11-21-2019, 12:52 PM
(11-19-2019, 09:55 PM)tjguitar85 Wrote: What does your COSC transcript look like? Is there an overall GPA based on all your graded courses applied to the degree, or if it just the courses you took there? How rough was the capstone?This is what the transcript looks like. COSC only calculates your overall GPA based on courses taken AT COSC. I'm going to repeat that because it's confusing. If you only take the cornerstone and capstone at COSC (like I did), your overall GPA will be based solely on those two courses.
I want to point out a couple distinctions. All grades transferred in via ACE appear on the transcript with "P" for pass/fail. No letter grade. Courses transferred in via NCCRS will show a letter grade (such as Davar courses on this transcript.) Despite this, they do not seem to count toward your career GPA.
Now here's where it gets really confusing. You can submit Straighterline courses via ACE. But you can also submit Straighterline courses via transcript request directly from SL, skipping ACE. In my case, I'd submitted everything via ACE. But after the fact, I hand-picked only the courses I received a grade higher than a C and omitted the courses I made a C in, and put in a direct transfer request from Straighterline of those non-C courses. COSC replaced the courses listed with a "P" with the same courses listed with a letter grade. That's why some of the SL courses show a letter grade, but most don't. Either way, they still didn't count toward career GPA.
That worked at the time, but the policy may since have been changed, as one user reported they weren't allowing hand-picked direct transcripts anymore. Your mileage may vary.
The fact that letter grades may show up but not affect career GPA may cause confusion when applying to grad school, if they ask for your GPA. Do I put 4.0? I don't know. I have so far on anything that asks, because it's what the transcript says at the bottom. Sure feels like I'm lying but is technically the correct answer as far as I can tell. Putting otherwise might cause more confusion if the GPA listed at the bottom doesn't match what I fill out. I don't know.
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As for the Capstone, we had to do a solo project and two group projects. I think the solo one was sort of a business analysis of the business of your choosing. The big final project was a full-on business plan for a fictional company offering a product/service in a specific market. If I recall correctly, I think we got to decide what product/service what market. After brainstorming in the forums, my cohort settled on a doggy daycare/dog grooming salon in Manhattan. (Manhattan because we guessed there would be a LOT of available demographics data on NYC.)
It's as challenging as you want it to be. On the group projects, you could either grab the ball, lead, charge forward and do twice as much work as anyone else trying to get an A. Or you could be the person that doesn't really do anything but still gets the A. It's up to you. I put in far more work than I needed to pass. I re-wrote whole sections, fixed the formatting, added citations and put it all together because I thought it might be possible to get a 100. We got the 100.