Online College Degrees

The College Network has been around for many years.  They are one of the pioneers and original “Study Guide” formats to completing your college degree.  The majority of their customers are nurses looking to complete their LVN to RN, LPN to RN, or RN to BSN.  I don’t have accurate statistics, but my guess is that makes up 80-90% of their customers.

The College Network is not a college.  They are, in many ways, a specialized text book company that works together with various colleges and universities around the United States so that nurses can complete their degree.  These specialized text books, or study guides, walk nurses through various courses from Statistics, Microbiology, A & P, and even some basic courses like History or Government.

Here are 3 tips for working with the College Network in completing your nursing degree:

1. Don’t believe the hype – one way or another.  There are some nurses who bought into the study guide program thinking it was going to be easy.  It wasn’t.  So, they tell all their friends how bad it was.  That’s their fault. Studying on your own is almost always going to be harder than sitting in a classroom having a professor lecture to you while you take some notes.  If you have the ability to study on your own, then you might want to try them. 
2. Evaluating Your Transcripts – one of the TCN advisors will evaluate your transcripts.  They do this quite often and have seen many transcripts.  They are usually pretty accurate, BUT, the advisor who evaluates your transcript is NOT the final word.  The registrar at the college is the final word.  He/She has the right to make any adjustments to your evaluation. It may be just one course or two, but just be ready for that. It’s okay too.  The next tip will show you how to get around that initial evaluation.
3. Take A Few Courses – your transcripts may reveal that you need 9 of their study guides to take the courses you need to complete your degree.  But, you don’t have to sign up for all 9 at once.  If you were going to a community college, you don’t sign up for all 9 courses at once.  Just sign up for their minimum number of courses, if you need their financing, and work through those first.  This doesn’t obligate you to the entire 9 courses, and you can work through the first few courses to insure this is how you want to complete your degree.  If not, then you’re not out the entire amount.

Overall, I like the TCN program.  They have been around for quite a long time, which is saying something these days.  No university would work hand-in-hand with The College Network if their system wasn’t actually working.