Hello everyone
After much debate and consideration I am sending the transcripts in to .................................................. ........

COSC
I dont know if this is the best opton for me but the thing that has sold me on them is their accredation
Our accrediting bodies include:

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges
NEASC is the accrediting board for colleges and universities located in the New England area. They are one of six regional accrediting associations in the United States. In addition to Charter Oak State College, their members include the Brown University, Boston College, Harvard, and many other reputable institutions.
The Connecticut Board of Governors for Higher Education
The Connecticut system of higher education is one of the strongest in the country with over 45 public and independent institutions, including the University of Connecticut (UConn), the University of Hartford, Trinity College, and Yale.

Sounds impressive.
So on Monday I will be sending in my transcripts. I will keep you all posted.
Cindy

Just FYI - both TESC & EC are RA schools having equal accreditation (recognized by USDoEd and CHEA).

The difference between the BIG-3 may just come down to BIG or little tuition and other costs.

If costs are of no concern then go for it - Good Luck!

I pulled this out of another thread posted by Cinderly.

Costs

Application fee:
COSC - 75
EC - 75
TESC - 75

Enrollment fee:
COSC - 1300 non-resident / 985 CT resident
EC - 895
TESC - 2300 non-resident / 1275 NJ resident

Tuition (per semester hour):
COSC - 235 non-resident / 165 CT resident
EC - 290
TESC - 165 non-resident / 125 NJ resident / 315 unenrolled

Comprehensive plan:
COSC - 3760 non-resident / 2720 CT resident (includes courses up to 12 credits + enrollment fee)
EC - N/A
TESC - 6150 non-resident / 4300 NJ resident (includes courses up to 36 credits + enrollment fee)

Annual fee:
COSC - 660 non-resident / 450 CT resident (discount if renewing within 3 months of graduation)
EC - 440
TESC - 200 within 3 months of graduation, otherwise, discounted enrollment or comprehensive plan

Graduation fee:
COSC - 185
EC - 495
TESC - 225


I'll let you make your own cost comparison.

__________________
ShotoJuku +
A.S., B.S., M.S.

Always be ready to release your mind and be willing to listen to the advice of others. Remain flexible. - Gichin Funakoshi

Excelsior really needs to put you on their payroll. You are the best recruiter I have ever met.

__________________
AAT, Electromechanics, Excelsior College 2007
BS, Political Science, Excelsior College 2008
MSSL, Strategic Leadership, Mountain State (currently enrolled) 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by originalbigjim You are the best recruiter I have ever met.

You just could be correct!

__________________
ShotoJuku +
A.S., B.S., M.S.

Always be ready to release your mind and be willing to listen to the advice of others. Remain flexible. - Gichin Funakoshi

I second this opinion. EC will never know how much ShotoJuku has helped them get new enrollies!!

Hello Shotojuku
I know you are a big fan of EC and truth be told you had almost convinced me to go the Ec way until I came upon some nasty reviews like this one:
QUOTE:
Excelsior College- The REAL story

I felt it was important to write this review based on another aspect of operations conducted by Excelsior College. The program content, books are not too bad. However, I must remind the reader of this review about the PRICE you will pay to get education from this institution.
I enrolled with Excelsior early 2008 and I was floored by an admission fee of $895.00. I took deep breaths and decided to use a program to divide the payments equally among 6 payments. This was the tricky part. I thought that this "service" was to simply divide the payments up to make it easier to enroll. Think again. This "service" was indeed a contract binding you to pay the ENTIRE AMOUNT! I contacted Excelsior after receiving a letter from them. I had stopped auto draft payments because of a serious health issue and decided to withdraw from the college until things changed for the better. I also sent them a courtesy letter explaining such. The above mentioned letter was a reply to my courtesy letter to them. The letter stated that I needed to send in a letter from my doctor stating my diagnosis and length of time that this diagnosis would affect my ability to complete the Excelsior Program. This is a demand from Excelsior to supply them with MEDICAL RECORDS to be "considered" for release from a “contract” that I never knew I accepted! They have NO RIGHT to my medical records. Sorry, that is going over the top. The letter stated simply that I owe them the rest of the $895.00 or I would be forwarded to collections! What?! Collections?! All I wanted to do was simply break the HUGE admission fee into 6 easy payments! They told me in the letter that I was entitled to a 2/3 refund of my fees IF I withdrew within six months and IF they had not completed a transcript evaluation. They got me. The transcript evaluation that "was made available to me online" that I never received in mail, email or internal website email. Since they completed the "transcript evaluation" supposedly within 3 weeks, I was now "locked in" to that $895.00 HUGE enrollment fee for their 30 minutes or less of work on that "transcript evaluation."
After you complete the HUGE ADMISSION FEE that alone equals a full semesters cost at most colleges in the USA, you will then face test out fees. For Nursing, it was a mere $295.00 each test (multiplied by 7 = OVER TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS! $2065.00 to be exact) What about books? They require MANY books at a HUGE price. After you complete your exams (7 or more at $295.00 each) you will be done with your coursework and be eligible to graduate. Wait…now you have to complete the CLINICAL PORTION. This is a tiny fee of only ONE THOUSAND EIGHT-HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS. Can't afford to pay it all at once? Just sign another CONTRACT and have 6 easy payments ONLY $310+ dollars! The cost rakes in more than approximately $5,000 for the Excelsior staff! Your education HERE is going to cost you!
END QUOTE.

Is there any truth to this. Can you get locked in to the enrollment fee by just sending in the evaluation?
Please let me know. I have already started out the process at COSC and was considering sending the evaluation at EC but now i am a little scared.
Thanks Cindy

I don't have first hand experience with Excelsior but I did do a rough cost analysis for a bachelors degree. It is a BARGAIN!!!!! I estimated the final cost to be somewhere between $ 8-9,000. I spent nearly half that much on a Project Management Certificate class from the local state college. It looks nice framed.

Any business or institution will expect you to pay for the services you sign an agreement for (contract) and send you to collections if you don't. Most won't ask for a note from the doctor, but hey, these are educators. If you go the testing route you can complete the entire "degree" without paying any administration costs if you want to. Until you are ready for the diploma. If there is a cheaper alternative to obtaining an accredited degree, I would sure like to hear about it.

Bottom line is nothing in that post should scare you a away from Excelsior or any of the Big 3.

If you want to get a sense of how cheap it is, just tell the costs to someone who has student loan payments. When I told my date this weekend how much I expected to pay she said "DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH I PAID!" You can be sure I will never mention the cost of our dinner was almost the cost of a 3-6 credit CLEP test.

Just my $.02

__________________
CLEP

Social Sciences & History..... ..- 69
US History I Col-1877............- 75
American Government ...........- 68
US History II 1865-Pres........ .- 77
Intro to Sociology................ .- 75
Intro to Psychology.............. .- 76
Human Growth & Development.- 74
Info Sys & Computer App........- 69
Analyze & Interpret Literature..- 79

You do not get locked into the enrollment fee by sending in your application. The person that posted that review actually enrolled with Excelsior, then wanted to cancel their enrollment. Excelsior actually has the lowest enrollment fee of the Big 3. It sounds like the reviewer did not have a good understanding of how Excelsior works as all of the Big 3 have enrollment fees. That is the price you pay to be able to have such great flexibility with transferring in credits.

For example, the school that I am currently enrolled in - American Public University, has no enrollment fee. However, you have to take atleast 30 credits through the school at $250.00 each (books included). I love APU, the school is great and the price is great (especially since it includes books), but it is still going to be cheaper and faster for me to transfer to Excelsior to finish up my degree - even with the enrollment fee. That is due to the fact that I can take more Clep, Dantes, and ECE's than I could with APU.

I think it all depends on exactly what you are trying to do. If you want to test out of a bunch of credits the Big 3 is the way to go. If you want to take more classes I would go with a more traditional online school.

Well Cindy...where to start? First off I'd like to complement you on successfully unearthing some negative "press" on EC. Part of the reason I chose EC was because despite my best efforts--I wasn't able to find ANY bad press. So--it appears you are leaving no stone unturned--which is good. However, whoever wrote that review seems a little....well....green. I mean, she just uses a lot of CAPITALIZATION and EXCLAMATION POINTS to describe some otherwise NORMAL COSTS AND TRANSACTIONS!!

I'll just hit a couple obvious points quickly. First off, anytime you sign something agreeing to divide a cost into a series of payments--you are almost always, in fact, obligated to make all of those payments. If you could find reviews of other products from this person, they would probably sound something like:

...and when I signed a piece of paper dividing the cost of my car into 36 payments of $400 each, I had no idea I would have to make EVERY PAYMENT! ON TIME! I got sick shortly thereafter and stopped making payments--but they didn't care and charged MORE INTEREST and sent me to COLLECTIONS!!

What she refers to as the "admissions fee" is the cost of the first year's tuition--so it actually covers a year's worth of semesters and no one should find it shocking that you are, in fact, obligated to pay that. After the first year, you pay about half of that each subsequent year. However, that was written before Excelsior received their Title IV status so now you can use federal loan programs if you choose. However, they also expect you to pay them!

Based on her account alone, they didn't ask for any medical records at all. They just asked for a doctor's note stating her diagnosis and the length of time she would be disabled. Nothing wrong that. I don't know why she's YELLING about PRIVATE MEDICAL RECORDS--but, like I said, it appears that she may have crawled out from under one of those rocks you've been overturning!

In any event, I would be interested in reading any other "nasty reviews" you've seen--so please keep them coming. I applaud your tenacity and would encourage you to thoroughly search this forum in particular to make a fully-informed decision.

As far as the issues raised here, you should not let any of that "information" influence your decision. Any of the "big 3" will be just fine based on what I've learned--but you shouldn't let long accreditation descriptions or uninformed financing rants guide your decision. The "Cinderly synopsis" in this thread is a great place to do a rough comparison for costs. Just keep in mind, if you plan to follow the testing route and use as many CLEP and DSST tests as you can, the costs of courses at any of these colleges are not nearly as important as the other factors.

Good luck!

__________________
Michael

CLEP - ISCA 68, Sociology 72, Psych 73, A&I Lit 61, HG&D 65, Ed Psych 70, Marketing 72, Management 69, Macroeconomics 63, Microeconomics 67
DSST - Intro to Comp 66, MIS 61, Supervision 67, Counseling 58 - no study!, Personal Finance 67, Statistics 60, Criminal Justice 57, Ethics 58, Finance 63 (All A's at EC)
COC - 2007 (Community College) - Acctg I&II 10c, Work/Study 4c, Intro to Research (Info Lit req) 1c, Society and Rock & Roll 3c, Fund of Music 3c, Guitar I & II 4c, Bass Guitar I 2c
ECE - Ethics (A), HRM (B), Organizational Behavior (B) | CSU - Operations Mgmt. (A) | TECEP - Business Policy 80 (CR)

My Excelsior Degree Journey

Bachelor of Science in General Business, cum laude
Excelsior College
.