You can download this guide as a PDF, including all addendums from this LINK.

This guide was prepared by CollegeForSoldiers.com, a sister site of BooksForSoldiers.com, a Red Grail Charity. The Order of the Red Grail is a tax exempt 501(c)(3), IRS recognized charity.

Introduction

Getting a college education shouldn’t be as problematic as it has become, especially for soldiers serving their country. This guide will take you step-by-step through the process of gaining enough college credit to earn a regionally accredited college degree – a degree that will be accepted everywhere in the United States and abroad.

We can’t really say how long the process will take. Some of you may have a lot of college work already completed, while others may be just getting started. Either way, this guide will shorten your time to graduation significantly – in some cases this guide will shorten that time by years. This method is not cheating or bypassing your education, it is just a simplified way of graduating by using new internet technologies, open courseware, cutting-edge college programs and assistance from College For Soldiers.This guide will work well for soldiers State-side as well as retired veterans or non-military cilivilans. This is a good program for anyone seeking a college education regardless of your military or veteran status.

Some technology will be involved even though this method was designed to “get a college degree without electricity.” We couldn’t get technology completely out of the equation, but your text books are on paper and can be read without the use of electricity, pencils wtill work without electricity, so this is still your best option if you are stationed at a location with spotty electrical or web services.

Process
The CFS process is proven, accessible and can be used by the military or civilians alike. Take it step-by-step and your graduation will come quickly. Depending on how much previous work you have completed, it could be months or just a year or so. Either way it is less expensive and faster than sitting in a class and you can get started before your GI benefits kick in. The timing would be perfect to start graduate school!

Gather
You may already have substantial college credit earned. If you have ever taken any college courses, gather those transcripts. The same goes for any CLEP tests or DANTES test you have taken. Some colleges will grant college credit for IT certifications, FAA certifications, health care certifications, etc. Compile every credit, certificate and test result you can find. Think on it a week, talk to your friends, co-workers and family to see if you have missed anything, they may pop-up with some ideas. “Yeah, remember you took that biohazard course at the local community college,” your Mom might remember. Don’t overlook anything, especially if you are in the military. You are always learning, always training. There is a lot of knowledge stuffed in your head. Gather proof of it and move forward.

Submit
Each of our recommended colleges for soldiers are different. Each have different credit acceptance policies, a wide variety of degree programs. You may want a liberal arts degree or you may want a technical degree in engineering or healthcare. It is important to find where you stand with each school. You may be 5 credits away from graduation at one school and 40 from another. You may want to double major. Go through the admissions process at each school, transfer your college credit to these schools, along with your test results and certifications. If you have any questions about how to handle certain things or have any questions, contact the specific school. They all have great customer service.

Evaluation
Once you get your pile of paperwork submitted to each school, they will evaluate your credits, test results and certifications. The college will take all of your data and your preferred degree program and see how much of your education fits into the degree program. We have found all three schools to be fair in their evaluations. The evaluation might take a week or two before you get anything back.

Select
When you do get your evaluation report back, it will list the classes, tests and certificates they have accepted, what college credit they qualify for and how many credits you are away from a college degree. Here is where the elbow grease will come in. You may find yourself 45 credit hours away from a BS in Nursing from Excelsior College, but only 9 away from a BA in Health Studies from Charter Oak State College. Only you can decide what path to take. You may want a quick degree from one college and then work on a second from another. Or you may want to get the degree with the least work remaining and then plow through to a Masters program.

Maybe costs will be a factor and all you need to peruse your career is a accredited bachelors degree? Figure out what your goals are and move foreword with your education plan.

Accumulate
Once you have selected the school you want to go to, call up the admissions director and pay your tuition and get started. Now you are ready to start accumulating college credit. The OCW (Open Courseware) section of CollegeForSoldiers.com has some valuable links to help you through preparing for these tests.

Here is where start to go fast.

STEP 1 – CLEP  Tests
Once you have your credit evaluation, exam the credits you need to take. Are they all humanities or mathematics? Maybe a combination of the two? Maybe you need some history? Talk with your college counselor and ask them for help in determining which CLEP tests you need to take to start filling in the holes. Some distance learning students have been known to take all 34 of the CLEP tests within a few weeks and racked up serious amounts of college credit. The point of this guide is to show you ways to obtain a real, regionally accredited college degree and this is one of the best methods to reduce the length of the time it takes. CLEP tests are your friend. Take as many as you need. If you need a study guide, use the request form on the front page of CollegeForSoldiers.com – remember this is for deployed US troops only.

STEP 2 – DANTES
If CLEP hasn’t filled in all the credit you need to graduate, the next step is to take DANTES tests. These are widely available to military personnel all over the world. There are a total of 37 tests that cover upper and lower level college credit. Chances are there is something available that can help push you forward to your graduation.

STEP 3 – OTHER PLACEMENT  TESTS
Some, but not all of the colleges we recommend also accept AP and GRE scores for college credit. Check with your individual schools for these options.

STEP 4 – SPECIFIC PLACEMENT  TESTS
You have gone through all of the above tests. You have college credit piled higher than you ever believed you cold accomplish in such a short time, but you still need one film studies class to move onto a Masters program. Here is where the ECE (Excelsior College Exams) and the TECEP (Thomas Edison College Examination Program) exams come in handy. These placement exams are focused on one single college course. TECEP offers a placement test in Introduction to the History of Film (FIL-160-TE) and Excelsior College offers the business Human Resource Management (BUSX-410) for a couple of examples.

STEP 5 – PRIOR LEARNING ASSESSMENT
This is the process where you document college level self-education and receive college credit for it where no exam exists to evaluate such skills. You, for example, may have taught yourself how to use Adobe Illustrator CS4 and have become rather good at using the application. You may be able get some advertising or commercial art credits along with software training credits.

Each college has a set of guidelines concerning how to identify self-learned college level credit and you mist take that college’s class in how to build a PLA portfolio. Within this class (and you get college credit for it too) you will learn what is allowed for college credit and what isn’t, how to prove your skill in said area and how to prepare the documentation (portfolio).

STEP 6 – DISTANCE LEARNING CLASSES
If the CLEP, DANTES, AP, GRE, TECEP, ECE and PLA don’t get you across the finish line, the last step is to take these classes online. All of our recommended colleges have vast resources to help you find and take the classes you need for your degree at a distance. Once enrolled and you have completed steps 1-5, your college counselor will be able to help you with this. We also recommend a book by John Bear, PhD. Bears’ Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning is a terrific help when trying to track down these distance learning classes. Degree.net is another great online guide to finding online courses for distance learners.

Graduate
Put on your gown, put your cap on your head and when the time is right move your tassel from right to left… and leave it there!

Congratulations on graduating from college. We hope this guide helped in some small way.

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