#11 Sophia
Limited Transfer
http://www.sophia.org
Sophia is a business (not a college) that sells courses you can take at home for college credit. These courses transfer to colleges that accept ACE credit. (What is ACE?)
Sophia’s courses are video-lesson based, and used to be a little more expensive than some of their other ACE competitors, however, in August 2020, they changed their pricing structure to $79/month.
There are a couple things I really like about Sophia.
(1) You pay 1 price. The monthly rate is great, but the low annual price offers a distinct advantage over the other subscription products (Straighterline, Studycom, etc.), because the cost is so low and you’re not under a time crunch to complete it quickly. This allows all of us to let our kids complete the course over a full semester, if we want. Unfortunately, under this new price structure, you ARE under a time crunch to complete a course quickly. You can work on 2 courses at a time, but if you don’t get them finished inside of 1 month, you’ll have to keep paying until you do.
(2) No photo ID required. For teens that have a driver’s license or passport, this might not be a big deal, but if your teen doesn’t have an official identification card of some kind, getting past the ID checkpoint can be a pain. Sophia doesn’t require a photo ID, so no worries.
(3) No webcam proctoring. If you’ve taken other ACE courses, you know that webcam proctoring is an expected part of the final exam process. There are always concerns regarding privacy as well as providing a space that meets the proctor’s specifications (nothing on the walls, no one else in the room, etc.) so by using their new technology, they’ve eliminated web proctoring entirely. They are using a product called “keyboard biometrics” that identifies a person by their typing style. My son used it earlier this year and liked it a lot!
Sophia also added two new courses in July 2020: Business Law and Principles of Finance.
Sophia Course List
Accounting Accounting
Business Law (NEW in 2020!)
Developing Effective Teams
Introduction to Business
Project Management
Principals of Finance (NEW in 2020)
Conflict Resolution Conflict Resolution
English Composition I
Public Speaking
The Essentials of Managing Conflict
Visual Communications
Ancient Greek Philosophers
Approaches to Studying Religions
Art History I
Art History II
Introduction to Ethics
College Algebra College Algebra
Environmental Science
Foundations of College Algebra
Foundations of Statistics
Human Biology
Introduction to Information Technology
Introduction to Statistics
Introduction to Psychology
Introduction to Sociology
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
US History I
US History II
Student Success
Pages you may also like:
Sources of FREE College Credit
Creating an ACE Account for your Homeschooled Teen
Forms of ID when Homeschooling for College Credit
