OnlineDegree.com Is Finally Open

[Merlin]

I haven't a taken any courses that are NCCRS recommended. Is it the same process when requesting transcript? Is the fee per course transfer or it is the same as ACE where I can take all I need and request one time?

Unlike ACE, which has a built-in credit banking system, NCCRS transcripts work a lot like traditional college transcripts. Unless they offer an automated way to handle this, you have to contact someone at the origin of your credits and ask them to send a copy of the transcript directly to your school of choice. The fee, if any, is usually applied at the time you request the transcript, and each transcript typically lists all the courses taken up until that point. So, if the school charges a fee, waiting until you're done to send the transcript is a good way to save money.

To date, places like Study.com, Davar, and Saylor haven't been charging extra to send NCCRS transcripts. We don't know for sure if onlinedegree.com will follow this model or not. It looks like it should be free, but since I haven't completed any courses yet, I don't have the transcript option available, and the FAQ only shows how to request them to be sent to Excelsior. It looks like the Excelsior option requires you fill out a form and send the $40 check to Excelsior directly. So if that is something you're interested in, I'd wait until you get all your courses done first to save time and money.

It looks like they have a second option (not recommended apparently) to send a transcript directly to another college, but I can't tell why it isn't recommended. Maybe because they don't get a kickback from it from Excelsior? Dunno. Either way, it suggests that they have (or will have) a process in place to send an NCCRS transcript directly to a school without going through Excelsior, which should ideally be free (or perhaps with a minimal fee, to cover admin time and postage, given the courses are free.) In the latter case, you could request a transcript whenever you like and it would include all courses taken up until that point.

We'll know more once people have completed the courses and have had them submitted to TESU or elsewhere. I expect to take 2-3 courses through them eventually, but it'll be next month at the earliest, so I'm sure others will have tested the waters sooner than that.