When to Put in an Application

The question of when to actually apply to a given college/university is one that comes up a lot on the forum. The biggest issue is that the "right" answer is going to depend upon a number of factors. There is no one "right" answer that will apply to everyone all of the time. A flow chart is provided below to give you a general sense of when to apply.



Do you have prior RA/NA credits?
For TESU, lower-level credits usually have very obvious placement. As an example, courses named "English Composition" tend to be the same as "College Writing" in TESU's eyes. You can ask for help on the forum, or you might want to simply apply and send in your transcript(s) for evaluation. For COSC and Excelsior, the only way to easily find out is to actually send them your transcript(s) for evaluation, though forum members can make some educated guesses based on past experiences. Of note, Excelsior is the only one of the big 3 that will accept (some) NA credits. The other two require RA credits.

What is the current month?
Changes to the catalog and/or which courses are accepted usually happen on either January 1st or July 1st. If you do not have the current catalog locked in by at least applying (TESU) or by being an enrolled student (COSC and Excelsior), these changes could adversely affect you and your plans. For instance, TESU used to allow students to test out of their cornerstone class by taking Technical Writing or a similar class. They now require all students to take SOS-110 Information Literacy at TESU itself. If you were locked into the catalog year 2018 or prior, this requirement did not affect the degree you had locked in.

Do you know what you still need to take?
For people who are starting with 0 credits, degree plans for TESU recommend that you take almost all of the courses Sophia.org has to offer plus InstantCert's American Government course. See the Generic TESU Degree Plan for how this might work. This will get you to 75+ credits towards your degree - or at around 2/3rds of the way. Once you have these out of the way, then you apply to TESU and start filling in the empty slots from other sources.

Excelsior is similar. You're going to want to take as many general education courses as you can from Sophia before you apply. The biggest reason for doing this with Excelsior is that you can get your application fee waived this way. Read the Sophia.org page for more details. Of note, Excelsior has been noted to not assist students with their plans unless they have taken at least one class from Excelsior itself.

COSC requires 24 or more RA credits to be applied to your degree. Currently, the cheapest way to do this is through an inexpensive community college or through TEL Learning. The reason why it is suggested that you fill out your GE requirements with RA credits is because UL credits can be expensive to take and may be difficult to find. Save your allowed 90 credits of ACE courses for UL credits through sources like Study.com and DSST exams. 'If you do not have prior RA credits, it is currently not recommended to get a degree through COSC unless you specifically want a degree that is not available elsewhere''. The reason for this is that the RA credit requirement can significantly raise the cost of a COSC degree, pricing it beyond degrees from the other two of the big 3.'''

Once you have your general education requirements met, then you apply to the college or university of your choice to get more detailed and specific assistance from the university.

Do you want a degree from UMPI?
UMPI is a bit unique, compared to the Big 3. While the Big 3 allow you to continue to transfer in credits after enrollment (thus allowing you to see where credit goes and what you still need), the same isn't exactly true of UMPI. Once you apply to UMPI, you are automatically enrolled upon acceptance. Once enrolled, you cannot transfer in further courses without permission. While permission is usually granted, it's better to wait to apply to UMPI until you are fairly certain that you have as many credits completed as you want to transfer in. If you are unsure how your credits will work and you need help with this, make sure to ask in the forum.