Bad Bad Vibes from WGU (and an Intro of sorts)

[Merlin]

So you can get your 90 credits evaluated, and they may only except 60 of them? Or even worse 30? Sounds pretty shady! Kind of defeats the purpose of testing out of 90 credits prior to enrolling if they aren't even going to except all of them. Think about it. You could be out hundreds of dollars(SL, SDC, etc.) if they don't end up excepting them all, even worse if you went to a traditional university. May force me to reconsider WGU and go with one of the Big Three. Interesting.

That is not a problem with WGU being shady, it is more of a problem with the assumptions being made by the student. It also shouldn't happen to anyone on this forum who takes the time to learn the requirements of their chosen degree and plans their courses effectively.

Anyone who is doing the work to "test out" of credits towards earning a degree at WGU (or the big 3 for that matter) needs to spend some time to determine which classes are applicable to meet the various degree requirements for whatever program they are pursuing. Otherwise, they are just wasting their time and money taking classes that may or may not work towards their chosen degree.

In cases where the credits are evaluated but not used towards a degree, the credits are often acceptable but they are not appropriate to meet the requirements of a specific degree program so they are ignored. In many cases, those credits may still be used towards meeting the requirements of other degrees though. This happens to people who transfer between colleges all the time. Particularly for those who change degree programs or when the two colleges in question have different approaches to the requirements of a given degree program. It also happens to people when they don't put in the time to do the research, or make assumptions (perhaps based on old posts on this forum) about what courses they should take to meet degree requirements at the big 3.

Either way, in 99% of the cases, when credits aren't accepted toward a non-traditional degree it isn't the school's fault. If a college wants to keep its accreditation, it cannot accept courses that don't meet the requirements of the chosen degree program. That is pretty much the long and short of it. If a student wants their credits to be accepted at a chosen school, they need to do the research and make sure to take the right courses.

Also keep in mind that schools may change their degree requirements at any time (TESU does this a lot), so what qualifies for meeting a degree requirement today may not work tomorrow. So you always need to keep checking to make sure that your assumptions remain valid and accept that things may change. In the case of TESU or other big 3 schools, this means you need to make sure to get the credits evaluated and added to your degree transcript ASAP so you're not disappointed by a future change.