Testing out of TESC Associates Degree "Study Area" requirements

[sanantone]

If your kids have serious interests in the sciences such as health professions/nursing/pre-med, I would AVOID taking any online labs. The online lab classes are frowned down upon by most schools. But they need science classes with labs. I highly, highly recommend that the science credits are in a much more portable form such as community college butt-in-seat lab science classes. I know you guys have had bad experiences with public schools, but the kids really need to be butt-in-seat for the lab science.

SL for calc is probably ok and it will work for the ASNSM in Math, but I find the SL calculus courses to be a bit too easy and not rigorous enough. I'm taking SL as a cheap refresher since I took 2 years of calc many years ago. IMHO, there is a risk that calc 3 will be a huge struggle in a more rigorous class if SL is your preparation method. Then there is the issue of your calc credits not being as portable as AP Calc BC or even CLEP. ALEKS is not adequate prep unless you get 95+% before moving on.

I think testing/SL out is great for GE, but it's not as good for math and science.

If you're going to be working in the natural science field, then I believe that completing labs in the classroom is important because you'll receive more guidance. But, I'm going to play devil's advocate here. How would a school know if you completed a lab by distance if you attended a school that has a campus? Nothing on your transcript will say "online" or "distance." The only way they would know is if the course description says that a virtual lab was included.