My Experience - Excelsior vs. TESU

[ladylearner]

Leherself, thank you so much for this thread!

I, too, have put in my paperwork and gone through the processes at different schools including Excelsior and TESU. I originally liked Excelsior more because it seemed more organized and I really liked having an advisor and messaging system. I also found their evaluation much easier to read. Overall, Excelsior had a much nicer interface. I also liked that I could choose a cultural studies concentration with Excelsior. I liked that I could do payment plans at Excelsior for the enrollment fees and course fees. But as a NJ resident, even with the enrollment fee, TESU was a better deal. Excelsior's commencement ceremony is in July rather than late September and I would prefer to have a ceremony closer to the time I actually graduate (hopefully June) than to wait until practically October but that is not the most important thing in the world. I felt assured by the fact that Excelsior has monthly graduation dates but then TESU has monthly class start dates and I registered for the capstone with about 90 credits (I had stopped sending TESU my transcripts so within a couple of weeks my evaluation was updated to reflect that I had over 100 credits). Excelsior takes longer to update everything and they don't accept electronic transcripts so I wouldn't have been able to take a capstone until much later.

Excelsior made some mistakes that I had to have corrected and then it took more time to have things updated. Not that TESU is perfect because some things can be confusing/conflicting and I probably would have never thought of attempting TESU if not for this forum. Still, I have experienced faster turnaround time and their advising system isn't pretty but it has gotten results.

Last year I applied for an associate's degree at the last minute but I was having trouble coming up with the $$ before my enrollment lapsed. I was able to apply to a BA graduation application this year with no problem.


TESU was ultimately a better fit for me. A while back I moved across the river to New Jersey so it's super cool to be getting a degree from a state university in my own state!