Please review my plan: Excelsior BS in Business (General Business) Sheet Included

[colonel]

Hello friends,

I've been reading a lot of useful posts and guides here, and I want to thank you all for sharing your experience and support this awesome community.

About  me:

Your Location: Europe, traveling between countries for work.
Your Age: 34
What kind of degree do you want?: Bachelor business degree with no concentration, and master's degree in the future.

Reason for the degree: The undergraduate degree won't directly affect my current income or career, but it helps later if I get a master's degree to advance my career in business.

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: None

Budget: Ideally $6000 max.

Commitment: 100%

Dedicated time to study: I'm in constant travel but always with a daily free couple of hours, weekends all free. 

Timeline: Ideally 12 months

Tuition assistance/reimbursement: None



I'm planning to transfer the maximum possible credits to EU. Here's my degree plan:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...9IlhXEJHg/


Kindly review and suggest any correction to it. 


I also have some questions if you could help me clarify:

1- EU needs 21 upper-level credits in business. Would Excelsior's capstone class be counted for these? So I only have 18 UL credits to fulfill?

2- Is there an updated list of accepted Sophia courses/credits. Their page here: https://excelsior.sophia.org/#courses

says, ("Excelsior has not formally confirmed credit transfer." I especially wanted to know if BUSI1025 Business Communication, is transferable.

3- Any other sources of UL credits in business? LawShelf has only a few, and I'd prefer to avoid Saylor if I could.

4- Could any of the InstantCert prep materials help me with Saylor's exams?


Thank you all very much

[bjcheung77]

@colonel, Welcome to the board.. that's a good first introduction post with a few questions to get you started and on track to getting your degree. Have you had some time to check the addendum and template here? You may want to provide more details in regards to you budget, commitments, study habits and so on, in order to provide us a clearer picture of your scenario. https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[colonel]

@colonel, Welcome to the board.. that's a good first introduction post with a few questions to get you started and on track to getting your degree.  Have you had some time to check the addendum and template here? You may want to provide more details in regards to you budget, commitments, study habits and so on, in order to provide us a clearer picture of your scenario. https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

@bjcheung77 Thank you, I have updated the post with more details.

[rachel83az]

For Europe, especially if you plan to work or possibly go to school in Germany, I would suggest UMPI over Excelsior. UMPI has A+ status with Anabin. I don't think Excelsior does, which means you couldn't get a German Master's degree if they deem your Excelsior degree to be "not real/sufficient". If you're able to complete a UMPI degree in an average amount of time for students on this board, it would also cost substantially less than $6000.

If you really want Excelsior anyway, I don't think Saylor can be fully avoided. It's possible that there are some Coopersmith courses that would work in some of those slots, but trying to find out could get very expensive, very fast. Excelsior charges $300 for each transcript evaluation after the first evaluation.

[dfrecore]

I'm going to second the UMPI suggestion, both for cost, and also graded credits purposes. 7cr of graded work in Europe is probably not ideal. Also, using Saylor rather than confirmed transfers from Sophia and Study.com may mean that whatever you save by taking Saylor courses will be more than made up by having to get an additional evaluation at $300, negating all savings (and you may find out that the courses don't work, which will mean taking them somewhere else anyway).

But to answer your questions:
1- The capstone counts as 3cr of UL, meaning you need to bring in 18cr of UL
2- BUSI1025 Business Communication should be transferable, I wouldn't worry about this one
3- Davar, Coopersmith and of course Study.com for all of your UL business courses
4- No idea on using IC for test prep for Saylor (I'm not a huge fan of Saylor just because some of their courses are crap, and you won't know which until you start- but at least it's free to try to figure out).

I also suggest that you take SDC's BUS 307: Leadership and Organizational Behavior (or another provider who has this as UL like Davar) because you need 30cr of UL total, so at least 3cr could come from this (7 total courses in the major, 6cr from A&S including Quantitative Analysis, and 3cr from the Cornerstone).

[colonel]

I'm going to second the UMPI suggestion, both for cost, and also graded credits purposes.  7cr of graded work in Europe is probably not ideal.  Also, using Saylor rather than confirmed transfers from Sophia and Study.com may mean that whatever you save by taking Saylor courses will be more than made up by having to get an additional evaluation at $300, negating all savings (and you may find out that the courses don't work, which will mean taking them somewhere else anyway).

But to answer your questions:
1- The capstone counts as 3cr of UL, meaning you need to bring in 18cr of UL
2- BUSI1025 Business Communication should be transferable, I wouldn't worry about this one
3- Davar, Coopersmith and of course Study.com for all of your UL business courses
4- No idea on using IC for test prep for Saylor (I'm not a huge fan of Saylor just because some of their courses are crap, and you won't know which until you start- but at least it's free to try to figure out).

I also suggest that you take SDC's BUS 307: Leadership and Organizational Behavior (or another provider who has this as UL like Davar) because you need 30cr of UL total, so at least 3cr could come from this (7 total courses in the major, 6cr from A&S including Quantitative Analysis, and 3cr from the Cornerstone).

Thank you very much, @dfrecore! this is very helpful.

I will research the UMPI further, and will try to replace some of the Saylor courses with better alternatives.

[bjcheung77]

@colonel, here's an interesting read for you, since you're in Europe, you may want to do a Level 4/5/6 in Business and a 'Top-Up' to Business Bachelors, you can then do a Level 7 and 'Top-Up' to a Masters later. Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid396779

[Kab]

Excelsior college is the only one that appears at anabin, it is H+.
It is considered as a liberals arts college.
Maybe one day they will update it to Excelsior University when somebody with a degree goes to make the "Anerkennung" or convalidation.
My guess is that it will not be a problem if the college is H+.