.com's guardian scholarship - so IMO take as many classes at Straighterline as you can. Also check out the Saylor offerings - some of the easier classes there include Corporate Communication, Intro to Business, and Marketing. I think Comparative Politics was also one folks found on the quicker side.

Good luck, and please keep us updated on your progress!


Degree by Christmas? - Ideas - 04-26-2017

happydegreegirl Wrote:Hi guys I've been lurking for months and I'm finally posting. This forum is a game changer. I'm looking to go to Law school but first I need to get my BA! I picked Excelsior because they take NA credits. They took about 40 credit hours so I am 80 away. Does anyone think that the Liberal Arts degree is doable by Christmas? I've already gotten the guardian scholarship (personal finance down, 5 more to go) and I completed the free sophia and institutes insurance ethics courses..Any help or feedback is appreciated Wink

I think so. It depends on how much time you have.

Law schools will probably not like that you used NA credits Sad

Do you have a GPA for the 40 credits, or were they pass/fail?


Degree by Christmas? - Ancapman - 04-26-2017

happydegreegirl Wrote:Hi guys I've been lurking for months and I'm finally posting. This forum is a game changer. I'm looking to go to Law school but first I need to get my BA! I picked Excelsior because they take NA credits. They took about 40 credit hours so I am 80 away. Does anyone think that the Liberal Arts degree is doable by Christmas? I've already gotten the guardian scholarship (personal finance down, 5 more to go) and I completed the free sophia and institutes insurance ethics courses..Any help or feedback is appreciated Wink

Yes... you can. It comes down to 2 things... Time and Money... Do you have enough of both to dedicate 6+ hours 7 days a week and 6-8K over the next 8 months?

Straighterline, Cheap and Fast
Study Not as Cheap Not as Fast
Saylor Cheap but not fast
CLEP, DSST, UEXcel, TECEP - Relatively Cheap, Relatively Fast (Depending on how fast you can learn the material)

I will by 5/22 have completed 81 Credits (66 via SL, 3 via Aleks, 2 Via the Institutes, 6 via CLEP, and 4 via TEEX)
That is basically in 7-8 weeks 81 credits...

I will do 6 Credits at STudy.com by end of June for 6 more credits bringing me to 87
I will do 6 credirs at CopperSmith by end of July to bring me to 93
Now I needed a Student Loan, so I am taking 12 Credits at a Community College which will be done by August 4th. 105 Credits Done.
By End of August I will complete 9 credits from DSSTs bringing me to 114 Credits
I will begin my final 6 credits from TESU Online in August Finishing in November 120 Credits.

If I had more money, I believe I could get done by August if I had no need to take classes at the Community College in order to obtain a student loan.

Make a plan, stick to it, knock out the classes.

Straighterline Is open book for all tests but the proctored final (and some of those are open book as well) My record was 12 credits in 24 hours. Its relatively easy to have a 95-100 before the final which is typically worth 30% or less of your final grade... so even if you only get a 50% You still should have a solid B... And in this way the classes can be completed very fast... Just wathc for burnout and dont rush thru classes that you will need as foundation (for me it was Intro to Psych, and Statistics).

For your College Comp take the CLEP that is worth 6 credits... its not necessarily easier, but it is alot faster.

Pick a Major that has eaily and cheaply obtained test outs (not like dumb me that has to pay like 1500 for SOS-450)


Degree by Christmas? - dfrecore - 04-26-2017

happydegreegirl Wrote:Hi guys I've been lurking for months and I'm finally posting. This forum is a game changer. I'm looking to go to Law school but first I need to get my BA! I picked Excelsior because they take NA credits. They took about 40 credit hours so I am 80 away. Does anyone think that the Liberal Arts degree is doable by Christmas? I've already gotten the guardian scholarship (personal finance down, 5 more to go) and I completed the free sophia and institutes insurance ethics courses..Any help or feedback is appreciated Wink

EC does require 30cr of UL throughout the degree, so it's not like TESU in that respect. They are also pickier about what they bring in as UL, so you're going to have to do some things to get those UL credits, which are not available through Study.com or SL. DSST exams are the easiest way to get the UL credits (I think). There's also UExce exams, which are a little more expensive, but it may be easier for you to find a PearsonVUE testing center than a DSST testing center.

Also, they will not take the CLEP exam for English, so if you still need those credits, you'll need to take the UExcel exam for it.

Did you apply with the POAG or another partnership plan? If not, I think you need to do that at the beginning; it will cut the costs considerably for you.

You need to carefully plan out the degree to make sure you have all of those necessary UL credits, so do that before you take any courses from SL/Study.com.

Good luck!


Degree by Christmas? - happydegreegirl - 04-26-2017

I have a 3.5 GPA for the NA credits. I had a full associates degree but EC just basically took what they could and applied them to the applied professional credits portion of the degree plan. Ive been studying for the LSAT for months and Im going to take a prep course before i actually take it in Dec so I'm hoping a really good score plus stellar professional references will help. Ive kind of been working backwards starting with the Law school entrance requirements.


Degree by Christmas? - happydegreegirl - 04-26-2017

The upper levels are my biggest concern. If it wasnt for my associates being NA, I would have just gone to TESU


Degree by Christmas? - rowan555 - 04-26-2017

happydegreegirl Wrote:I have a 3.5 GPA for the NA credits. I had a full associates degree but EC just basically took what they could and applied them to the applied professional credits portion of the degree plan. Ive been studying for the LSAT for months and Im going to take a prep course before i actually take it in Dec so I'm hoping a really good score plus stellar professional references will help. Ive kind of been working backwards starting with the Law school entrance requirements.

Have you looked at WGU at all? They have a generous policy regarding block transfers for associates degrees - might we worth checking out.


Degree by Christmas? - rlw74 - 04-26-2017

It is absolutely doable - you just need to map out what you want to take and work any capstone course into your degree completion time. I wish I had signed up for the capstone and worked on it while I was taking the other 40 credits needed. Instead I pushed it off until the very last class and I'm soooo bored. I flew through 42 credits in 12 weeks. Now I have to spend 12 weeks on just 3 credits and I'm so eager to just be done. But many here have finished 40-60 credits in just three or four months. There is no reason you can't get 80 by end of the year.


Degree by Christmas? - videogamesrock - 04-27-2017

Did EC charge a fee to take the NA credits?