Possible to combine CLEP General with similar CLEP specific subject tests?

[burbuja0512]

It's all good advice.

I've thought about majors in business, history, psychology, or education.

It's amazing how inconsistent policies are between schools, but I guess they figure the less explicit and more confusing they make it the less likely people will opt out of more expensive general education lecture classes.

Do what best meets your needs, but here's a story illustrating your options based on my perspective:

Let's say that there are two different students, we can call them Fred and Ed. Fred starts his business undergrad at State U in fall of 2011. He has some loans but works part time to help pay some of his expenses and ends up owing 8k per year on the loans.

Now take Ed. Ed decides to go to one of the Big 3 in fall of 2011, he has a full time job and studies in the evening. With his full time job, Ed is able to entirely cover the costs of his study material, tuition, and tests.

By the following year, in the fall of 2012, Fred is getting ready to enter his sophmore year. Freshman year was tough, but he did well and is excited for the year to come. He can't wait until he starts studying subjects that actually relate to his major, but he's still got a bunch of general ed to get out of the way first. He's hoping that he doesn't have any more lecture hall-type classes. He doesn't learn a lot and feels ripped off that he pays full price for a class with 500 other students.

Ed on the other hand worked really hard all of 2011 and into 2012 and has been averaging a test every week or two. Some of the subjects have been easy and fun to learn, but others have been more difficult. He wrapped up all of his tests in April of 2012 and has been accepted to a MBA program for the fall of 2012. His MBA won't be cheap but he's pretty sure that he can keep his full time job while he studies. He got a promotion at work once he finished up his undergrad and plans to apply 100% of his extra earnings to his masters. He'll still end up owing about 20k once he's done with the MBA, but is totally debt free from his undergrad.

Now it's fall 2014, Fred enters his senior year in college. He has managed to keep a full courseload this entire time and will have taken exactly four years from start to finish. He's proud of this accomplishment as many of his peers are taking 5-6 years to finish their bachelor's. He's now taking classes that relate to his business major and is enjoying almost every course. He's had a great time at State U and has made a lot of friends along the way. By the time he graduates, he'll be 32k in debt, but it could be worse had he decided to attend a private school. Fred knows that in order to get the best jobs in the competitive business environment, he'd be better off with an MBA, but after spending four years of his life in school, he's tired and a little burned out. He's not sure what he's going to do when he graduates in Spring 2015, but he's seriously considering taking a few years off and trying to get a real job so he can make some money and get some business experience.

Fall of 2014, Ed has been an MBA graduate for a few months and has been able to keep his full time job this entire time. Even though he's been promoted a couple of times in the past few years, he's now ready to use his work experience coupled with his brand new masters degree to find the management job he's been looking for. He's 20k in debt so would like to hurry up and start paying that off. He's happily surprised when he's offered a general management position at a small company. The pay isn't quite as much as he thought he'd make, but it's still a 20% raise from his last company. He estimates that he'll have his MBA loans paid off within 2 years and sees that his small company is poised for growth.

Fred graduates in Spring of 2015 and has decided to hold off on the MBA. He's planning on returning to school, but is so sick of studying and turning in papers that he doesn't want to think about it for at least a few years. He's been able to get an entry-level job at a small company through a college internship. It doesn't pay very well, but he sees good potential in the position, even though at his current salary, it'll take 5-10 years to pay back the 32k he owes from his undergrad. However, his manager is young and friendly and they seem to get along really well. He scratches his head and wonders how his new boss, Ed, is so young yet seems to have much more work experience and education than he does. He hopes that he gets to know Ed a lot better and eventually will try to find out what career advice Ed can offer him.

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...Ok so my story might be a little cheesy but do you see what I'm getting at? We're not talking about a medical degree where you get into major debt, but come out making a 6 figure salary, we're talking business. Unless you can get into an Ivy league school where you will make a lot of different connections that will help you get a better job down the road, you'll be a lot better off just getting through it faster if possible. If you go the traditional 4 year route and then on to the masters, you're looking at 7-9 years plus debt, unless you're well off or get excellent scholarships. This means that if you start down the BS+MBA path at age 20, you will not have finished until you're 27-29 years old, whereas it's entirely possible to finish at age 23 if you do the Big 3 degree and take a full year to get through your tests.


Anyhow, you need to do what's best for YOU and you're the only one that can decide. If you go the Big 3 route, but lack the discipline to study daily for tests, or if you're just not a good tester, then maybe your best choice is the traditional route. It's still better to have a degree than not have one, even if it takes you a little longer

[NAP]

While you are getting a lot of interesting feedback, here is another option to consider -

Read posts by Shawn A: http://www.degreeforum.net/members/shawn-a.html

His teenage daughter earned an associate degree mostly by testing through the Big 3. It is my understanding that they were then able to successfully petition her entrance into a university as a junior with her previous credits accepted.