WGU BS >> Masters - HELP!

[jessikalauren]

Hi there! I am starting my first term at WGU on 8/1 and will have 40 credits (or less) left to complete before I complete the BSB-HR program. I am working really quickly through these studies and I anticipate it should only take me a few months to complete it all, but of course they have a requirement that I must complete my full 6-month term before starting graduate courses.

I've asked my enrollment counselor if there is ANY way I could bypass this requirement and it sounds like they won't budge. Has anyone had experience with this that can help me feel better about this? Do you know of any circumstances where they'll make the exception that I could use? I've even told her I would pay the full price for the whole term because I truly don't mind, just want to keep moving forward.

I'm worried if I have 4-5 months to wait to continue my schooling then my momentum will grind to a halt and I won't want to continue. Plus I just want to complete all of my studies ASAP so I can move on to the non-student life. (It's the main reason why I'm transferring to WGU from a traditional university, too much "down time" for my liking.)

Thanks everyone!

[dfrecore]

If it takes you a few months to complete your degree (which to me is 3-4), then how would you have 5 months of downtime? Also, how do you know for certain that you're going to get through it so quickly?

If you do end up not being able to enroll until the term is complete, from what I've seen on this forum, I think that you can still start the enrollment process and be able to see all of the courses and such, and start doing the work on them ahead of time. I've seen people complete the papers and everything before the course started if I remember correctly. So, you could work ahead on your courses while you're waiting.

You can probably also study for the assessments while you're waiting, if there are any courses that you need to brush up on, or anything that you're unfamiliar with. Say for example you need a Quantitative Analysis course (I'm making this up). You could easily go online and take Stats and College Algebra for free on Khan Academy so that you're ready for it before you start. There are probably tons of free options for staying up to date on almost everything you need for the masters program. You could do the Study.com cheapest (non-testing) option and take any courses you might need there. Etc. Yes, I know it's not masters-level, but if you took macroeconomics and microeconomics, surely a masters level econ course would be a little easier after that (again, making that up, I have no idea what courses you need to take).

[dmjacobsen]

First of all, as a 2-time WGU grad, let me tell you that the enrollment counselors typically are not super knowledgeable of all of the various policies and requirements of the degree programs that they work with. My MBA enrollment counselor flat out told me that they would not allow me to enroll in the MBA program while also enrolled in an MSN program at my local university. I pushed hard on the issue and ended up doing it.

Having said that, I had already graduated from WGU with a BSN. I had proven that I could be successful with their model and curriculum, and also held a ~3.9 GPA in my MSN at the time.

You're just now starting out with WGU. They have no idea if you'll even complete the program, let alone move on to a graduate degree. I'm not saying this to be negative -- just asking you to look at it from WGU's point of view. What I would do in this case is rock out the courses the first couple of months and, if you look like you're well on track to complete by month 3, give them another call with your supporting evidence. You need to prove to them that you can be successful with the WGU model.

[rowan555]

First of all, as a 2-time WGU grad, let me tell you that the enrollment counselors typically are not super knowledgeable of all of the various policies and requirements of the degree programs that they work with. My MBA enrollment counselor flat out told me that they would not allow me to enroll in the MBA program while also enrolled in an MSN program at my local university. I pushed hard on the issue and ended up doing it.

Having said that, I had already graduated from WGU with a BSN. I had proven that I could be successful with their model and curriculum, and also held a ~3.9 GPA in my MSN at the time.

You're just now starting out with WGU. They have no idea if you'll even complete the program, let alone move on to a graduate degree. I'm not saying this to be negative -- just asking you to look at it from WGU's point of view. What I would do in this case is rock out the courses the first couple of months and, if you look like you're well on track to complete by month 3, give them another call with your supporting evidence. You need to prove to them that you can be successful with the WGU model.

This is great advice - my son started the BS in HR Management on 6/1 with 35 credits to complete the program. He asked his student mentor to load all the courses up in one term since he intends to complete in one term, and the mentor said no way. He completed 3 courses in the first 2 weeks and then the mentor realized he's not playing around and indeed will likely accomplish his goal. Now his mentor is being a lot more flexible with adding more courses to the current term, approving assessments, etc. Once you establish a good relationship with your student mentor, you'll have a lot more ability to do things the way you want - and that may include accessing grad school materials. Keep in mind you'll need to apply to the grad program, though, and that process may take some time. Honestly, unless you have zero other responsibilities, I don't think you'll complete the program in less than 3 months. My son is doing this same program and I imagine you have many of the same classes he needs (since most of the one's he's doing are non-transferable). Many of the upper level HR courses have 2 written tasks and an objective assessment. Just the time waiting for tasks to be evaluated takes up some time - He submitted task 1 for Workforce Planning on Monday and task 2 yesterday, and they are both still pretty far back in the queue. Also, the amount of reading is much, much higher in the upper level courses. Added to that, you must schedule assessments 3 days in advance, and you cannot schedule them until you have done well enough on the pre-assessment - usually they want you to score 10 or 15 points above the cut score before they will unlock the assessment. So that part takes a bit of time as well. My son was soaring through Straighterline courses, but the pace at WGU is just a bit slower no matter how fast you work.

[jessikalauren]

This is great advice - my son started the BS in HR Management on 6/1 with 35 credits to complete the program. He asked his student mentor to load all the courses up in one term since he intends to complete in one term, and the mentor said no way. He completed 3 courses in the first 2 weeks and then the mentor realized he's not playing around and indeed will likely accomplish his goal. Now his mentor is being a lot more flexible with adding more courses to the current term, approving assessments, etc. Once you establish a good relationship with your student mentor, you'll have a lot more ability to do things the way you want - and that may include accessing grad school materials. Keep in mind you'll need to apply to the grad program, though, and that process may take some time. Honestly, unless you have zero other responsibilities, I don't think you'll complete the program in less than 3 months. My son is doing this same program and I imagine you have many of the same classes he needs (since most of the one's he's doing are non-transferable). Many of the upper level HR courses have 2 written tasks and an objective assessment. Just the time waiting for tasks to be evaluated takes up some time - He submitted task 1 for Workforce Planning on Monday and task 2 yesterday, and they are both still pretty far back in the queue. Also, the amount of reading is much, much higher in the upper level courses. Added to that, you must schedule assessments 3 days in advance, and you cannot schedule them until you have done well enough on the pre-assessment - usually they want you to score 10 or 15 points above the cut score before they will unlock the assessment. So that part takes a bit of time as well. My son was soaring through Straighterline courses, but the pace at WGU is just a bit slower no matter how fast you work.

Thanks so much for this info and reassurance. When I posted originally I was feeling so eager and antsy. It's still a marathon and not a sprint, Jessika.

I'm also flying through SL right now so I'm just not looking forward to any downtime whatsoever. I'll have 40 credits remaining when I finally start.

[rowan555]

Thanks so much for this info and reassurance. When I posted originally I was feeling so eager and antsy. It's still a marathon and not a sprint, Jessika.

I'm also flying through SL right now so I'm just not looking forward to any downtime whatsoever. I'll have 40 credits remaining when I finally start.

I don't think you'll end up with a long stretch of downtime. My son completed 45 or so credits at SL within 3 months, but I think it's going to be a push for him to meet his goal of completing 35 credits at WGU within 5 months, which is the personal goal he set so he doesn't have an end-of-term freakout waiting for his capstone to be approved over the Thanksgiving holidays. With 40 credits to complete, I'd think at the very, very least, you're looking at 4 months. Then you can focus on applying to the grad program and getting ready for that.

[rowan555]

Will you need to take Integrated Natural Science Applications? If so I can send you the assignments if you want to get started early.

[jessikalauren]

Will you need to take Integrated Natural Science Applications? If so I can send you the assignments if you want to get started early.

So nice of you to offer! That course transferred over for me, luckily, and I finished Int. Natural Science today on SL - I vividly remember getting a D in CC Physics all of those years ago so WGU must not have accepted it. My super expensive university did, however, which is such an interesting idea to ponder.

I was thinking of asking you for assignments in other courses but since I've paid the extra month to keep working in SL through the 7/4 holiday, I'll only have a week or so until my intake interview. Hopefully I won't get in too much trouble until then Thank you again!

[jessikalauren]

Hi everyone! I'm resurrecting this thread because I've been at WGU since 8/1 and I've completed 30 of my 40 credits needed to graduate. I've started on my capstone already and I'm on pace to get the final 10 CUs done in the next two weeks - it's so crazy to think that I will likely finish my six-month term in about six weeks.

I had my regular meeting with my student mentor yesterday, and he encouraged me to write to student services about matriculating early into a master's program. He said he would have my back if I needed to appeal any decisions, because he's seen how hard I work, and he's talked to his manager about me too. I basically told him that if I have to wait until February to start a master's program, I probably won't do it at all. I hate that it's true, but life happens in the order that it wants to.

Today I received an email back from student services with two simple sentences - "Unfortunately we do not have an option for the continuous enrollment that you are requesting. Please contact your mentor for further assistance."

I am NOT ready to give up but I really need help here. Does ANYONE have any experience in this area that can help me start this program sooner? Do you know anyone at WGU I can contact, a specific department I should reach out to?