Excelsior Porfolio: Anyone used it yet? Comparison to TESC?

I just mentioned to my Excelsior advisor that I was wanting to knock out my last 3 CIS classes by doing a TESC portfolio process and sending the results to Excelsior....

I was shocked to hear that Excelsior now has their own portfolio review!!

Has anyone used it?


If so, do you know how it compares with the TESC model? I was planning on doing TESC based off of the information I found on the main degreeinfo.com page. Should I be able to apply it to Excelsiors?

 

I don't have any direct experience with the Excelsior folks, so I can't comment on that side of the argument. However, I can say that portfolio assessment (in general) is a hit or miss proposition. Your experience will vary greatly, depending upon the mentor doing the evaluation.

My experience with TESC has shown me that some portfolio reviewers (mentors) are stricter than others. Most do not, however, follow all of the college guidelines (most of my mentors never even used the school's digital dropbox, for example - everything was done informally via email).

The mentors are supposed to contact you once a month, or something like that - definitely at least once upfront in the process - I have used 5 or 6 mentors so far, and have only spoken to one of them on the phone.

Granted, I only attempted to do portfolios for areas that I absolutely knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could blow out of the water. As such, my narratives ran 50-75 pages in most cases. TESC tells you that 6-15 pages is a good target to shoot for, but for CIS topics, there is simply no way to convey that information in so few pages (double-spaced, at that). So at 50-75 pages, there is a good chance that I simply scared the hell out of the mentors (one of them practically asked me for a job, BTW, lol).

There were other "deviations" from what TESC tells its mentors to do as well. It is my understanding that they ask the mentors to complete an evaluation form about each portfolio, and then provide a copy of that form to the student - I have yet to receive one.

If I had to choose between the two, I would probably choose TESC - simply because as the Excelsior portfolio review is a fairly new process for them, they may "bird dog" it a little more than they normally would - so you may come under heavier scrutiny. But again, this is just speculation on my part.

Good luck!

Cheers.

 

I just received my "Live & Learn" magazine (Spring 2005) and it contains an article on Excelsior's portfolio development. Excelsior even offer a class: CCS 201 - Introduction to Prior Learning and Portfolio Development (3 units).

 

I just signed up for the CCS 201..

its required since this is such a new processs.

Apparently the class will walk us through the process..

Hopefully I'll be able to submit some portfolios during the class..


The three classes I lack basically describe my daily job requirements, so I'm guessing I can handle them


I'll post up my thoughts during the course and my feelings once its over along with a detail on how it works.

 

Hello Excelsiors portfolio review is actually sent over to COSC to be conducted. According to Dr. whatever her name was at COSC when I looked into it awhile back