Apr 10
14
CollegePlus! – The best option for your undergrad degree
CollegePlus! – The Best Way For Many Homeschoolers To Earn Their Undergrad
By Tim Bloedow
(This was first published in the Learning at Home (March 2010), the monthly newsletter for the Rideau Valley Home Educators’ Assocation.)
Home schoolers are already bold and innovative thinkers. They are walking against the crowd and have stepped outside their own comfort zone. And your decision has probably proven successful – meeting your goals for superior or preferable education and socialization for your children.
Post-secondary education can be a whole other issue, and there have not been many options available outside of the conventional in-class structure. However some bold Christians have been pioneering a fresh alternative approach to post-secondary education that is a natural extension of home schooling for motivated students who qualify for this opportunity.
Some of you are already familiar with the foundational concept behind this model – Distance Learning. Many people today are using DL options for completing undergraduate degrees and CollegePlus! provides individualized coaching for some of these students. CollegePlus! helps students navigate the world of Distance Learning to get their accredited degree faster and more cheaply than sitting through four years of in-class courses. Every CP! student is guided by a degree coach who walks them through their entire degree process from preparatory life-purpose planning and advanced study skill development to completion of their Bachelor’s.
CP! is based on an ACCELERATED Distance Learning model. They encourage most students to develop a two-year plan to complete their degree, but CollegePlus! co-founder, Brad Voeller, used the system to complete his degree in only six months. If your child wants to get through college faster and more cheaply than his peers, then seriously consider CollegePlus!
The biggest concern some Canadians have expressed regarding the pursuit of a U.S. degree is caution that any professional accreditation earned in the U.S. is accepted here. This is important, but the reality is that most DL options available today are not for the professions. Some of the 25 majors supported by CollegePlus! (in their association with Thomas Edison state college) with the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration are a BA in English, a BA in Computer Information Systems, a BSBA in Finance and a BA in Pre-Med/English. Of course the content in courses such as history and political science will be American, not Canadian.
You can hear quite a testimony on the CP! website from a student who went into law school with a full scholarship after earning a BA with CollegePlus!: “I started with CollegePlus! at 15 years old. Within 6 months, I earned 60 credits. At 17 I graduated with my degree and got a job as a financial analyst in Manhattan where they started me at $60,000 a year. I’m now in my second year of law school where I have a full scholarship.”
The value-added benefits of CollegePlus! are the Life-Purpose Planning and advanced study skills: Maximum Speed Reading, Dynamic Memory and Advanced Communication. These study skills are what make CollegePlus! an ACCELERATED DL system. CP! coaches require most students to work through these programs before they pursue their course credits. Why? To give your child the foundation necessary to guarantee success.
About 50% of post-secondary students do not finish their degree in the three or four years of a normal program, and many of those drop out altogether. Why don’t they finish on time? The main reason is that many students change their program midstream and have to take additional courses. That problem can be mitigated by diligent life-purpose planning. This is a priority for CollegePlus!: Helping students fulfill God’s purpose for their lives while respecting his/your investment of time and money.
You can purchase these preparatory materials ahead of time. We have already picked up these materials for our son, and he is working through them. I have learnt one of the memory techniques and it has already been very useful. These advanced education techniques work and they will benefit your children through the rest of their lives.
DL can be as simple as doing the same courses online from the comfort of your own home, but there are DL methods as well. A favourite (for the price and time involved) is writing an exam that demonstrates your knowledge of course content. CLEPs (College Level Examination Program) are the most popular equivalency exams. For US$72, you can earn three course credits that would otherwise cost you $400-$600 for a typical classroom course. Yes, these credits are accepted towards accredited Bachelor degrees.
Someone no less than Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates praises online education in his 2010 letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He wrote about an academic program for dropouts who wanted to get their high school degree: “There are no lectures, and kids can move ahead at their own pace. A lot of the kids start out making progress more slowly than they would in a traditional class, but with the support of the teachers in the school and as they get used to the online approach, almost all of them move through the courses a lot faster than normal classes would let them. This is very motivational to the kids because they can do more than a year’s worth of schoolwork in a single year.”
First- and second-year college involves much repetition from high school. DL enables students to escape the trap of wasted money and time. DL can help home schooled students who have moved ahead of the crowd to stay ahead of the crowd as they move closer to the world of full-time work and lifetime vocation. What an exciting legacy for parents to leave their children! It’s far better than the “legacy” of the student loan quagmire. Student testimonials on the CP! website express appreciation for being kept out of distracting and ungodly campus environments.
I have barely scratched the surface of the benefits of CollegePlus! Visit their website by clicking here. It is packed full of very helpful and important information, including testimonials from students and endorsements from Christian leaders. Test your knowledge with CLEP practise tests. Fill out an online form by clicking here for more info. and regular email updates.
Lynette and I are so excited about CollegePlus! that we have signed on with them as an Affiliate. When someone whom we refer registers with them, we receive a commission. They know you are one of our referrals if you mention our Affiliate #4086 when you talk to them or when you use this internet address to reach their online page for requesting more information. You can also reach me with any questions at tim.bloedow@rogers.com or 613-496-0091. If you surf their site to learn more about the service, as I encourage you to do, we would be grateful if you would return to this page when you want to request information from them so that they do identify you as one of our referrals. Thank you for that.