BAin4Weeks.com

Many students have found their way to the forum by first stumbling upon BAin4Weeks. Sadly, the methods outlined in the site are are years out of date. The spirit of the site lives on, but different methods will be needed to achieve the goal of getting a degree quickly and cheaply. So, what do you need to know about these methods?

Cornerstones & Capstones
When BAin4Weeks was created, the big 3 did not require students to take capstone or cornerstone courses. Everything could be fully completed with exams. Today, all three schools require capstone and cornerstone courses. Depending on the school, these can take 8-12 weeks apiece and can add 4-6 months to your degree journey.

RA credit
Although the big 3 still allow you to transfer in the majority of your credit, both COSC and TESU have started requiring students to have at least 30 credits from another college or university. While these credits can be obtained using TECEP and UExcel exams, one can no longer obtain most necessary credit via CLEPs and other alternate sources. For the amount of work required getting the RA credit, if you have none, it is often simply faster to use UMPI.

GRE Exams
Once upon a time, the big 3 actually gave significant amounts of credit for being able to pass a GRE subject exam. At the time that BAin4Weeks was written, it was possible to get up to 30 credits for this one exam. This is no longer the case. Students now must take up to ten exams now to replicate the same effect as taking a single GRE exam. Fortunately, this can actually be significantly less stressful and easier than studying for a single massive exam!

CLEP Exams
First of all, CLEP exams now have a 3-month waiting period if you fail an exam. If you fail a vital CLEP exam, you'll have to wait 3 months before you can take it again, so you definitely wouldn't be able to complete your Bachelor's degree in 4 weeks.

But CLEP exams are still a valid (and good) source of credit when obtaining your Bachelor's degree. You can even take them for free if you use Modern States to study. That's where we hit a snag: most people cannot take these exams cold. You must study. Study takes time and energy and then you must still schedule and take the exams themselves. Instead of CLEP exams for most general education requirements, Sophia.org courses are usually suggested instead. Most students can complete a Sophia course more quickly than they can study for a CLEP exam, and there is no pesky exam scheduling to deal with. If you need credit in a specific area that Sophia doesn't cover, then a CLEP exam would be the way to go. Otherwise, Sophia is usually suggested.

Study Time
BAin4Weeks tends to gloss over exactly how much time you'll spend studying before embarking on your "4-week degree". Getting a degree in 4 weeks makes for a snappy website title, but few students were ever actually able to achieve that result. The suggested loop of "mock exam, revise knowledge, mock exam" until achieving a proficient score is one that could take weeks for a single class. As of 2022, it is much easier and faster to use sources like Sophia.org and Study.com to complete the course in an even shorter amount of time.

Increased Credit Availability
When BAin4Weeks was created, options for credits were few and far between. BAin4Weeks was a viable strategy because there wasn't that much in the way of other options. As recently as 2017/2018, many students were forced to obtain Liberal Studies degrees because it was too difficult, or expensive, to obtain credits for most other majors. This is no longer the case. There are more sources of credit than ever before, allowing students to pick the major that they actually want instead of letting the school decide for them.