Enrollment BANKING CREDIT The Excelsior College Credit Bank allows consolidation
of existing and new credit in the form of a recognized college transcript.
The cost of the service is about $200 and $25 per subsequent credit update.
The resulting transcript can then be hawked to your institution of choice.
There is no guarantee, however, that the receiving institution will accept
all or any of the credits, though they may be more likely to accept these
credits than award credit for raw proficiency exam passes garnered outwith
their "care". ALTERNATIVELY ENROLL NOW OR WAIT? If you enroll in Excelsior, all existing credit will be
transcribed at no extra cost. All future credit will be transcribed at no
further cost*. All credit can be transferred to another institution
(transcript issued) for around $8 to $25 (for rush service). Most
institutions are more likely to accept a regionally accredited college's transcript
than raw examinations. This wont matter in the case of exam credit
transfer to COSC or TESC, they're enlightened, but other institutions may
be wary of accepting such credits "in the raw" (there may be a
problem where COSC is concerned related to the order in which exams are
taken - e.g. taking advanced psychology exams before psych 101 - at
Excelsior and TESC you can take exams in any order). *If
you're enrolled more than a year, there's an annual fee to consider. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS Let's assume you are familiar with the requirements of
the degree you are seeking (Liberal Arts component, UD credits needed) WHY IT MAY PAY YOU TO WAIT 1. The amount and level of
credit awarded for GRE subject exams and your likely performance in these
tests. 2.
That Excelsior College awards letter grades to CLEP*, DANTES and
ECE exam scores, TESC does not. COSC awards letter grades for
DANTES but does not currently reveal threshold scores for grades. 3. The pass threshold of CLEP
general exams. If you do well in the GRE exams
and/or in the subject exams, you have the option of choosing Excelsior to
harvest maximum credit and/or an impressive GPA. If you do not perform well in the GRE exams and/or ECE
exams, you can plump for COSC and salvage the best possible GRE credit and
DANTES credit(COSC) and/or hide poor "C" letter grades as
pass/fail grades (COSC [ECE and CLEP grades] or TESC [all exams]). Viewing such
factors in isolation, the rubric would be:- a. Good subject GRE
and ECE, subject CLEP, DANTES scores - choose Excelsior for best GPA b. Poor subject GRE
and/or ECE and/or CLEP, but good DANTES scores - choose COSC for best GPA c. No GRE or failed
GRE, and bare passes in ECE, subject CLEP and DANTES - choose TESC to
bury exam GPA. Since the pass threshold for CLEP GENERAL exams varies
by institution, and because the general exams are necessary to fulfill a
major part of the General Ed. requirement (it's assumed you want to do all
of this be examination), this may be an important factor. WHY IT MAY NOT PAY YOU TO WAIT Excelsior, TESC, and COSC, can and frequently do change
their rules and regulations year to year, and not necessarily to the
benefit of students. For example, in 1997, Regents (Excelsior)
changed its requirement for English Composition, and after September
of that year would no longer accept the CLEP exam taken after that date,
and submitted by students enrolled after that date. Once you are enrolled, you are locked into the current
set of rules and regs. If Excelsior should suddenly decide to stop awarding
GRE credit, and you are an enrolled student who has not yet written the GRE
exam, you should be entitled to proceed under the old regulation in force
at the time of your enrollment. If you are not an enrolled student, and
have not yet written the exam, you are out of luck. (Note that if you have not enrolled but have written the
GRE exam prior to he rule change, Excelsior may accept submission of
the scores for the award of semester hour credit under the old rules.) GRE DETAILS TO CONSIDER Excelsior awards credit for GRE subject exams on a
sliding scale. A score above the 80th percentile will net you 30 semester
hours credit. A score above the 35th percentile will net you 3 semester
hours. In between, credits are accumulated in 3 credits per 5
percentile-point increments. Charter Oak State College (COSC) Awards 18 or 24 credits
for GRE subject exams for any score above the 40th percentile. 24 credits
are awarded for quantitative exams, 18 credits are awarded for non
quantitative exams. Thomas Edison State College (TESC) does not award credit
for GRE subject exams. In addition to the above, it should be noted that
Excelsior awards the first 12 credits as lower division (LD) credits. That
is, a pass above the 50th percentile will yield 12 LD credits. All
additional credits awarded are upper division credits (UD). So, a score
above the 80th percentile yields 12 LD and 18 UD semester hour credits, for
a total of 30 credit hours. COSC awards 15 LD credits + 9 UD
credits in the quantitative GREs, and 15 LD credits + 3 UD credits in
the non quantitative GREs, for a total of 24 and 18 credit hours
respectively. COSC breaks LD
credits into bas Enrollment |