I'm imagining that, like me, many of you have amassed a wide variety of experience and training over the years. After all, we are self-motivated enough to study independently for our degree, so it's not surprising that this willingness to pursue learning has shown up in other places within our lives. The question I have is whether it is worthwhile (at least in my case!) to try to turn that wealth of varied experience into credits.

I confess that preparing a portfolio for evaluation sounds like quite a bit of work--especially in the "demonstrating" part. Also, in my case, I am not sure how much of my experience translates to a Liberal Arts degree (psychology). Yet, I don't want to sell myself short or miss opportunities.

Has anyone here pursued prior learning credits? What experience did you leverage and how did the process go for you? Also, where are/were you enrolled? I'd love to hear your input!

Alix

P.S. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, as the IC forums are appropriately about testing out. If someone knows of a better place for me to ask for input, do let me know!

this is a tough one to answer...

It really depends on the school...every school has there own policy on this and many do not offer this option...

Not to discount it though, because I do believe it is valid and has a place in receiving college credit up to a certain point. I wish I could give you my peronal experience, but I did not pursue that avenue of credit.

I have heard good and bad experiences with going for life experience credit. The better and more thorough the presentation, the more you will receive out of it...

Hope that helps a little

__________________
Excelsior BS - General Business - 2008
Enrolled at Jacksonville State University - MBA - complete in 2010 (60% complete)

121 credits...ALL DONE BABY!!!

54 credits transfered in from prior college
54 credits by examination
6 credits from community college
3 credits from CSU-Pueblo (Operations Management)
4 credits for Information Literacy and Business Strategy from Excelsior

CLEP:
Principles of Macroeconomics (64)
Principles of Microeconomics (61)
Principles of Marketing (66)
Principles of Management (72)
Info Systems and Comp Applications (57)
Introductory Business Law (65)
Social Sciences & History (61)
DSST:
Principles of Supervision (58)
Principles of Statistics (67)
Introduction to Computing (60)
Principles of Financial Accounting (56)
Principles of Finance (55)
Money and Banking (52)
Ethics in America (66)
Management Information Systems (58)
ECE:
Ethics: Theory and Practice (B)
Organizational Behavior (C)

GMAT: 600

I believe that both Excelsior and Thomas Edison provide credit for prior learning. I investigated the portfolio process briefly and decided against it--primarily because, as you observed, it seemed like a lot of work--with no guaranteed outcome. Additionally, Excelsior requires you to pay to take a course in portfolio creation prior to submission. So for me, it came up short on both the time and money fronts.

I had a pretty straight shot at some Human Resources credits as I had participated in the creation of a Policies and Procedures Manual. So, I had something tangible I could have used. As I recall, I would also needed to assemble statements from various people vouching for my involvement and then, of course, actually create the portfolio.

Compare that to studying for a CLEP, DSST or ECE exam with their well-trodden paths and a month or so later, three credits in the bag. In fact, overall, if I had it all to do again, I would have minimized every activity that wasn't studying for or taking a test. To me, that's the key to efficiently completing a degree.

Having said that, there are many people, some on this forum, for whom the portfolio assessment process worked well. You might try doing a search on the forum to see what you can find.

__________________
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
.

Thanks for the feedback.

Michael, you reinforce what I was thinking...and reminded me about the Excelsior course fee for the PLA program (which I forgot about). I was thinking that it would be faster for me to test out of things than create a portfolio for each one, but I didn't know if I was being hasty about that.

Too bad I'm not going for a business or technical degree, as it might have been worth it to leverage that experience, where I have written books on topics, developed courses, or other tangible proof. Oh, well, if I get bored down the road, maybe I'll just have to get me one of THOSE degrees and do the portfolio routine THEN.

Alix

HI all,

I was wondering if anyone here has used the portfolio route at Excelsior to get credits ? If so, can you share your experience with us.

I am thinking of trying this avenue, but what concerns me is the fact you have to pay for the credits you attempt and if you do not get them all Excelsior still keeps the $$$ you paid for attempting them. At least that is the way I read it on their website.


Thanks,

Peace123

__________________
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

HI

Just me again, looking for anyone who has attempted credit via portfolio review at Excelsior.

If you have could you please share your experience here.

Thanks,
Peace

I have not done any yet, but I have looked into it some. I also weighed the pros and cons. I prefer taking the exams where they are available, but remember if you can find a class taught at any college anywhere you can try to get it approved for PLA. I have heard of people being told after a week or two OK you are done you have the credit.

I would like to know if anyone here has tried it what they experienced.

__________________
Linda

EXAMS TAKEN
1/07 TECEP Psycology of Women (Needed/ acheived) 60/74
1/08 DSST Technical Writing 46/64
4/07 TECEP Word Processing Fundamentals 65/75
4/07 CLEP Info Systems & Computor App. 50/64
3/07 DSST History of the Vietnam War 44/66
11/07 DSST Intro to World Religions 48/65
5/08 CLEP Analyzing & Interp. Literature 50/69
5/29/08 CLEP Intro to Psychology 50/65
6/12/08 CLEP Intro to Sociology 50/69
1/27/09 CLEP Social Science & History 50/66
Finally 3 FEMA Done!!
Planned
Intro to Theater TECEP
Organizational Behavior TECEP or DSST
Physics I TECEP or EXCEL
Physics II TECEP oe EXCEL
Physical Geology TECEP or DSST
Calculus CLEP or EXCEL
Foundations of Education DSST
Intro to Education Psycology CLEP
2-3 FEMA credits
Global Environmental Change class
+ 43 B & M CC credits and 3 TESC credits and Finally on 6/30/08 an AA Degree
Eventually a BA in Natural Science/Mathmatics

Is there a particular school that is easier to work with regarding getting APL credit?

>>

You can search for it here- there was someone a while back (sorry I can't recall his screen name) who tested out/PLA of many music credits at his community college. (which were transcripted, and then forwarded to his college). Search under: guitar

I don't think I'd use the word "easy" or any of its forms relating to PLAs. In my opinion, if the college offers a class, your chance of doing a successful PLA is like getting snow in Texas....It "could" happen... You can bet that the teaching faculty will absolutely be a part of the decision process, and this decreases your likelihood to nearly nil (again, in my opinion).

I think (like Linda said above) that the best chance of a PLA is to find an obscure subject offered by another college and PLA using that description.
After taking all that into account, you could be spending a lot of time and money for nothing. Make sure the credit will be liberal arts - not career credit/applied/technology/occupational. (which is available for FREE through FEMA) I had 63 credits that I could have tried to PLA. Sounds great- until you do the math.
#1. They all would have been ultimately classified as applied science credit (free elective)
#2. BA degrees have caps on free elective credit, mine was 27.
#3. FEMA offers 27 credits for free, yet 27 PLA credits would cost $4300 to attempt.
Hummmm. Easy decision.

If you think you have liberal arts credit (math, science, humanities, social science) at or above the 100 level, that isn't available through CLEP/DSST, and isn't taught as a class at your local college where you are attempting to PLA, where you can put in 10-20 hours of portfolio preparation time, you have the resources to track down written proof and verification of every single objective in the course model that you claim to have already met, and you are willing to pay full price tuition up front with the full understanding that they could say "no" anyway....then you have full disclosure and you should go forward.

__________________
Jennifer
ALM, Master of Liberal Arts, Harvard University, 2099 or sometime sooner
AA & BA, Social Sciences, Thomas Edison State College, 2008
AOS, Culinary Arts, Culinary Institute of America, 1990

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