Here is the situation, I want to finish my degree, but I just don’t have the time to go through the traditional way. I heard that there are some places where they will grant us an accredited degree base on our working experiences and other professional credentials (ie. MCSE, A+), for example customdegree.com will look at your resume and find a school for you that will grant you the degree base on your history, but unfortunately I was told that their degree are not accredited and I might get in trouble just using it. I already got a traditional 2 years college diploma, so I’m guessing I can use that as well. And of course, I want to try to get the best schools for this case. many Thanks in advance
Congrats on your decision to finish your degree! Absolutely stay away from the site you mention. They are not unaccredited degrees, they are basically fakes and it ends up pointing you to places such as Almeda university and Belford which are not universities, but sellers of fake credentials. You can't be granted an accredited degree based on life experience or certifications alone. What is your intended field of study / major? Also, are you looking for an associates or a bachelors? That will help the board give recommendations.
really? I thought there is a lot of online University that accept Work experiences and other industry certs (ie.MCSE, A+). like those Dervy University, Capella U... I know they are not really a good university, but my main concern now is just the cost and just get my an accredit degree ASAP. but anyway, I want to earn either a Business /IT degree.
the other school I researched was Excelsior and Charter Oak State College. They both accept work experiences and other coporate trainning, but now sure about their accreditation or fees
There are some universities that accept work experience and certifications in lieu of college coursework, but an accredited program should not give you a degree based completely on your work experience and/or certifications. Charter Oak and Excelsior are Regionally Accredited programs and I believe accept some credit other than coursework. There are quite a few people here with much more experience with these schools that can chime in here.
Both are regionally accredited (the best kind for institutional accreditation) and both have very reasonable fees if you are transferring in a lot of credit and planning to use a prior learning assessment for much of the rest. I would urge you to contact Admissions at both schools and ask them how they may be able to help you, then strongly consider signing up with the one that seems the most helpful. Good luck, -=Steve=-
Ed, For the quickest, accredited business degree, there are basically three choices. Excelsior, Charter Oak, and Thomas Edison These three are known as the 'Big 3' in distance learning circles. Nothing really big about them, but they are the only 3 schools in the U.S. that are accredited and accept 100% transfer of credits. This means that a person can take tests to complete the requirements of the degree. There is a website that explains a lot of this in detail. It is www.bain4weeks.com There is also a good article on distance education on about.com at http://adulted.about.com/cs/fasttrackoptions/a/fastdegree.htm There are plenty of schools nationwide that are accredited and either have programs that award degrees based on classwork or offer classes for credit that can then be transferred into another school. Many of these are public and state schools. As for portfolio assessment, I know that Thomas Edison will do a portfolio assessment, but achieving the entire degree by assessment is next to impossible. To the best of my knowledge, the highest number of credits awarded by portfolio assessment was 98 credits. That was achieved by Steven Levicoff (a frequent poster at this board). You may want to PM him here and ask more details. I know that he provided documented knowledge on many different subject areas in order to be awarded that many credits. I am currently enrolled in Excelsior and I can provide details of my experience thus far. I started in late June 2006 with 49 credits from prior school work. In four months, I had tested out of an additional 55 credit hours. I am currently taking accounting classes at LSU to finish the requirements for an accounting degree. If I had chosen to finish a general business degree, I could have tested out of the remaining requirements and probably be graduating either in December or January. Since you have a two-year degree, I'm assuming that you will probably start with at least 60 credits. You will probably get a few from some certifications. That will leave you short of a bachelors degree by 45 credits or so. You could easily test out of those in 6 months. The following is my estimate of how much this will cost you. Testing fees (12-15 tests) $1200 - $2000 Enrollment fees - $900 Graduation fee - $500 Total - approximately $2,600 to $3,400 Hope this helps.
thank you thank you, those replies are very useful... I forgot to mention, I'm an Canadian and my college diploma is Canada as well.. dose that matter at all in this case?
A US school would check to see if a foreign school has the appropriate equivalent of accreditation, which, in Canada, would come from your provincial Ministry of Education. If your school has that, you should be okay.
Depending on which school you attended in Canada to earn the 2-year diploma the credits might or might not be directly tranferrable into a bachelor degree. Credits earned at a university or college, except most trade/vocational/business schools such as CompuCollege, can usually transfer into a bachelor degree. Assuming your credits can be applied to an undergraduate degree at a US school you will have to have your transcripts evaluated by a recognized evaluation service. Once you provide us with more information it will be easier to point you in the right direction. In my own case, I transferred credits earned at two Canadian universities after evaluation by American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) when I applied to Thomas Edison State College (TESC). World Education Services, Inc P.O. Box 5087 New York, NY 10274-5087 Phone: 212-966-6311 Fax:212-739-6100 www.wes.org Josef Silny & Associates, Inc 7101 SW 102 Ave Miami, Florida 333173 Phone: 305-273-1616 Fax: 305-273-1338 www.jsilny.com International Education Research Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 3665 Culver City, CA 90231-3365 Phone: 310-258-9451 Fax: 310-342-7086 www.ierf.org Educational Credential Evaluators, Inc. P.O. Box 514070 Milwaukee, WI 53203-3470 (414) 289-3400 www.ece.org Spantran Educational Services, Inc. 7211 Regency Square Blvd., Suite 205 Houston, TX 77036-3197 (713) 266-8805 www.spantran-edu.org American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) Foreign Education Credential Services One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 520 Washington DC 20036-1135 (202) 296-3359 www.aacrao.org/credential
Ed, I teach college, most of our graduates who go to the US with a 2 year have some problems but in Ontario a 2 year CAAT diploma is generally considered the same a US Associates Degree. I have seen some students with a 3 yr diploma get a a full 3 (or even more) credit towards a US BA/BS degree though as it really depends on any deal the college may have with a US school. However you might have some problems with a CEGEP (which are generally considered Grade 12/13 equiv).
I did some further researches, I found an accredited University calls BCOU British Columbia Open University (aka TRE) http://www.tru.ca/distance.html . They said they will take 78 credits from my previous college, and so I only have 42 credits left. They charge an 3 credits course for $600cnd ($500us)... so this program is going to cost me $8400cnd ($7000us). The problem is that I work full-time and I can only take one course per semester, so this is going to take me over two years to complete this! You think I should go for it? Or there is some better way?? Again I'm not so concern about school (as long as is accredited) , I'm more about the time and $.
o ya my previous college was called Kwantlen University College in BC, Canada. I graduated there with a Marketing Management Diploma.
Are you primarily missing the general education credits? Depending on which courses / credits remain to be completed you might want to look into accelerated courses, typically 8-weeks duration, and/or testing out. Also, Athabasca University offers a number of degrees which might match your educational and career goals. You can even challenge for credit some of their courses. Additionally, there are the Big 3 in the US (Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College, and Thomas Edison State College that allow 100% transfer-in of credits with no residency requirement. What career or area of work are you pursuing?
Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College, and Thomas Edison State College Of the big 3, Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College, and Thomas Edison State College which would be the most affordable, easiest path to earning a four year degree and most straight forward to navigate?
42 credit hrs from a 3yr college to a 4 yr degree is pretty good for most Canadian colleges. The only one I have ever seen Better is a US school in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan but it is on campus ( I think they only need 32 credit hrs). As for the time, if you have the work experience you could take an EMba?
