BS Psych

Hi
I am new to all of this and need help. I want to test out with a BS in Psych. I am thinking of going with excelsior as they will hold accumulating credits for 6months on a courtesy hold, then I could hope to enroll and be done in another year. What courses would I need to test out? Really important as I would hate to test out the wrong ones!I joined instant cert. Can I pass with just this guidance? My degrees are all international theology based so I figured this may be the route to go. They are psych, counselling and I also have a mortgage brokers license, Nothing is regionally accredited. I wish to enroll in Fielding and do the clinical psych P.hD. with a specialization in Neuro psych. They need the regional accreditation. I have almost no money until I win a court case so I felt this could be the way to get a life back! It will take about 18 months in which time I figured I could do the testing out

has anyone else done this..is it possible?

Thanks!

 

I believe that there's a lady named LoriA over at www.degreeforum.com who is doing here psych degree at one of the Big Three. I think she might be doing hers through Charter Oak.

 

Hi

Welcome to degree info. I don't believe a complete BA/BS in Psych. can be tested out of at any of the Big Three. You could test out of everything except the core requirements so the 18 month time frame might be really doable.

 

30 psychology credits are needed for a major in psychology. At least 15 must be upper. This will get you a major in Psychology, but not entrance into a PhD rogram.

I. Core requirements

A. General Psychology/Introductory Psychology
can be fulfilled by CLEP Introductory Psychology (3 Lower)
B. Statistics (psychological or equivalent)
can be fulfilled by Excelsior Exam 408 Statistics (3 Lower)
C. Research Methods/Experimental Psychology/Experimental Design
can be fulfilled by Excelsior Exam 436 Research Methods in Psychology (3 Upper)

II. Intermediate and upper-level courses in central knowledge areas or subdisciplines of psychology, including a minimum of one course in each of four areas from among the following representative course titles:

A. Biopsychology/Physiological Psychology
B. Comparative Psychology/Animal Behavior/Ethology
C. Perception/Cognition/Sensation
D. Learning and Memory
E. Psycholinguistics
F. History and Systems
G. Social Psychology
can be fulfilled by Introduction to Social Psychology (PSY-370-TE) (3 Upper)
H. Developmental/Child Psychology, Psychology of Adolescence, or Adult Development/Aging or Lifespan Development
can be fulfilled by Excelsior Exam 583 Life Span Developmental Psychology (3 Lower), or Excelsior Exam 407 Foundations of Gerontology (3 Upper), or Excelsior Exam 485 Psychology of Adulthood & Aging (3 Upper)
I. Motivation
J. Abnormal Psychology
can be fulfilled by Excelsior Exam 459 Abnormal Psychology (3 Upper)
K. Psychology of Personality
can be fulfilled by Thomas Edison State College Exam Psychology of Personality (PSY-352-TE) (3 Upper)
L. Educational Psychology
can be fulfilled by CLEP Educational (3 Lower)

III. Electives
Additional psychology courses including advanced courses built on the foundation of the courses listed above or within the followi specialized areas: Applied Psychology; Behavior Modification; Clinical Methods; Death and Dying; Exceptional Children; Group Dynamics Interpersonal Relations; Human Services; Independent Study/Research/Advanced Labs Community Psychology; Industrial Psychology Human Factors; Measurement (Psychometrics Psychohistory; Psychology of Adjustment; Psychology of Disability; Psychology of Women; Psychopharmacology; Sex Differences; Sexuality/Reproduction; States of Consciousness; Stress; Substance Abuse/Rehabilitation; Topical Seminars

can be fulfilled by Ohio University Course Credit By Examination Behavior Genetics and Individual Differences PSY 315 (3 Upper)
can be fulfilled by Ohio University Course Credit By Examination Psychological Disorders of Childhood PSY 376 (3 Upper)
can be fulfilled by Ohio University Course Credit By Examination Psychology of Health and Illness PSY 380 (3 Upper)

can be fulfilled by DANTES/DSST Drug and Alcohol Abuse (3 Upper ??)
can be fulfilled by DANTES/DSST Fundamentals of Counseling

can be fulfilled by Excelsior Exam 429 Organizational Behavior (3 Upper)

can be fulfilled by Thomas Edison State College Exam Psychology of Women (PSY-270-TE) (3 Upper)
can be fulfilled by Thomas Edison State College Exam Thanatology: An Understanding of Death and Dying (PSY-300-TE) (3 Upper)
can be fulfilled by Thomas Edison State College Exam Behavior Modification Techniques in Counseling (PSY-339-TE) (3 Upper)
can be fulfilled by Thomas Edison State College Exam Industrial Psychology (PSY-363-TE) (3 Upper)

Might be able to use the following Thomas Edison State College Exams as electives
Marriage and the Family (SOC-210-TE)
Social Gerontology (SOC-315-TE)
Alcohol Abuse: Fundamental Facts (SOS-301-TE)
Substance Abuse: Fundamental Facts (SOS-303-TE)

--------------------------
if you want to be admitted into a clinical psych P.hD with a specialization in Neuro psych, then you will probably need at least once course in each of the following groups
Biopsychology/Physiological Psychology
and
Perception/Cognition/Sensation
and
Learning and Memory
and
History and Systems

instead of
Social
Educational
Developmental

you've got to be able to impress the admissions committee with difficult/nervous system/brain related courses
------------------------------------
and these are just the Psych courses. Then you have to fulfull Excelsior's English, Math, Science and other requirements
------------------------------------
the cheapest way to get 30 Psych credits is to score above the 80th percentile on the GRE Psychology subject exam. Excelsior will give you a major in Psych for that. But I think it is listed on your transcript as 30 General Psychology credits. That is not the kind of course list that will impress an admissions committee. But you'll have to take the Psych GRE and do very well anyway if you want to get admitted into grad school.

 

http://www.uidaho.edu/isi/collinfo.htm#psych

here are some relatively inexpensive 'advanced' independent study courses

you work and study on your own, they allow a minimum of three to four months to complete a course, but you have one full year from the registration date to complete a course.

but it takes more than one exam per course

 

BA Psych COSC

I am, God willing, finishing up my BA in Psych at COSC, and all my credits have been exam-based except for a basic computer course and a one-credit course in Biblical Archeology, and my final psych course which I am doing now, in Cognitive Psychology, from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (which I would recommend both for the quality of the course as well as the fact that it was the least expensive Cog Psych course, for which no exam acceptable by COSC was available). They are worth looking into: http://distance.uaf.edu/info/index.html. They offer both one-year and semester-based courses. I was able to test out of the rest of my major with a GRE and a bunch of Dantes and Excelsior exams.

Matt

 

Wow,
Thanks for all the help!! This is impressive. I have two RA schools that will take me after I gave them my background and recommends. They are just requiring that I get an MA or MS from somewhere R.A. for legal reasons. I want to do cognitive rehab. I also want my degree to be as online based as possible as I will still do work for missions internationally.

Matt, If you dont mind sharing what courses did you take from beginning to end/ The cognitive psych sounds awesome. I did take some open courseware from MIT in memory, cognitive science etc just to see if I could do it and it was info that proved very useful!

James Lankford thanks for the great list of what I need. I already knew it would be a major commitment but I have wanted to do this all my life and now that I am geographically limited due to injuries but I will eventually have funds so I am going to live my life to the fullest. Apparently Fielding will take me through the masters and into the PhD. I have already got people who will publish me and have internship offers. I sustained a TBI and rehabbed myself. I have gone from impaired to normal in the affected areas the ones untouched by injury are superior/gifted. Testing out/or not will be my personal guideline as to whether I am able to do this.

Thanks!

 

Like I said earlier, except for what I noted above, everything was done via exam except for 7 out of 121 credits total. It is perhaps worth noting that I originally did a TESC AA degree, and transferred over to COSC in part to take advantage of being able to use GRE subject exams. It was something of a trade-off, in the sense that while I gained 36 credits via two GRE subject exams (Psych. and Lit.), I lost 14 credits that didn't transfer from my TESC program: notably my NYU Foreign-language exam (11 credits) and my TECEP Political Science exam.

For the Psych concentration, I took the GRE subject for 18 credits, then last Summer I took Dantes Drug & Alcohol exam, Fund. counselling, lifespan development, org. behavior, and Excelsior research methods and abnormal psych. I'm now about half-way through my U Alaska Cog. Psych course, which has been a lot of work, but I'm learning a lot and enjoying it.

Hope this helps.

Matt

 

Hi
Sorry Matt, I should have said what courses did you test out of? Or which exams did you take?I have maybe 30 credits and the rest I will need to test out SAP over the next 18 months, then I will have cash and Fielding will take me. The other courses posted by you and James looked very interesting and economical so I may change my strategy! Thanks for all the time and info sorry I am so green! I never expected to change what I was doing so of course never looked into it.
Thanks

 

Free self-guidance

If you're in a hurry, why not download the free Psych GRE practice test from ETS to see how you do--maybe after spending some time with a good review text?

(Amazon reader reviews seem to give pretty consistent assessments of the various--rather cheap--GRE subject prep texts.)

If the 80th percentile seems within reach, as you can judge by your raw score and the tables supplied, then after passing the Excelsior exam in Psych Research methods, you'd have your major, according to

http://bain4weeks.com/GREsubject.html

At any rate, after confirming what COSC and Excelsior would offer you for your likely score, you'd be able to compare choices before making any.

Good luck.

Bill

 

Great idea! Thanks

 

to start off, I would suggest this video, which may be at a near library
http://www.standarddeviants.com/pls/brain/goldhil.show_product?p_product_id=50

and this book
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1840460598/ref=pd_sim_b_5/002-2407733-7716861?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

these will give you a great, inexpensive and relatively easy general introduction to Psychology and all you need to pass the CLEP Introductory Psychology exam

Then, if you want to take other exams, I suggest buying a USED college textbook for General Psychology

these are two of the books used at Columbia University in New York
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393976092/qid=1123543454/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-2407733-7716861

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0716751623/qid=1123543660/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-2407733-7716861?v=glance&s=books

either of these, pluse the book and video mentioned above, will give you enough to pass the Excelsior LifeSpan Developmental and Abnormal Psychology exams and the CLEP Educational Psychology exam
------------------------------
these are the entrance requirements for the The Psychology Ph.D. Program at Columbia.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/dept/grad/admitcop.html

Prerequisites

Admission to the Ph.D. program is based on an overall evaluation of applicants' scores, grades, recommendation letters, as well as potential for scholarship in our program. A general guideline for admission is a minimum score of 1200 on the combined verbal and quantitative GREs. While the psychology GRE is not required, it is strongly recommended. An undergraduate major in psychology is not required but it is an advantage to have had undergraduate psychology courses as well as statistics. There is no language requirement....
---------------------------------
You will see that the Psych GRE is not required, and neither is a Psych degree. However, they only admit SIX students a year. So they are HIGHLY selective. That is why I say you should be selective in the courses you take. Ten exams in basic/social psychology will not impress your grad school admissions committee.
---------------------------------
I know nothing, but I would suggest thesee courses/exams in this order ...

Introductory Psychology / CLEP

583 Life Span Developmental Psychology / Excelsior Exam

Educational Psychology / CLEP

459 Abnormal Psychology / Excelsior Exam

Physiological Psychology
http://www.uidaho.edu/isi/courses/psyc372.htm
or
http://www.distance.uaf.edu:591/FMPro?-db=cde%5fcourses.fp5&-format=fp5%5fdetail.html&-lay=courses&-sortfield=Department&-sortfield=CourseNumber&SectionNumber=UY9%20UY8&-lop=or&-max=1000&-recid=12592735&-find=

Learning and Cognition
http://www.distance.uaf.edu:591/FMPro?-db=cde%5fcourses.fp5&-format=fp5%5fdetail.html&-lay=courses&-sortfield=Department&-sortfield=CourseNumber&SectionNumber=UY9%20UY8&-lop=or&-max=1000&-recid=12593790&-find=

PSY 315 Behavior Genetics and Individual Differences / Ohio University Course Credit By Examination
http://www.ohiou.edu/independent/desc_sht/psy315cce.htm

Drug and Alcohol Abuse / DANTES/DSST Exam

Fundamentals of Counseling / DANTES/DSST Exam

BioEthics
http://www.ohiou.edu/independent/desc_sht/bios384cce.htm / Ohio University Course Credit By Examination
or
Ethics / Excelsior Exam

408 Statistics / Excelsior Exam

436 Research Methods in Psychology / Excelsior Exam

X105 Introductory Biochemistry
http://explore.berkeley.edu/UCExt/courseview.asp?secid=506&value=6.2.&action=Internet

Possibly
X121 Principles and Techniques of Molecular Cell Biology
http://explore.berkeley.edu/UCExt/courseview.asp?secid=508&value=6.0.&action=Internet

Anatomy & Physiology / Excelsior Exam
--------------------------------------
that will give you enough credits for a major in psych and good, deep. hard bio based psych courses that will impress an admissions committee

X105 is probably going to be necessary for a real understanding of brain protiens, drug interactions and stuff like that

X121 course isn't a psych course at all, but Columbia requires something similar for undergrads majoring in Neuroscience & Behavior. So having this would be a nice plus, but only if you think it would really help.
------------------------------------
also check out this site, if you want an online semester length class, where you'll work with a large group of other students.
http://sln.suny.edu/sln/public/slncatalog.nsf/fd4fae5257189eb685256fb6004a1447?OpenView&Start=1&Count=1500&Expand=74#74

I hate these kinds of classes myself.
I prefer independent study so I can work alone and go as fast or as slow as I want.

 

Have you Considered BYU?

Hi - If you decide to take some Psych courses instead of (or to supplement) taking exams, you may want to look at BYU. While it's not possible to complete a Psychology degree online through BYU, you can take most of the Excelsior (and other college) Psych degree requirements through them. Lower and Upper division courses are offered. In fact, BYU is a preferred provider through Excelsior. This means that courses at BYU will transfer to Excelsior with no issues (although I hear that Excelsior is fairly liberal with credit transfers).

You may check out BYU's online course offerings here:

http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/


Good luck!

- Tom

 

James and Bill gave some good info above. I would add that:

1. The study guide that I found most helpful for the Psych GRE (and for some of the other individual psych exams as well) was Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE Psych Subject exam. You can check into it 2nd hand through Amazon or eBay's http://www.half.com

2. Bearing in mind that, once again, except where otherwise noted, everything I noted above I "tested out" of, I also tested out of the following:

CLEP:

1. Eng. Comp w/Essay (Excelsior doesn't accept)
2. College Spanish (12 credits total!)
3. Intro. Sociology

DSST (Dantes) (in addition to those already noted)

1. Intro. Modern Middle East
2. Intro World Religions
3. General Anthropology
4. Astronomy
5. Intro College Algebra
6. Here's to Health
7. Civil War
8. Vietnam War
9. Soviet Union
10. Ethics (probably the easiest of the ethics options; COSC didn't require the essay part!)
11. Criminal Justice
12. Environment
13. Western Europe

Generally speaking, the DSST exams seemed to be the best option on subjects where they were available as they are less expensive (though CLEP may actually be the same). The fact that a lot of history exams were available for elective credit was also nice for a history buff like me.

The suggestion that you choose your college (COSC or Excelsior) based on your GRE subject scores is a good one, although I'll add that everything I've heard has indicated that the Charter Oak administrative people are a lot nicer and more efficient to deal with.

My 2 Rupees! (;->

Matt

 

And why would you think that this wouldn't get one into a PhD psych program?

 

Clinical Psyc. degrees have specific requirements beyond just a Bachelor's level degree. Also these programs are fiercely competitive so I am not sure they would look favorablely on a degree consisting mainly of Psyc. GRE.

 

This APA-approved Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology only requires a bachelor's in Psychology, or a master's in any field:

http://www.immaculata.edu/Graduate%20Studies/Admission%20Graduate%20Studies/Doctoral%20Clinical%20Psychology.htm

 

Hi all.
First you are amazing thanks for all the help! I downloaded gre practice..I am concerned that the actual test will be harder as they are giving a lot more credits for it.

I talked to admitting at Excelsior and they are sending me a book on testing out plus a generalized degree plan. She suggested testing out of the core stuff then getting with an admit counsellor to refine and define the degree. Apparently a BS in liberal studies can be tested out with the exception of seven credits!

I told them my long sad story and just explained this is what I want from whichever school I go with...they were really helpful. They even have a courtesy hold where you can have clep, dantes, etc sent to them and they will hold it for 6months to give you time to accumulate before you register! Apparently we can even use Fema credits, just pay the small fee to have them put on ACE transcript, Frederic college can be bypassed as Excelsior is a credit granting institution. They did warn me that each Fema course was not worth much but definitely worth tossing in the pile.

I really like the idea of going with the material that will enhance my later studies as several of you suggested.

It is correct that clinical psych Phd has fierce competition. Nova South Eastern neuropsych dept says the competition is greater than for med school. Fielding says they have one place for every twenty applicants but also says the percentage is lower when you count the people who actuallly qualify from an intellectual, financial and emotional perspective. My feeling is they have to pick someone so It might as well be me!! APA said just keep trying until someone volunteers to take you dont give up!

I am totally impressed by all the people who are doing this and really hope I am able to join the ranks of examination by Degree!

Thanks

 

Hi Steve

I am not familiar with Immaculata University. I see the start the Psyc. Ph.D. program in 1994. I did check most the programs on the west coast. I noticed Immaculata really doesn't provide too many details on their requirements. For example, they don't say it must be RA but I would bet they do require such. Interesting link.

 

I meant to say ' This will get you a major in Psychology, but not NECESSARILY entrance into a PhD rogram.'

I was attempting to layout a deep and thorough course list that would increase his chances of being accepted and give a head start to neuroscience concepts, while at the same time conveying that I don't know what I'm talking about