Why Charter Oak State College is better than Thomas Edison State College

[KittenMittens]

This thread hasn't just angered me; the thread has angered many people who attend three different schools if you haven't noticed. It is impossible to have a debate with you when you're arguing against things that haven't been said. I don't know if you're twisting people's words on purpose or if there are issues with comprehension; but, it stifles the debate. I'm not going to spend several threads correcting your comprehension of, not only what I've said, but what articles I've presented say. You went on and on and on about how Excelsior students shouldn't be compared to new graduates at traditional colleges when they weren't. That particular ranking is clearly comparing mid-career salaries across all schools. 30 and 40 year olds are not being compared to people in their early and mid-twenties who have just graduated from college.
The best college for every major - MarketWatch

You completely miscomprehended or misconstrued what I said bout standardized tests. I did not once say that standardized tests are not important for admissions; I said the opposite. Whether or not they are good predictors of college success, schools still use them to weed out candidates. It is a fact that certain college admissions exams, especially the SAT, have had many problems. However, my main point was that multiple choice tests are not the best evaluators of analytical thinking. Even the analytical portion of the GRE is not in the multiple choice format.

Study: High school grades best predictor of college success — not SAT/ACT scores - The Washington Post

Well, I'm sorry that you and/or some others were offended, but I've said nothing out of the ordinary. I apologize if I hurt you or anyone else's feelings based on where you went. I do know though that you don't see people from well established and well known programs getting so upset if someone indirectly and offhandedly disregards their institution because they know they don't need to prove themselves. I am happy I received my degree and for myself, I know what its benefits and limitations are. I personally attended COSC, so I speak from personal experience as well about the programs, and my opinions on them. Is COSC perfect? No, absolutely not. Anger can be construed also as sensitivity about one's credentials as well, and if you are confident about what you've done, then you shouldn't get so upset and then call for censorship because it offends you. I, like yourself, am sure have plenty of friends that have bachelors degrees from regular brick and mortar institutions and I don't think they would ever get so furious and angry over where they went. On a different point, the beauty of free speech is that anyone can have a voice; we don't live in China for that reason. You should be encouraging debate and discussion rather than bulldozing your own views and trying to suppress others even if you disagree with them...

From my experience, Charter Oak's cornerstone course, for example, was a joke and a way for the college to make some extra money - ok fine, that's how they do it no problem. Half the students in this online course couldn't properly read, write, or comprehend what was asked of them. All three programs will accept anyone and everyone - that's a fact. Now obviously how likely an individual student will succeed is another question, but you don't see more established programs just accepting anyone no questions asked (they want to see more coursework, standardized exam scores, recommendations, etc). Yes, in a sense, these three colleges are like degree mills, the big benefit with them being regionally accredited which can serve the purposes for many of us. I would argue, as angry as it may make you or anyone else on this forum, that taking one exam is not enough to prove competency in that subject. That's why you see more people getting degrees in easier subjects like business administration, rather than computer science, molecular biology, or physics through "testing out."


The problem Sanantone is that you are too pedantic about everything. For every post that you show saying that high school grades are the best predictors of success, I can find another 10 that show otherwise. Mark Twain famously stated, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." As far as the PayScale study, I've provided some references as to the pitfalls in their methodologies that you can refer to from a previous post. I don't care so much how they calculated their data as far as stating that their salary reports are misleading. Here's the ranking from payscale: Best Schools for Liberal Arts Majors - College Salary Report . It shows Excelsior College with the highest starting salary and median income - and that's simply because people at Excelsior College already have a job - typically between the age of 30 - 50 or so, and also entered the economy when times were better. A liberal arts graduate even from a top tier school like Cornell may not even hit $47,000 starting right out of college in a liberal arts degree. You have to ask yourself a simple question and that is why these Excelsior College liberal arts graduates are getting the highest salary. It's certainly not because of prestige because Excelsior is low ranked/for "non-traditional" students, so I don't know why you think this statistic is so amazing.

You completely miscomprehended or misconstrued what I said bout standardized tests. I did not once say that standardized tests are not important for admissions; I said the opposite. Whether or not they are good predictors of college success, schools still use them to weed out candidates. It is a fact that certain college admissions exams, especially the SAT, have had many problems. However, my main point was that multiple choice tests are not the best evaluators of analytical thinking. Even the analytical portion of the GRE is not in the multiple choice format.

You're clearly implying that standardized exams don't deserve as much merit as they do. On one hand you're saying that multiple choice tests are not good evaluators of analytical thinking, so if they're not, then logically you wouldn't want to use them. No standardized or even regular exam is without its flaws, but they do test certain concepts specifically under pressure and against a national standard where all students are compared against. When it comes to technical subjects like math, science, medicine, engineering, those tests are pretty good at establishing core proficiencies. In some cases you either know something or you don't. The major pitfall with coursework is that you may end up not really learning anything, having an instructor that may be too biased one way or another, or a million other reasons - standardized exams are imperfect (as is every other test), but they gauge everyone to the same standard. It is at least fairer and based on merit to some degree because everyone has to take the same thing. The good news also is that standardized exams are trainable (i.e. through practice tests, review materials, proper coaching/conditioning/etc), and there are test companies whose business model is based on that. In any case, the topic is entirely too complicated to just basely state that multiple choice exams are not good at testing analytical ability.

y main point was that multiple choice tests are not the best evaluators of analytical thinking. Even the analytical portion of the GRE is not in the multiple choice format.

Well, technical graduate programs don't put too much emphasis on the GRE's written section. I know that income is not the only yardstick for success, but in some practical matters, all students do want to know what degrees/careers pay the most - so people informally put more emphasis/show more interest in the degrees/careers that pay more. So with that said, in my informal opinion, I personally care more about how these top institutions assess GRE scores and what parts of them. In particular, very prestigious technical graduate programs care more about quantitative ability perhaps to the detriment of the verbal section, which is why you'll see students with 790/800 GRE scores, but 500/800 verbal scores (I think they changed the scale a few years ago, but you get the idea...) sometimes.