HELP! Excelsior College question

Hi all!

I'm just learning about earning distance learning degrees and Excelsior College confuses me a little:

They offer accredited degrees but don't have their own courses? You have to take courses from other institutions but your degree comes from Excelsior? How does THAT work? I've never heard of that before.

Help!

Sincerely,
Michelle

 

You can take examinations for credit (CLEP, DANTES, GRE ect.), DL courses or regular classroom courses and apply them to your degree in any combination. It's very flexible.

 

Hi Michelle,

Correct - think of Excelsior like an institution that amalgamates all other sources of college credit.

First, you have a plan that meets the degree requirements as outlined in their college catalogs.

Second, you fulfill the requirements via competency exams (CLEP, DANTES, ECE), distance learning courses (online, paper-based), or traditional college courses.

Third, once you've fulfilled all the requirements you graduate.

Most people seem to be fulfilling the degree requirements by combining existing/new credits with competency exams.

If you haven't checked it out already, look at http://www.bain4weeks.com for an interesting read on how it was done solely via competency exams.

Cheers,
Mark

 

Hi Mark!

Thanks so much for your help. That makes sense -- I guess. (I'm still a little confused about it.)

As I said in another post, I currently hold an A.S. so I'm sure some of the credits would transfer, though probably not very many.

My work history is very limited and even if I could possibly pass exams for credit (doubtful), I don't feel I know enough and I'd be cheating myself by circumventing the coursework. I'm primarily interested in a B.S. for career purposes. And I agree with the comment that a Bachelor's degree is simply a minimal requirement in the marketplace these days.

I think I'll be contacting a few of the different schools (Excelsior and TESC among them) and see what might suit me best. Thanks so much for your insight and explanations. I really appreciate it!

Sincerely,
Michelle

 

Nightengale wrote:

> My work history is very limited and even if I could possibly
> pass exams for credit (doubtful), I don't feel I know enough
> and I'd be cheating myself by circumventing the coursework.

For most people, the advantage of Excelsior is that you don't have to do everything by coursework. The other advantage is that most other schools require you to take 10 courses from them, and Excelsior has no such "residency" requirement. But if you want to take courses and you're willing to take at least 10 of them from one school, then you should be looking at Gus Sainz's Website, "Distance Learning Undergraduate Business Degrees": http://collegedegrees.tripod.com/

 

I can't speak for Excelsior but I can address COSC about credits accepted from an AS degree. I have an AAS in nursing and they accepted every single credit. This is a first for me because every other B&M school I ever contacted would either accept my nursing credits if I was going for a BSN but make me take lots of lower end stuff over, OR would accept the lower end stuff but throw out my nursing credits if I was looking at a straight BA or BS in any thing other than nursing. I think you'll find COSC, Excelsior and maybe, TESC (don't know) will take all your credits and you are farther along than you think.

Keep reading here, I went from just looking around to having my first two test scheduled in about 6 weeks. This site is great and is very very inspirational.