Roadmap for New Excelsior College Students

[japhy4529]

Okay, I am confused about the whole Excelsior college, Is this a school where you pretty much just pay and they give you a degree and you can transfer as much credit as you can or something?

Excelsior is a regionally accredited college focused on assisting adult learners (many, but not all with prior college credits) begin or complete a degree.

To this end, one accumulate credits in a variety of ways, including: taking online courses through Excelsior, testing out of courses through Excelsior ECE, CLEP, DANTES or TESC (Thomas Edison State College) exams, transferring courses or applying for prior learning assessment. With many of Excelsior's degree programs, one may test of all the requirements (with the exception of a required, 1 credit Information Literacy course).

Excelsior College is one of three unaffiliated colleges referred to on this and other DL forums as the "Big 3."

The "Big 3" schools consist of:

Excelsior College - http://www.excelsior.edu
Thomas Edison State College - Thomas Edison State College
Charter Oak State College - Charter Oak State College - distance learning college, online degrees, courses

The commonality of these three institutions is that one may transfer in credit, or test out of 100% of the requirements for a degree, without the need to take course. Now with this general statement comes a caveat. One may not test out of every degree program (e.g. Excelsior's Biology, Chemistry and Physics BA/BS programs require a certain number or science courses (w/ labs) to be completed in the classroom - or online if that is possible).

Good luck,
Tom