Eighteen Months???

Hey Everybody,

I have just spoken with Excelsior College in great length. This had to be the rudest, most inappropriate, and downright worse call I've ever made to any customer service agent. Several days ago, I had tried to fax my "unofficial" transcripts to Excelsior. After two days, I received an e-mail that stated, "the fax is too dark try re-faxing the document again." After this fax, I called Excelsior and they told me it was still too dark! So, without hesitation, I went ahead and mailed the documents (since I had already paid the $60).

Today, I called to see whether or not those transcripts had been received. They had been received, but I asked another question. I asked about how long it would take, considering (since the representative told me) that I had already completed about 75 credits. The representative informed me, it's going to take about 18 months. It can't be done any sooner than that! Then, I informed him about all of the good people on "DegreeInfo.com" who had already completed their degrees at a much quicker pace. I just basically got a, "well, it must have been at a different Excelsior" response. And I'm very disappointed. I also keep hearing rumors that I will likely not be one bit satisfied with the results I see (meaning they will not let me know which credits go where).

In researching both this board and the Internet, I have found Bellevue University and Fort Hays State University. Bellevue hung up on me, but I'm sure that was an accident. But I sure liked FHSU's price a little better. The person I talked to at FHSU didn't have the slightest clue as to what CLEP exams were. I later found on their website, though, where they accepted both CLEP exams and DANTES exams. I'm unsure of whether they accept a maximum of 30 (or of 64), but judging off of other universities, I'm assuming they might take 30. I'm not sure what the 64 was about. I'm becoming tempted to apply to FHSU and COSC. Any opinions? For all the previous experience I've had, I can certainly say COSC is much easier to deal with, and FHSU and Bellevue were more friendly.

Cade

 

Assuming there's nothing very strange, this is not the experience I've had - I started at essentially zero and will be done in 9-10 months elapsed time.

Remember that Excelsior is a "credit accumulator" - if you follow the plan and have sufficient credit in the right places you'll qualify for graduation. Their "18 month" answer seems right if you were taking traditional DL courses and had about 45 credit hours left to go.

I'm continually amazed with what I hear about Excelsior's level of service. I can state that the business team (not the ones handling enrollment or information) has been good, but again, all my correspondence has been via e-mail - and you can't do that until you enroll. I wish someone there would step up and get some customer service training for their staff!

If customer service is a big importance then I'd recommend you give COSC a try. The only downside I see with COSC is that all of their degrees are in general studies, while Excelsior has a major - important to me but maybe not to yourself. I can't speak about the rest of your options.

If you like, PM me with your credits/course titles and what program you're interested in - I can take a quick look and give you much of what Excelsior charges the $60 for.

Cheers,
Mark

 

I have found COSC one of the best schools I have ever dealt with. I have attended / taken classes from seven schools and COSC was by far the most customer-service friendly.

 

I also was quite unimpressed with the admissions people or whoever it is that you deal with prior to enrollment. However, now that I'm enrolled I've been fairly pleased with those that I've spoken to. I'm pretty easy to please, however, since all I want someone to tell me is what transfer credits count for what, and what tests will fulfill the remaining requirements.

And you can certainly complete you degree in far less than 18 months. I've gone from 40 credits to 90+ in less than 2 months and should be fully complete in another month.