Feed back, Please

[cooperalex2004]

-If you are approved for PELL grant money you can take courses at TESC. PELL is federal so you can use it at any SINGLE school. If you send it to TESC for approval you can have them approve courses to pay at your CC too (they arrange it to split the money as long as you take something through TESC too). TESC is something like $212 / credit once you pay the enrollment fee so it isn't that much more than my CC was. Since you have to pay enrollment anyway you might consider the courses too since they have a nice 12 week approach to them. Test out of what you can though and ask questions of an adviser and/or the financial aid office.

-Straighterline offers a bunch of different subject areas (Transfer College Credits To Thomas Edison State College (TESC) - StraighterLine) while ALEKS only offers math courses (you'll find ALEKS has other courses but they are not ACE approved and then don't transfer).

-Most take Macro first I think, I've heard both ways (my CC recommends Macro first). The material has some overlap but I'd say you can pick one to start with.

-Even with a drive involved, don't get scared off by DSST, I like them better than CLEP (except for the six credit exams). If you do take a DSST you might try stacking it up and taking something that comes naturally easy to you (like DSST Intro to Computing for me), and then take two exams while you are there. If you take an exam you are familiar with you shouldn't take anywhere close to the two hours DSST gives you. I also like that they are both multiple choice but DSST has only four options (A-D) instead of CLEP having five (A-E).