I know..not another B.S. degree roadmap request :-)

[knowledgeseeker]

Greetings fellow seekers and travelers on the non-trad education road,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster, and admirer of the sage,friendly, and generous advice often posted on this forum.
I started my CLEP,DSST journey several years ago after being inspired by the BA in 4 weeks format. I had gained some momentum- was banging out cleps at light speed on a monthly basis then abruptly changed course to start a business , adopt my son, and various other personal and professional diversions that that took me away from a long time goal of finishing my bachelor's degree.
Well, since then my start up business became a casualty of this excruciatingly difficult economic climate and I am back to my original plan of completing a B.S. degree as fast as possible to subsequently enter a master's program. I've gleaned that a B.S. in liberal arts would be my best bet - I'd like to request the help and advice of the good people on this forum to formulate a roadmap. I have searched on the forum and came up some helpful posts that came close to my goal and criteria but confused me a bit more. So I humbly ask your forgiveness and implore your patience with me if my questions have been asked and answered before.
I'm leaning toward enrolling in EC (mainly because of their payment plan and relatively lower cost)after completing some more exams, and plan to reactivate my InstantCert membership unless someone can compellingly persuade me to try one of the other Big Three that might better fit my situation. I would like to as much as possible finish as many credits using Cleps and Dantes since cost of exams is a factor for me (EC exams being rather expensive). Here's what I have completed thus far :
CLEP Principles of Management : 3cr
CLEP Intro to Sociology : 3 cr
DANTES Ethics in America : 3 cr.
DANTES Organizational Behavior : 3 cr.
DANTES Human Resourcement : 3 cr.
CLEP Social Sciences& History : 6cr.
Clep Humanities : 6 credits
Clep Natural Sciences 6credits
Clep Principles of Marketing 3credits
Total credits : 36
Also took the Psychology GRE but failed to score above the 80th percentile
Sorry for the long winded post ....appreciate any help offered.

Thanks !
Bobby

[marianne202]

Welcome Bobby! Congrats on getting back on course to finishing your degree. I'm currently in the BSHS at EC and just decided to also pursue getting my BSLS with EC since I can obtain that faster while I take my courses at EC for my BSHS. I just wanted to alert you to the fact that you will be required to have UL credits for your BSLA or BSLS degree and there are few DSST's that qualify. That being said you will have to take some ECE's, EC courses or classes elsewhere. I just wanted to make sure you figure these costs and time into your plan. I just have some UL credits remaining to finish my BSLS so I'm in this pickle now trying to keep costs down and find the shortest way to finish. So start looking at your UL options so you don't hit a brick wall and slow your momentum when you get to the end. Good Luck!

[barbeque22]

I see that you said you took the GRE but failed to score above the 80th percentile. You don't have to score that high to get credit, just all the credit. Check your percentage to find out how many credits are applicable.

Also, by no means am I an expert like some of the others but I would say that excelsior might be your best choice. You have alot of professional credits that can be applied to a bachelors of science in liberal arts at ec. While TESC's ba in liberal arts only allows you to apply those credits to your electives.

[perrik]

Alert - if graded credits are important for you, take the old versions of the following DSSTs before August 31:

Principles of Finance
Principles of Supervision
Introduction to Business
Business Mathematics

These exams were just refreshed by Prometric. The new versions are available now, and use a 3-digit score; the old versions are available until August 31 and use a 2-digit score. Assuming that Excelsior holds true to form, the refreshed exams will still be accepted for credit but will not receive letter grades.

Also, regarding your psych GRE - see AlissaRoot's handy percentile chart for this exam. Ignore the score and just go by your percentile. Scoring 81% would have fulfilled the entire psych major, but note that anything over 36% gets you credits and at the 58% mark you start accumulating upper-level credits.

Excelsior requires a minimum of 30 UL credits. As of the most recent Excelsior credit-by-exam publication, there are seven DSSTs that receive UL credit: Civil War & Reconstruction; Rise & Fall of the Soviet Union; Money & Banking; Business Law II; Substance Abuse; Principles of Finance; and Management Information Systems. If you take all seven UL DSSTs, you'll still need three more UL classes/exams. If you scored at the 65% mark or higher on the GRE, you'd be set (that score garners 12 LL and 9 UL) - otherwise, you may be stuck with taking the remaining UL credits via Excelsior exams.

[NAP]

Welcome to the forum!

I agree. Check your Psychology GRE score. It is NOT all-or-nothing at EC. Hopefully you will have earned some UL credits, too.

I was also surprised to learn that the GRE scores are only valid for 5 years through ETS (the testing company). Once you have submitted you score to EC, I'm not sure if that time can be extended by keeping enrollment current, but do keep that in mind as you work with EC.

[knowledgeseeker]

Thanks for your responses and the warm welcome- glad to be here.

Marianne,
Great point about the UL credit. Will start registering for some of the UL exams Perrick mentioned in his post.

Perrick,

Thanks for the info - I'm definitely interested in letter grades where I can get them. It would behoove me to tackle some of those exams right away before they expire.

I will definitely need to call ETS and get my percentile score - I wasn't aware of the 5 year expiration - I may just be hitting the 5 year mark -I'm hoping not :-).

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced that Excelsior is the best bet for my situation.

Thank you Barbeque22 and NAP for your input.

Full steam ahead ....the journey begins again anew !

Bobby

[knowledgeseeker]

I meant faith.. and perrik ...apologies for the sticky fingers :-)!

[perrik]

I was also surprised to learn that the GRE scores are only valid for 5 years through ETS (the testing company). Once you have submitted you score to EC, I'm not sure if that time can be extended by keeping enrollment current, but do keep that in mind as you work with EC.

Once you've submitted the score to EC, you get the credit even after the score "expires" at ETS. This is assuming that you don't end your EC enrollment, of course!

I took the GRE Literature In English back in 1998 for the heck of it and scored at the 87th percentile. If I had enrolled at EC back then, I could have snagged the full major. But alas I didn't, and eleven years didn't improve my brain or grasp of post-modern literary criticism.

Anyway, knowledgeseeker, go take those pre-refreshed exams right away! Supervision and Business should be a snap for you, and MIS is very doable if you know both computers and business. EC grants letter grades for 27 of the DSSTs (before the refreshed exams kick in, anyway), and the minimum score for an A is not that high, so you can do wonders for your GPA if that matters to you. I entered Excelsior with a 2.32 GPA and (after a little judicious pruning of some nasty old credits) am graduating with a 3.08 GPA. I love graded DSSTs!

[NAP]

Thanks Perrik! That is good to know.

Another thought -

COSC awards all-or-nothing credit for the GRE at the 40th percentile. For the Psychology GRE, they award 18 credits, which would be 15 LL and 3 UL.

http://www.charteroak.edu/Current/Academ...9-2010.pdf

I don't know which school would be better for your degree plans.

[alissaroot]

Excelsior College--Blank Degree Plan Liberal Studies

General Education Requirements--9CR in two areas and 6CR in one area

Social Sciences & History, 6 or 9 Credits
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _3

Natural Sciences & Mathematics, 6 or 9 Credits, at least 2 of which must be college-level math or statistics
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _3

Humanities, 6 or 9 Credits
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _3

ALSO

English Composition Requirement--3CR Written English
_______________________________________3

Information Literacy--1CR Required
_______________________________________1

Depth Requirement #1--12 CR in a single discipline, 3 at upper level
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3UL

Depth Requirement #2--12 CR in a single discipline, 3 at upper level
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3UL

OR Scoring above the 55th percentile on any GRE exam will fulfill a depth requirement.

You will need 15 more upper level credits in the Arts & Sciences
_______________________________________3UL
_______________________________________3UL
_______________________________________3UL
_______________________________________3UL
_______________________________________3UL


Additional Upper Level Credits, you need nine--These can be Applied Professional/Free Elective
_______________________________________3UL
_______________________________________3UL
_______________________________________3UL

Additional Arts & Sciences/Applied Professional/Free Electives--up to 60 Credits
You can take whatever you want to fill up the rest of your credits, as long as it does not duplicate what is listed above
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3
_______________________________________3