WGU Transfer Credit Limit

Ivanjam

Does WGU have a limit on the number of competency units with which a student can transfer in during the admission process? In particular, I am interested in knowing if there is a limit to the number of CU's from examinations (CompTIA, CIW, etc) vs from an Associate's degree?

boredgamelad

There's a limit from an associate's degree--61 CUs for IT programs, according to the WGU site--but as far as I'm aware you're not limited in how many CUs you can transfer in from certifications as long as they're obtained before you start and are current.

MiikeB

Yea AFAIK there is no limit on CU's transferred in from certifications. Not sure how they would even be enable to enforce that. WGU programs all have very specific classes and the programs do not have electives or alternate courses so if you transfer in with CCNA, Sec+, Project+, MCSE and the program you are in requires all of those they have to just give you the CU's.

Ivanjam

Thanks boredgamelad and MiikeB.

MiikeB, what you say makes a lot of sense.

I started out doing CompTIA exams and found those a bit expensive. So, I switched to the CIW ones and I thought those were reasonably priced until I discovered that you could simply buy Microsoft MTA exam vouchers from Certiport and sit the exams. I was initially under the impression that you had to be affiliated with a college that owned a site license, like WGU, to sit the MTA exams. At $47 per voucher (plus a $15 proctoring fee at my favorite exam center), the MTA exams seem the cheapest option to date to obtain WGU CU's prior to enrollment (3 CU's per exam, so that's roughly $20 per CU).

Cisc0kidd

Ivanjam wrote: »

Thanks boredgamelad and MiikeB.

MiikeB, what you say makes a lot of sense.

I started out doing CompTIA exams and found those a bit expensive. So, I switched to the CIW ones and I thought those were reasonably priced until I discovered that you could simply buy Microsoft MTA exam vouchers from Certiport and sit the exams. I was initially under the impression that you had to be affiliated with a college that owned a site license, like WGU, to sit the MTA exams. At $47 per voucher (plus a $15 proctoring fee at my favorite exam center), the MTA exams seem the cheapest option to date to obtain WGU CU's prior to enrollment (3 CU's per exam, so that's roughly $20 per CU).

Hi

Good info. Roughly how much study do the MTA exams take? For me the A+ and N+ took reading 1 book and a little memorization. Are the MTA exams similar? Thanks!

ptilsen

MTA is worthless. At least the CompTIA certs add something useful on your resume. One of the biggest benefits of some of the WGU degrees is that you kill two birds with one stone -- you get get valuable certs and a valuable degree. When you take MTA exams instead of something more valuable, you are no longer killing two birds with one stone; you're just wasting time.

Ivanjam

Cisc0kidd wrote: »

Hi

Good info. Roughly how much study do the MTA exams take? For me the A+ and N+ took reading 1 book and a little memorization. Are the MTA exams similar? Thanks!

I haven't done any MTA exams yet but, as far as I know, they are comparable to CompTIA exams, just Microsoft-based unlike CompTIA who are, for the most part, vendor-neutral. The books I plan to buy are (the first two are written by Techexams.net's own Darril Gibson):

Microsoft Windows Networking Essentials by Darril Gibson

Microsoft Windows Security Essentials by Darril Gibson

Microsoft Windows Server Administration Essentials by Tom Carpenter

Cisc0kidd

Well the WGU BS IT requires the MTA exams so they're a necessary hurdle.

Ivanjam

ptilsen wrote: »

MTA is worthless. At least the CompTIA certs add something useful on your resume. One of the biggest benefits of some of the WGU degrees is that you kill two birds with one stone -- you get get valuable certs and a valuable degree. When you take MTA exams instead of something more valuable, you are no longer killing two birds with one stone; you're just wasting time.

ptilsen - I understand what you are saying but I may have to pay for my WGU studies out of pocket so the cheapest route is best for me. Let's say, I spend a whole 6-month semester knocking out the 7 MTA's required for the generic BSIT (21 CU's total). If I were enrolled at WGU that would cost me $2,890. Studying independently, that would be $47 per exam (plus a $15 proctoring fee) and $25 per textbook - that works out to only about $600 in total.

Cisc0kidd

Hmmm, the BS IT, Network Design and Management doesn't look much different than the basic BS IT. Might be a better choice.

kgb

The MTA's are ridiculously easy exams with the exception of the Web Development (363).

Every MTA I've taken so far (like...5 I think...) I've completed them in under 15mins each.

gkca

Cisc0kidd wrote: »

Well the WGU BS IT requires the MTA exams so they're a necessary hurdle.

So, if one is already an MCSE and MCITP at the time of enrollment, do they still require one to take those MTA exams?

swild

After having completed the IT-Sec program at WGU, I can say that the majority of the MTA exams require no more than a week of studying to ACE, and most of those take little more than a weekend.

If you really want to make your dollar pay off, focus on the certs that will take the longest to complete: CCNA, MCSE, Win 7, and (for me at least) Project+. There are some people that wind up spending an entire term or more on just the MCSE or the CCNA. As far as the CCNA is concerned, you can easily spend less than half of that, have a decent home lab and all of the best study materials. If you really want to pinch those pennies, just study for those exams and then take the exams as soon as you enroll. That way WGU pays for the exam fees and you are not wasting you very expensive time studying for a single exam. The win 7 exam is pretty tough so you really need to study up for that, but that one exam counts for 8 CUs (2 classes), if I remember right.

Search for erpadmin's posts about his time spent on the MCSE.

Take it from some one who has been there: don't pay for those comptia's on your own. You can also usually find discount vouchers on the CCNA and the non-MTA microsoft exams for up to 50% off that expire within a week. I got my CCNA vouchers for 50% and 40% off, if I remember right.

erpadmin

swild wrote: »

Search for erpadmin's posts about his time spent on the MCSE.

If you do that, you might not find anything... I have the MCITP:EA, not MCSE. I did spent a good amount of time (and money) while enrolled at WGU buying a server, doing practice exams and at some point paying for reexamination exams. I do have a thread on my MCITP:EA experiences (that's what you want to search for.) and those exams are not easy. Some exams I passed on one shot and within WGU's retake window...others like the 70-643 were a bear to pass...

Windows 7 I passed one time...thankfully I had gotten a lot of NTFS permission questions and I studied enough on deployment.

swild

Ah yes, sorry to misquote your credentials. However, I'm going to blame Microsoft and their inability to keep with a naming scheme.

jmritenour

gkca wrote: »

So, if one is already an MCSE and MCITP at the time of enrollment, do they still require one to take those MTA exams?

I would imagine so, depending on what course they map to. When I enrolled in April of 2011, I had MCSA, A+,Net+,Sec+ and CCNA. It knocked a large chunk of the IT courses off my program, but in spite of all that, I still had to take their "Intro to Information Technology I", the CIS Web Foundations associate, despite "Intro to IT II and III" being satisfied by my certs.

jmritenour

erpadmin wrote: »

If you do that, you might not find anything... I have the MCITP:EA, not MCSE. I did spent a good amount of time (and money) while enrolled at WGU buying a server, doing practice exams and at some point paying for reexamination exams. I do have a thread on my MCITP:EA experiences (that's what you want to search for.) and those exams are not easy. Some exams I passed on one shot and within WGU's retake window...others like the 70-643 were a bear to pass...

Windows 7 I passed one time...thankfully I had gotten a lot of NTFS permission questions and I studied enough on deployment.

70-643 was an absolute nightmare, and took me 3 attempts to pass. I was really pissed off with that one, because 75% of it was my day and day job in several production environments. But IIS and Sharepoint Foundation gave me a lot of trouble.