Looking to continue my quest for a BA by transferring to Excelsior. But, their info is so confusing, it drives me crazy.

Any brief versions for me on estimated costs for admission etc? I know the costs for tests, just curious how much they charge for getting the degree from them.

Also, how do you go about taking the ECE exams? Can you take them on line or something?

Thanks!

Christa

I totally agree with you...their site is confusing! I am also seriously considering transferring there. It seems to me that you pay the rather expensive enrollment fee and then each year that you are enrolled you pay another rather large fee. Classes are like $600 each if I remember correctly...and the exams are like 4 times more than dantes and clep but still not too bad...I have a lot of transfer credits and if I stay at my current school I won't meet the requirement that says you have to take 25% of your classes at that particular school for them to award you a degree....

ECE exams are administered at Prometric testing centers. You can find the closest testing center by going to http://www.prometric.com

Before you can take an ECE, you have to receive a voucher from Excelsior College for each exam you want to take. For instance, if you want to take World Population, you either call up Excelsior or register via their website, pay the full amount, and then you receive the voucher in the mail. You take this voucher to the Prometric center, and they'll administer the test to you. You repeat this process for every ECE.

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Steve, Webmaster

You are correct about their website - it can be the pits to attempt to navigate.

Basically, some costs depend upon which specific degree you are working towards.

Basic Fees include: $60.00 Application Fee, $895.00 Registration/Evaluation Fee, and I believe it is a $495.00 Graduation Fee. Additionally, you must pay a Service Fee of around $800.00 per year.

These fees do not include access to any of the Practice testing for the various courses, which Range from $167-295.00 on the General Ed Side of the house.

Two Key points for Excelsior are 1) You must take an Information/Research Class (1 credit) at $240.00, and a Written English Class (CLEP English Comp with Essay is NOT Accepted)

It takes up to two weeks to receive your Testing Letter for each class pre-paid for, but the good news to this is you have up to 1 year to take the test!

My local Prometrics Center realistically requires a 5 day delay in registration, so some modification of my testing plan has been required to accomidate both the college and test center.

Hope this helps.

...A

If your serious about transferring, I think they still allow you to pay a small fee (like 200 or so - don't quote me on that) to have them look at all your transcripts and give you a ball park on what will count toward the degree you want to pursue. I think they also credit that amount toward your registration fee. If you just call the department that you want to pursue your degree from, they'll help you out over the phone, that's what they did for me.
It does take a while to get the hang of their site, and registering for an ECE is not the easiest thing in the world to do. You kinda have to plan in advance, after you pay for an exam, you get a while (a year I think) to actually test. You then go to www.2test.com to schedule your exam with Prometric. And like Steve said, you HAVE to have voucher in your hand when you show up at Prometric.

Hope this helps

Thanks for all the info.

I am seriously considering enrolling in EC. I am currently enrolled at a local college and have tested out of most options (3 classes to go till AA degree). I don't want to take any more classes, just test out, but that's not possible.

Now I've checked EC and which classes I need to test out of the get an AA with them. It's about 5 CLEP exams away.

What would you do, enroll in EC now and test out of the final 5 to get my AA from EC or just keep on testing so I don't pay enrollment fees at EC and only enroll after I test out of final classes? If I enroll with an amount of credits over 60, will they still give me an associates degree without doing any work while being enrolled with them? Sorry for all the questions but I am not from here and it takes me while to figure all this American stuff out!

Thanks!

Christa

Hey Christa--

I would choose option B. That's what a lot of people do--they figure out what credits they need to fulfill to get a degree, test out of all of them, and then when they're ready, they enroll with Excelsior. The only reason you would enroll now is if you want to get life experience evaluated for college credit, see what kind of credit you can transfer in, etc..

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Steve, Webmaster

I chose Excelsior. I paid $1100 to enroll and I pay $500 per year to stay enrolled. Other than the $75 I pay per CLEP and a few books that's it. It's another $500 to graduate. As long as you are doing exams, I thinks it's a good way to go and if you have very old credits to transfer as I did. Excelsior took everything which saved me thousands.

Good Choice and Good Luck!!!