Need help deciding between the big three.

[Merlin]

A couple of quick comments related to saraholson's post about her and her roommate's WGU experience from my perspective for those who may consider attending WGU in the future:

1. WGU program mentors are mainly there to encourage you to keep moving forward to complete your academic progress requirements. Like any mentor, they vary in quality and mentoring style. Some are terrible or incompatible with your learning style and some are excellent. The nice thing is if you get a bad or incompatible mentor you can "fire" them and ask for another that suits you better. This is also helpful since it helps WGU know so they can find better mentors. I lucked out and got an amazing mentor at the first go, so I've been very happy so far. So don't let a bad course mentor hold you back.
   
   
2. Some of WGU's courses are older and are purchased from textbook and course developers just like the ones from Straighterline so their quality varies as well. I've heard horror stories about the poor quality of some of their older courses, but I haven't run into any terrible ones yet. Their newer courses tend to be internally developed and better suited for competency-based learning.
   

For anyone considering going to WGU for a bachelor's degree, you should still take the same path that you would for the big 3. That is, you should take the lion's share of your courses via Straighterline, Study.com, Sophia, etc. (up to 90 credits worth), transfer them to WGU, and then just take the balance (like the harder to find courses) from WGU directly. This allows you can work at your own pace and make the decision to finish the last 10 courses whenever you're ready. It also means you can complete a degree at WGU in a single 6-month term, which is much less expensive than TESU or any of the other big 3 schools. Using this approach may also allow people to avoid the concerns Sarah raised above since you'll be nearly done by the time you sign up so you won't really need to worry about the program mentor or any of the other issues.

That's my perspective anyway.