Big 3+ overall reviews

Can you guys offer any insight as to the curriculum at the Big 3 schools? Other schools are definatley welcome also.

I have requested a info packet from all these schools as well as a few others. Based on the many posts I have read here alot of people attend or have graduated from the Big 3. I dont want to say im looking for the school that is the easiest...I guess Im having trouble deciding on who I want to go with. All 3 seem pretty similar and have great reviews. I think the more posts I read the more I get lost.

As mentioned in a previous post. I work full time and want to do a program in my offtime which will alow me to attend preferably 3/4-full time if possible but still have a life. So I guess my questions for now are:

What program did you attend and how did you like it overall?

How many hours per week per class did you have to put in? Were you working full time?

How were the tests set up? Proctored or non? Open Book etc?

Did you find any difficulties in the overall set up? (getting books, exams, online difiiculty etc)

How many hours did you have to sit in front of your PC on average?

Any other positives or negatives would be great. Feel free to PM me if you would like.

 

I've been enrolled at all three in business and liberal arts bachelor degrees.

COSC is different from the rest. Each degree plan must be individually approved, so there's a lot of working with your advisor. I left the school because they wanted me to do a related concentration, rather than just throwing a bunch of courses at them.

TESC is by far the easiest. No required upper level classes in the liberal arts program, no required concentration. It would be fairly easy to complete a degree without ever speaking with an advisor. The business program is simple as well - for example the accounting major only specifies Intermediate Accounting I and II. As someone who has looked at dozens of accounting programs, this is quite possibly the most basic in the entire country. I graduated here.

In enrolled in Excelsior to post some ACE evaluated credits - I didn't like how TESC evaluated them. I also looked into the idea of getting a second undergrad degree but decided against it. Excelsior is about the difficulty of any traditional school - look up what courses comprise a specific major at State U and the courses are probably very similar at Excelsior.

As for customer service, I found them all similar - you can call each one and speak with an advisor immediately, but if you want to send transcripts in and have them evaluated, or apply for graduation, expect a waiting time in the weeks if you're lucky, and quite possibly in the months.

 

Hi,

I'm enrolled at Excelsior. I haven't taken any courses from Excelsior except for the one credit hour information literacy course. So I can't provide much insite into their courses. I started at Excelsior with 49 credits from prior school work. I then took as many CLEPs and DSSTs as I could to gain more credits. Since I have decided on an Accounting degree, I can't complete the entire degree by testing. I'm taking all of the required accounting courses at LSU Independent study and transferring those to Excelsior.

The required information literacy course that I took from Excelsior was done online. From what I remember, there were several sections and quizzes after each. The quizzes were completed online. At the end of the course, there is an exam. I forgot how many questions were on it, but I remember it being timed. The exam is provided online. You will not need a proctor for it. Since I had significant prior knowledge of information literacy, the course was easy for me. It only took me about 2 hours from start to finish.

The CLEPs and DSSTs were a slightly different matter. Some of the subjects, I had prior experience and knowledge. Those tests only required a brief review and I would take the test within a week of deciding. Other tests, I needed slightly more prep time and I would devote two weeks to studying for those. On average, I would study about 2 or 3 hours a night.

The LSU courses are taking much more time. Not because they are overly difficult, but because I want to ace them all. The courses usually have 12 to 18 lessons and 2 or 3 proctored exams with 3 hour time limits. I usually spend about 3 to 4 hours per lesson.

At the rate I'm progressing, I should be finished with my degree in early June. That's a little after my original target date but I'm happy with it. Basically, it will have taken me almost one year to go from having 49 credits to finishing with 125 credits. If I had attempted a Bachelors degree in General Business, I would probably be finishing it up this month with testing or possibly already be finished.

I currently work full time plus some. Vincey made an observation on Excelsior's evaluation time. In my experience, it took approximately 3 weeks after they received my transcripts to complete my evaluation. That was back in October. I don't know if it is any different now.

If you have any additional questions, feel free to PM me.

 

i really like this thread. please keep it coming guys

 

Wow. I'm working with COSC now on possibly going the associate's route, and I was hoping to do just that-- throw a bunch of courses at them. Of course, they don't have concentrations at the associate's level that I can tell, so maybe it won't be an issue.

The thing I did do that might bother them would be get some concentration credits early based on the business concentration sample plan without taking the listed prerequisites first (economics). We'll see what happens. I haven't really decided yet whether to wrap up the bachelor's with them or not.

The multiple-week wait for evaluation bugs me. I'm hoping to wrap up the associate's in time for the March diploma issuance, and I was hoping that without having to do all the capstone stuff required of the bachelor's candidates I'd get the diploma on time. Oh well.

 

Anyone here graduate from Athabasca?

It's functionally similar to the big 3 - only 90 credits rather than 120 (that said, it's pretty strict on upper level credit IMO so it seems to require a lot of planning).

Greg

 

I was able to complete an Individual Studies degree. I complete 15 upper credit classes and wrote an essay about how my credits fit into a plan. Double check with the school to see if this has changed.

How could you graduate without any upper level classes? Do you have a link to this?

I found COSC to have the best customer service when I was comparing the three of them. My eval from COSC took about three weeks.

 

If you mean it is not possible to earn the undergraduate degree (BGS) from Athabasca University by taking only 100-200 level courses you are quite right.

However, the requirement for senior-level courses (300-400 series at AU) is achievable if you have a focused academic plan. For example, coursework in psychology and mathematics, plus some general education type courses, would get you through most of the degree.

Some courses at AU are classified as 200-level while at some US schools the same course is classified as 300-level. This could be an issue for the unaware.

Overall, Athabasca University is not as liberal as to the courses allowed into the Bachelor of General Studies degree. There is a note to the prospective student on the web site regarding the importance of a focused academic plan or coursework.

 

Yes please link, if this is true I'm barking up the wrong tree with excelsior, I have like 140 some credits and only about 12 of them are upper level.

 

I am not the original poster that said you could graduate from TESC with no upper-level credit. However, from the TESC Program Planning Handbook under the section for Bachelor of Arts Liberal Studies:

Liberal Studies Area
The Liberal Studies Area includes 33 credits in two
or more general education subject areas. It may
include humanities, natural sciences and social
sciences courses. Liberal studies is ideal for students
interested in interdisciplinary fields of study.
Requirements
• Minimum of two or more different general
education subject areas.
• Courses transferred to Thomas Edison State
College are equated to the following levels:
100, 200, 300, or 400. A maximum of two
college-level courses equating to 100- level
numbers may be applied toward the Liberal
Studies Area of Study. A deeper knowledge of
some subjects is provided by requiring the
remaining Area of Study college-level courses
be taken at levels 200, 300, or 400.
• 2.0 grade point average (GPA) in the specific
Liberal Studies Area.

According to this, you could take two 100-level course and nine 200-level courses (after the core requirements) and be eligible for the degree.

 

Doesn't that seem wrong?

 

I called tesc to verify, and the person wasn't really sure what i was talking about but she did tell me that 200 level credits count as upper level so that was a shocker, I think i am going to get email verification and then enroll for a possible 2nd BA

 

I was told the same thing. They accept only 80 credits from a community college but you can transfer 120 credits consisting of 100 and 200 level classes for a bachelors degree.

Very interesting...........

 

I'm not so sure you that you need any 200-or-higher level courses.

from the tesc catalog:

The restriction on 100-level course appears to apply only to a concentration (three or more subjects in the liberal arts) or liberal studies (two or more disciplines).

An area of study doesn't appear to require anything over the 100-level:

Unless I'm missing something, no credits are required to be above the 100-level for the BA if you have 33 hours in a single liberal arts subject.

 

The program planning handbook refers to an Area of Study Guide Sheet. I would guess they provide this when you enroll and declare what you want to accomplish. There may be requirements listed on the Guide Sheet that clarifies what classes are specifically required.

Also, since an "Area of Study" degree requires 33 credit hours in a specific area. It might be rather difficult to find 11 courses that are all 100 level. The degree isn't entirely to all liberal arts subjects either. The following are approved "areas of study":

Humanities
Art
Communications
English
Foreign Language
Journalism
Humanities
Music
Philosophy
Photography
Religion
Theater Arts

Social Sciences
Anthropology
Economics
Criminal Justice
History
Labor Studies
Political Science
Psychology
Social Sciences
Sociology

Natural Sciences/Mathematics
Biology
Computer Science
Mathematics
Natural Sciences/Mathematics

Additionally, some of the requirements for the "Areas of Study" specify that only two 100-level courses can be used.

Most schools and students consider upper-level as 300 and above. Since TESC considers 200 as upper-level, that's the reason it is possible to achieve a degree with TESC without any traditionally considered upper-level courses (300 and above).

 

Yes, 200 level courses are considered upper level, but they limit the number that can be earned at a junior/community college.

 

I received by BS from USNY/Regents College (now Excelsior).
I did not take any classes on line; except for CLEP English my credits were from courses completed at UK and US colleges and universities.

What I liked about Excelsior is that I could plan my own degree.

My degree BS was subsequently excepted by both CSUDH and ERAU.

 

That's a bit unnerving. I was actually thinking about transferring to TESC after completing an A.S. at COSC. Now. . . I'll probably still do that, but knowing about this little loophole takes some of the shine off TESC.

 

The educational process is what the student chooses to make of it. A student may challenge himself/herself by taking upper division credit-earning courses. However, given that many students on this forum seem content to test-out and earn a minimal passing grade on CLEPs, TECEPs, ECEs, DANTES, and DSSTs it could be argued that these students are looking for an "easy" route to a degree. I quoted the word easy because testing-out is not trivial, though merely earning a passing grade has been reportedly all too easy. Hardly different than students doing minimal work on campus to earn a degree.

 

I tested out of many of the credit required for my BS and I was not looking for an "easy" way out just a FAST way to the end to start on something that will really give me an ROI - a masters degree.