Excelsior College Questions

I have a couple of questions about the college. I am very interested in it and would like to enroll but can't seem to find any answers right now to my questions on the website.

Regarding the tuition, do you only pay that one fee yearly and you can take as many courses as you want for that fee?

Also, I am interested to know are all the courses listed offered all the time or is there a set semester? Like say, I am interested in taking a speech class, will that course be offered right now or would I have to wait a year or something for it like TESC?

If I decide after a year that I want to go back to regular college, will I have any trouble getting the courses to transfer?

Thanks so much.
Megan

 

As far as I know, Excelsior College doesn't offer classes (although they do have an impressive selection of their own "bypass" examinations available). The way it works is you pay the yearly fee, take classes elsewhere (or study on your own to prepare for bypass exams such as CLEP, DANTES, one of Excelsior's examinations, etc.) and transfer them in to your Excelsior degree program. The yearly fee covers their administrative cost of evaluating the credit, updating your transcripts, sending you a status sheet throught the mail showing your progress, etc. But it's important to realize that they don't actually offer classes; they only evaluate and accept credit taken elesewhere.

 

Yep, Excelsior (and TESC and COSC and others) are great places to finish, but maybe none of them is a great place to start.

If I had my Regents/Excelsior degree program to do over, I would take all my certifications, CLEP/TECEP/Regents exams, correspondence courses (Is that a politically incorrect term, nowadays?) and butt-in-seat courses first, then pay the annual maintenance fee once. If that's what Megan wants to do, I hope she'll be a regular at degreeinfo.com and keep us posted.

But Jester nailed it. If one wants to take classes and stuff, one must look elsewhere.

God bless us everyone.

TommyK