Transcript Review - Help, which of the big 3?

[rebel100]

You could have the AA pretty quick with COSC....for that matter you are reasonably close to a BS/BA in Independent Studies with a concentration in Organizational Leadership. I'm not a computer guy, but otherwise my story bears a resemblance to yours...and I found COSC to be the best choice for me.

Compare what you already have to the Gen Eds at COSC here:
Charter Oak State College - General Education Requirements

You can correlate that to the available tests with the Master List of Exams (COSC) Here:
http://www.charteroak.edu/Current/Academ...r-list.pdf

At a glance for the AA you would need the following:
DSST Technical Writing (Eng Comp 2 requirement)
CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature (Lit and Fine Arts requirement)

A 3 hour course on Ethics, there's a DSST or the "free Saylor.org course that should suffice.

Was your Biology only 3 credits? if so, and if you have no other science your looking at needing another 1-3 credits, CLEP and DSST have offerings.

The Tech Writing and A&I Literature are exams that most people can pass with very little study...like you can probably do them by the end of the month (by the end of next week maybe?)

The Ethics via Saylor isn't hard...just get on it, and go take the exam....by all accounts it's quite staightforward and the only cost is about $25 for a proctor (your local library might do it for free)

Difficulty on the Natural Science Course is dependent on YOU....it can be a stumbling block, but you sound pretty squared away and the resources to study from are plentiful.

Your looking at about $300 in cost for the above exams.

COSC is , in my opinion, the cheapest of the Big 3. They do however require a Cornerstone course to be taken via the internet that you would need for Associates and or Bachelors degree's. It costs around $900, There will also be a $228 semester fee (COSC charges this every semester your actively enrolled compared to the $3K enrollment fee of TESC) there will also be a $205 graduation fee for the AA and they will hit you again for that when/if you do the Bachelors through them.

So the total cost of the AA from COSC from where you are is about $1700.00 give or take a bit.

For a BS in Independent Studies with an Organizational Leadership concentration you will need 30 upper level (UL) courses mostly in the concentration plus free electives to get you to a total of 120 credits.

The UL requirement can be met almost entirely through exams and it might look like this (all UL):
DSST:
Business Ethics in Society (if you went ahead and did this skip the Saylor Ethics altogether) this exam satisfies both the Ethics Gen Ed and its UL...it's a twofer!
Business Law 2
Money and Banking

TECEP (Thomas Edisons in house CBE)
Strategic Management
Operations Management
Advertising
Marketing Communications

ECE (Excelsiors in house CBE)
Human Resource Management
Organizational Behavior

Capstone (taken at COSC via internet)

the Bachelors list above would run you about $100 per exam plus $900 for the capstone. COSC is pretty flexible, in the Cornerstone you develope your goals including every exam or class you plan to take so long as you have 36 business/organizational leadership credits overall with at least 18 at the UL you should be fine with the Org Leadership Concentration (in that case you could swap out some from my list above with other UL exams like the Civil War DSST or the Substance Abuse DSST)....you will need 36 hours in the concentration , in this case intro to business, and economics, etc... would count...plus the 18 UL credits. the rest of you UL could then be in a second concentration or some combination that would allow a few UL electives.

Your looking at another semester enrollment fee $228, the $900 capstone, a second graduation fee of $205 (for the Bachelors), plus the $1000 or so in testing fees. That's another $2400

You will likely need another 20-30 "free electives" to get yuou to that magic 120 credit number....I think you can make them legitimately FREE by attaining them free from FEMA. This makes sense for you as Emergency Management, IMO, is a good match for both your stated skills and the Organizational Management concentration. Think of taking the continuity of operations and management related FEMA, even the FEMA Professional Development Series would be cool for you to have. The FEMA are rediculously easy...you can do 20 of these in a few weeks while drinking beer and watching the kids swim in the pool....it's almost an unfair way to earn college credit. COSC may also give you credit for some computer certs you already have and there are some ace approved cyber security credits you can get for free that Sanantone can direct you to.