Athabasca vs Excelsior Courses for an Excelsior Degree?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Online Student, Mar 31, 2005.

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  1. Online Student

    Online Student New Member

    Now that 3 unit courses at Athabasca cost $828 Canadian (about $685 USD) each, that is only $35 less than just taking them at Excelsior and not bothering with the transfer credit process.

    Is there any advantage to taking couses at Athabasca other than saving $35 per 3 unit course (assuming Athabasca has the courses that will fulfull Excelsiors CIS degree requirments)?
    Does it take longer to complete courses at Athabasca due to slow postal mail or other delays with exams due to dealing with a Canadian school?

    For the CIS degree core courses, it seems simplest to just take courses at Excelsior. The only disadvantage I see is that Excelsior limits you to five 3-unit courses at a time and I will probably need up to 18 courses (54 units) to graduate by the time math and ethics requirements are added to the core requirments needed. That would take more than 3 semesters at that pace and I need to complete them in 2 semesters (about 27 units each semster or nine 3-unit courses per semester).
    I am waiting for transcript evaluations to find the exact number of courses I need.
    I suppose I could concurrently take 5 courses at Excelsior and 4 at Athabasca or some other school each semster to complete 54 units in 2 semsters.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 31, 2005
  2. triggersoft

    triggersoft New Member

    yes, but being a FOREIGN university, I suppose you cannot just bring those credits from Athabasca over to Excelsior, but do an ECE evaluation first (US-$ 375)...
    right?
     
  3. B.N.

    B.N. Member

    5 courses at Excelsior and 4 at Athabasca ... wow ... a little masochistic eh :)

    At Athabasca it's possible to challenge courses. This is very quick, quite easy and very cheap. If you already have some knowledge/experience in certain parts of the CIS requirements I would recommend that you challenge those courses.

    Excelsior seems to be offering more and more courses. I think one of the benefits with enrolling at Excelsior and taking hte courses there is that you will not waste time taking unnecessary courses. Plus you won't have the hassle of asking for transcripts, having the transcripts evaluated etc.

    Several years ago Excelsior offered only a couple ECE tests ... but now it looks like you can cover several aspects of the CIS/IT Core requirements through them.

    Has anyone ever taken Excelsior's WebCT courses? How are they? What are they like?
     
  4. mcdowell

    mcdowell New Member

    Another option, that may reduced cost, is to do some TECEP examinations. I know of 3 exams there that goes towards your core CIS requirements, and depending on your current knowledge you may be able to do them in a real short time.

    One draw back with these exams is that I THINK they are just pass/fail exams.
     
  5. rince

    rince New Member

    I read the instructions on the athabasca site and I did not understand it about challenging credits. I emailed them and it only served to confuse even further. How can one challenge the credits, on what basis and how is it easy ?

    I am going for a COSC degree with an emphasis on history and Athabasca have some useful courses that cover content that I have studied before and not done exams in or presently teach right now.

    Any help with this would be very useful BN

    Thanks
     
  6. etech

    etech New Member


    as far as I remember seeing a document on Excelsior site earlier (that is when they had all the docs available on their site) Athabasca is among the few international Colleges/Universites that Excelsior would accept credits directly from without any evaluation process. I would recommend to verify this from Excelsior.
     
  7. Online Student

    Online Student New Member

    I'll look at TECEP and ECE tests too since it would make sense to just take the tests if I already have the knowledge.

    However, what if it's new material or I know some of it, but not enough to pass the exams?
    Is it much faster to learn the material needed to pass the ECE and TECEP exams from scratch or would I better off taking online courses instead in that case?

    If I can pass 6 ECE or TECEP exams that fulfill CIS requirements before enrolling in the courses, I could get the course load down to a more reasonable 18 units per semester rather than 26 units and save money too.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 1, 2005
  8. nobycane

    nobycane New Member

    I took a couple Geology courses from Athabasca and transferred them right into Excelsior for my undergraduate degree.
     
  9. nobycane

    nobycane New Member

    I took a couple Geology courses from Athabasca and transferred them right into Excelsior for my undergraduate degree.
     
  10. BlueMason

    BlueMason Audaces fortuna juvat

    To challenge a Course all you have to do is contact the Prof of the course and tell him/her why you want to challenge it... they may want to know your qualifications and it's about $200 to challenge for credtit.
     
  11. spmoran

    spmoran Member

    While I didn't challenge courses at Athabasca, I did challenge 30 quarter hours of programming and database credits at a community college this way. It cost me $600 for the credits and took about thirty hours (plus 15 years of experience) for the credits. They transferred into Bellevue with no questions since they were listed on my transcript just like any other course. All in all, it was just like BLueMason described.
     

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