Please help me choose a college..

[allanv]

Hello everyone. I'm fairly new here, but I have been fairly intensively reading this great forum trying to figure out what my next step is. You guys have heard it all before, but maybe if I detail my specifics some of you can offer advice about which way I should go.

Here goes:

I want to complete a RA Bachelor's degree. I am older and primarily want to finish my degree for personal satisfaction. I have had a fairly successful career in advertising and I do not need the degree to keep working...but I realize that a legitimate degree can come in handy if I need it.

I will probably go for the shortest, most cost efficient path to a degree, no matter what the degree is in. I may want to continue and get an advanced degree, but that is not my priority and it is not my main focus now.

I have 92 prior quarter-hours of credit from a major state college, but about 15 of those hours are D grades. I have a poor GPA from those days as well...I had plenty of A's but some real stinker grades as well. Overall GPA was about 1.7 or so. Oh, and most of the courses cover the general ed requirements. Lots of math, speech, english, etc. Not much History.

My area of expertise is in television advertising. I know a pretty fair amount about cinematography.

I have recently taken two CLEP tests (Info Sys and Comp App and Prin of Mktg) and passed them both pretty easily. I will take a couple of more tests this week and with the IC test and other tests I feel pretty good about them.

With all of that said, I would like to enroll in a school that would allow a generous transfer of my credit, maybe allowing my D grades to come in. I would also like to accumulate other credits through testing, or even the FEMA credits, but I would also like to get a lot of credits through PLA, in the area of cinematography and advertising. I have found a ton of UL courses from USC film school or SCAD that I can easily prepare a PLA portfolio for. I am looking for a minimal residency requirement.

A dream degree might be something like "General Studies with a Concentration In Cinematography" or something like that. However, I would certainly consider testing out of as much as possible and going with a more traditional degree.

I have applied to TESC, EC, Ashford. I have looked at City College of Seattle, COSC.

I keep hoping that I'll stumble upon some famous-name B&M college that would magically work without a ton of residency requirements, but I know that's not likely. I'm a little nervous about how the Big 3 will be perceived should I ever need to use the degree, but I know that's probably where I will end up.

That's my story- sorry to be so long winded. I'm really hoping that someone can help point me in the right direction.

Thanks for checking this post out.

Allanv

[skyfall123]

Hi Alan,
Most state colleges offer a General Studies degree with between 20-30 hours of residency required. You could go that route. You could even get an Ivy League General Studies degree from Columbia Columbia University School of General Studies or Harvard Programs : Harvard Extension School or brand name Penn State Penn State | Earn an Online Masters Degree, Bachelors Degree or Associate Degree if you have plenty of time and scratch. The PLA route costs money as well. It you decide to pursue an arts degree, then check out TESC's BA in Photography which has a concentration in Film and accepts PLA credit Thomas Edison State College | BA in Photography Credit Distribution. IMO, the most cost effective route will still be testing out from either TESC or Excelsior. With your background, it would seem to me that a Business degree would be practical and not that much more effort than a Liberal Studies degree. I earned 72 credits and a General Business degree from Excelsior in a little less than 6 months going the testing route...mainly CLEP, DANTES, ECE and TECEP.
Good luck whichever way you go!

[barcotta]

I believe you can get your "dream degree" from Charter Oak--as they allow you to tailor custom degree plans for custom General Studies degrees. As I'm sure you've discovered, no one institution is going to cover everything you want--and you're not likely to beat the Big Three in speed/efficiency or cost. In terms of acceptance--I believe that the older you are--the less the degree matters--particularly if you are not changing fields.

In terms of Big Three acceptance, in my own little circle, I know three graduates. One retired from the Department of Defense, another is currently employed by the Secret Service and the third used her Charter Oak degree to get a counseling job at our local community college.

There's hundreds of thousands of these degrees out there. I've been researching this on and off since the early 90's--and fairly intensely over the last two years, and I've yet to see a story where someone was turned away from an opportunity because they had a degree from one of the big three. That's not to say it never happened--but if I can't find ANY evidence of it despite my best internet-researching efforts--I'm not going to worry about it. In fact, I recently learned from the employee screening service that my employer uses (background checks, education verifications, etc.) that those businesses who ask them to verify degrees only ask them to verify that the student is actually a graduate of the institution on their resume. They don't even care if it's accredited!

[allanv]

Thanks for the great advice. This forum is amazing, and the effort that folks like you put into it just to help others is a wonderful thing to behold!

[cookderosa]

Thanks for the great advice. This forum is amazing, and the effort that folks like you put into it just to help others is a wonderful thing to behold!

>>

Let me ask you a question. Would you consider yourself a "D" student now? I am guessing no. You wouldn't have made a career in business if you really were only "D" material, so I might suggest going for a business degree from EC or TESC and starting from scratch. Honestly, a motivated adult of average intelligence can complete all 120 credits in one year. Now, add in the FEMA credits, a few of your better grades, and the 6 credits you just tested out of and your first year is already finished! (my entire degree from zero has taken 18 months, and that includes 1 year of classes in my major while testing)

Something to consider- you can CLEP over your bad grades- so if you earned a "D" in Intro to Psych, you just need to take the Intro to Psych CLEP and it will change to "credit" which has no impact on your GPA. Use this strategy to CLEP over anything you want changed. The DSST exams count as credit at TESC, but letter grades at EC...so that can be a pro or a con depending on your score. You can also technically do this technique with coursework, but that is more expensive and time consuming....if you feel there is something interesting or a weakness you want to fill, this is still a good option.

I won't sell you on the validity of a degree from one of the big 3, that subject has been beaten to death, so you can probably find some good threads running a search here. For the record, the big three are 100% regionally accredited, valid, legitimate, and recognized in every capacity. You can continue onto grad school as well.... but that is for you to wrestle with.

At your age, your resume isn't empty. You have gotten this far in your world without a degree at all. If you were young and had nothing else in your resume except a degree, you could look like an employment risk...but isn't that the case with any new college grad? For a mid-career adult, it's just "checkin' the box." You already have a resume, and this will just get tucked neatly alongside your accomplishments. (and the MBA that you'll probably get next....you read it hear first :eek: )

Welcome to the board!!!