Why Thomas Edison over Excelsior

[sanantone]

When I was working on my first bachelor's, Excelsior was more popular. A member on another forum was pushing for me to enroll at COSC because they had the best customer service. I got an evaluation at all three schools. Excelsior's evaluation was very vague. They wanted me to enroll to have my credits further evaluated, and I wasn't going to pay them $1,000 for that. For my initial evaluation, they had only awarded me 20-something or 30-something credits. On the other hand, COSC and TESC awarded close to 60 credits. At the time, TESC still awarded upper level credits for community college courses. They don't do that anymore, but I think I still would have gone with TESC without that just because of the ease of meeting the UL credit requirements for a social science or psychology degree.

Also, at the time, TESC didn't have a capstone requirement and COSC had an enrollment fee on top of its capstone and cornerstone requirements, so there wouldn't have been much cost savings if any. COSC is the only one of the Big 3 that accepts FEMA credits directly now, but when I was completing my bachelor's, TESC was the only school doing it. Uexcels were the main source of UL credit for a psychology degree at COSC and Excelsior in the past, and those used to cost a few hundred dollars each. Most of them are now $95, but they've recently added a $50 testing fee for Pearson.

The Per Credit Tuition Plan is one reason why some people are choosing TESC now. However, I think the main reason why people are choosing TESC is because they are either having their current credits matched up to degree programs here or are receiving an evaluation at TESC. In the past, a lot of people wouldn't even consider TESC because Excelsior was the most popular option and COSC was touted for its customer service. Therefore, they wouldn't even know if TESC would be the best option for transferring their credits. Additionally, TESC students are more active on the wiki with publishing test-out plans for a variety of degree programs. When you have a roadmap laid out for you, it makes navigating the system less daunting. If I were starting from scratch with testing out with the current policies, I would either choose COSC or TESC for most degree programs. TESC has the advantage of requiring less UL credits, awarding UL credits for more tests and ACE/NCCRS courses, and the cost savings of the Per Credit Tuition Plan. COSC has the advantage of low cost if one does not want to use the Per Credit Tuition Plan, but some people don't like that they have mostly concentrations instead of majors. They will be starting a BSBA soon and have a few other majors.

Edit: COSC and Excelsior had the advantage of awarding grades for 2-digit DSSTs, but those are no longer an option. They still both award grades for Uexcels whereas TESC treats those as pass/fail.