Degrees that one can secure through testing out alone

I came across the fact that BS in general business is a degree that one can get through testing out alone. Are there other such degrees from the big three (or non-TESC,COST, Excelsior also for that matter)

 

Yes. Well, ok, sort of. Excelsior will award 30 credits for completion of a GRE subject exam with an score in the 80th percentile or higher. This is enough to fulfill the major requirements for a BS degree leaving you the ability to test out of the other 90 credits the same as you would for the business degree. There are GRE subject exams in Biochemistry Cell and Molecular Biology, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Literature in English, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology. These are HARD exams. These aren't like a CLEP exam. They are designed to be taken by seniors in college that have majored in those subjects. The only one that is actually not that hard (but still requires a good deal of study) is the Psychology exam.

I say sort of instead of yes to your question because Excelsior now requires students to take a 1cr course in information literacy. You can't test out of it. This is even required for those testing out of the business degree you mention as well. You can take this course through Excelsior.

 

At the graduate level, you can test out of an MBA at Heriot-Watt University.

 

Excelsior also now requires their Business Strategy course, BUS 495, to be taken from them and it cannot be tested out of...

 

Athabasca University, (a Canadian institution) offers a 90-credit BGS (Bachelor of General Studies) degree that does not require a residency (e.g. one can transfer in all of the courses and/or exams for the degree).

Tom

 

Thank you so much. And does this entitle one to enter a Masters degree/MBA once a candidate is done with this Bachelor of General studies at Athabascau. For although middle states have accredited it, US based universities need 120 credit hours right?

 

Not sure. Athabasca is RA through Middle States, however, they do award both 90-credit and 120-credit hour Bachelor degrees. I would contact the graduate schools that you are interested in and ask them this very question.

Also, keep in mind that while Athabasca does offer the zero residency BGS degree, they do have very specific requirements for this degree that must be met. For instance, they will only accept a small number of 100 and 200 level courses in transfer. Check the site for more details.

 

Depending on your definition of "testing out" you could include some of the degrees offered by the University of London
http://www.londonexternal.ac.uk/prospective_students/index.shtml

 

I agree. The Psychology exam is very doable compared to the other, far-more-difficult GRE Subject Tests, and it's not a coincidence it's the most popular (or least unpopular) GRE Subject Test. You can read your way to an 80th percentile with the Psychology exam (along with a lot of self-testing using studying guides), unlike most of the other exams. (I am not familiar with the English Literature exam.)

 

It's too bad that they discontinued their ECE exam around 4 years ago.

 

I thought that exam sounded familiar. I took it when I finished my degree from them back in 2003. I wonder why they discontinued it.

 

I think it was for 2 reasons. First, to make some income from every business student that may just want to test out or transfer in their entire degree. The school is at least guaranteed that the student will have to take one course from Excelsior. Second, it gives a little more legitamacy to EC giving out their business degree by forcing the final "capstone" course to be taken as a full course from the college...

That was the information that one of the advisors gave me when I asked about it last year...

 

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to start seeing schools like TESC and Excelsior to start requiring more credits be taken from them in order to graduate. They both offer courses online now so I can see a day when they say something like you need 9,12,15 etc. credits from us in order to graduate.

 

This is not quite correct. Each of the 7 required and 2 elective courses require you to pass a comprehensive final exam. You can not just take the exam without first registering (and paying) for the course. It is completely up to you if you do not want to study the course material and skip directly to the exam, however, I think you will have an easier time with a GRE subject exam. I suspect the same is true for UoL exams.

However, I think there was a school in the US that would award an MBA if you passed the CMBA exam. I'm not sure if that is true.

 

Point taken. I was thinking more along the line of the cost of the course material is really the cost to take the exam. You need to sign up for the course like you mentioned but with the sole intent of taking the exam.