My Time is Running Out

[ExpeditedInfo]

Right now I feel incredibly fortunate to have come to this forum.

Sanantone, I think you have a good point- how would it help me to have a CLEP 4.0 if Law Schools can also see and factor in all the bombed courses I have in the past? And the best answer is: it probably won't. But, as Dahti pointed out, it might. There's incredible jockeying among the top schools for their position in the U.S News and World Report Rankings, and their positions are very heavily weighted by the median LSAT Score and median GPA of each new class. There may be a school that would love to have my score and a CLEP 4.0 to report to the U.S. News and World Report Rankings.

Also, I really appreciate those links, sanantone. It'll take me a little bit to thoroughly review them, but going to start right in.

Dahti: Thanks so much! That's so awesome. I'm going to go over all of this right now.

Prloko: I have a a degree of unwarranted intellectual arrogance that has helped me out in the past. I decided to get a top percentile score and then went out and did it; even though it was pretty insane to try to do that, it worked. If I had known beforehand all of the intricacies of the test: what exactly was being tested and how cleverly the test was constructed, I may have been intimidated and not done as well. Same with my time playing poker in the late nineties/early 2000s. I had no business doing that but it worked out quite nicely.

My fear, which may be totally unjustified, is that I may have too healthy a regard for the LSAT now, and that I might not do quite as well now that I've been teaching it for years. I picture myself as a High School Track Coach, a former star who now has a fat belly, a crew cut, a whistle hanging around his neck and a cigar hanging from his lip- someone that knows much much more about running track than ever before, but who just can't perform at the same level. Even if the analogy is flawed, the fact remains that in the past there was a wealth of study material for me to use that no longer exists- I've been over most of the 70 LSATs so often than I know most of the questions- certainly all of the Logic Games by heart.

There's a legitimate chance that I might not do as well- although I suppose that I might do spectacularly well? I don't know, but I'm pretty happy with what I have at the moment.

[Daithi]

I hadn't read that he needed to send in the transcripts from the prior courses (it took a while to do up that degree plan). That definitely changes things.

[sanantone]

Sanantone, I think you have a good point- how would it help me to have a CLEP 4.0 if Law Schools can also see and factor in all the bombed courses I have in the past? And the best answer is: it probably won't. But, as Dahti pointed out, it might. There's incredible jockeying among the top schools for their position in the U.S News and World Report Rankings, and their positions are very heavily weighted by the median LSAT Score and median GPA of each new class. There may be a school that would love to have my score and a CLEP 4.0 to report to the U.S. News and World Report Rankings.

It's probably the cumulative GPA they report. The cumulative GPA is for your whole college history, not just the degree from the awarding school. You'll probably have an easier time raising your GPA at COSC since they do assign grades for certain CBEs (credit by exam).

[ExpeditedInfo]

Sanantone: We're in agreement. That's probably how it works.
Daithi: How does needing to send in transcripts change things?

[Daithi]

You would have a 4.0 GPA, assuming you got an A at TESC, *if* all you had to do was send in the transcript for your TESC degree. This would be true even though the TESC transcript would only contain a single graded course. However, if you have to send in all your grades, which is the actual case, then you won't have a 4.0.

I just Googled to see the process, and you pretty much need to go through the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) when applying for law school, and they require transcripts for ALL courses taken prior to earning your Bachelors. They calculate your GPA based on all of your transcripts and not just the courses you used to earn your degree.

Earlier, I mentioned that the U.S. News rankings matter. With this in mind, a school might accept a 4.0 GPA even though it was based on a single course. However, you won't have a 4.0 GPA now, because they will count all your courses, even though those courses aren't used in your degree. The same reasoning that helped you before is now going to come back and bite you in the butt.

[KayV]

ExpeditedInfo, I ran those 4-hour courses through the TESC PLA search, and they all seemed to transfer as upper-level political science/ econ classes. That means you would have 16 hours of UL coursework, which is all you would need with the Capstone. This could combine with your 200-level humanities credits for a BA in Liberal Studies.

Here is a possible degree plan for you. The * indicates the tests you still need. Of course, if you have any credits from your other college experiences, you might not need as many general ed or free electives.

TESC Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies
I. General Education Requirements
A. Intellectual and Practical Skills (15 +1)
CLEP College Composition (ENC 101/102) -- 6 credits
*CLEP College Mathematics -- 6 credits
EXPO E-25B Acad Writing, Critical Reading B- 4 credits
B. Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World (18)
*CLEP Social Sciences and History (SOS 101/102) -- 6 credits
*CLEP Biology (BIO 111/112) -- 6 credits
CLEP American Literature (LIT 111/112) -- 6 credits
C. Personal and Social Responsibility (9)
CLEP Introductory Sociology (SOC 101) -- 3 credits
*DSST Ethics in America (PHI 287) – 3 credits
*DSST Intro to Anthropology – 3 credits
D. General Education Electives (18)
*CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature (LIT 291/ 292) – 6 credits
*CLEP Humanities (HUM 101/ 102) -- 6 credits
*DSST Technical Writing (ENG 201) -- 3 credits
*DSST Human Cultural Geography (GOG 120) -- 3 credits

II. Area of Study: Liberal Studies (34)(19 UL)
A. Humanities (21 + 3 Capstone)
ENG-236 Creative Writing (ENG-215) – 3 credits
CLEP English Literature (LIT 208/209) -- 6 credits
CLEP Spanish (SPA 101/102/201/202)- 12 credits
Need Capstone LIB-495 (3UL)
B. Social Science (16 credits)
LSTU E-105 International Criminal Law B+ 4 (TESC POS-410 4UL)
ECON E-1040 Strategy,Conflict,Cooperation C+ 4 (TESC ECO-3XX 4UL)
GOVT E-1800 Intro/International Relations B+ 4 (TESC POS-315 4UL)
GOVT E-1064 Religion,Liberalism,Democracy B- 4 (TESC POS-3XX 4UL)

III. Free Electives (27)
27 FEMA courses from current list

[ExpeditedInfo]

Thanks, KayV! That's awesome. I'm going to find that TESC PLA search and make solid use of it.

Dahti: Holy Guacamole. My GPA is going to be almost incalculably (divide-by-zero, off-the-charts) BAD.
(Policies Related to Transcript Summarization)

Short of asking each college for retroactive withdrawals from all 0 credit courses and all of them saying SURE!, I'm toast.
Or, if I had enough money and a few years, and if I spent that money and time rocking out ten different 4.0 degrees, then I'd have a shot?! That would average everything out?

This whole process seems insane.
The sins of my past self coming back home to haunt me.

Maybe I should just open up a falafel cart.

[KayV]

Here's the PLA search link:
Thomas Edison State College: Course Offerings

You know, even if you end up not going to law school, wouldn't it feel great to finally have that bachelor's degree? You just completed a year's worth of college in less than 3 weeks, and that says something good about you to admissions committees.

[ExpeditedInfo]

Looks like I should:
1) Get the degree as directed here.
2) Take the LSAT again and this time completely knock the ball out of the park.
3) Go for the long shot: contact schools from 20 years in the past and see if there's some sort of statute of limitations on those Fs. If they might be willing to consider calling a 1989 F a 2013 I/W, I might not have to have a 1.0 GPA.

Thanks. And, yeah, it would feel good to have the degree, I just hope that financially it's worth it. I could finance a bare-bones trip around the world for the same price, have the memories of a lifetime, and feel good about that.

I'm going to go back to studying for that Biology CLEP now. Although I just realized I think I got a D in biology back in 89. Would that count as credit?

[KayV]

For TESC, a D counts for everything but English Comp and courses in your major, so yes, that D in Biology should work. And also, if you have 4 more semesters of classes somewhere, I strongly suspect you have more available credits than you realize that could fulfill elective requirements.