Charter Oak State College

I had a great experience as a first-time online student Charter Oak State College made it possible for me to complete my bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice with a concentration in Victimology. After being out of school for so long I doubted that I will pass, however, the instructors were great. It was challenging having a child, working full-time and focusing on my education all at the same time. I recommend Charter Oak State College. If you are motivated and eager to get a degree, you too will... Read More pass! Time management is key and do not procrastinate. While working on my degree I was promoted for a job position in a non-profit organization. Now, I will be focusing on getting my master's degree.

Charter Oak was a great college to finish my BS in Information Systems after earning my AAS in Information Systems. They were extremely flexible with awarding credits for previous college work, military training, IT Certifications, ACE accredited courses, and portfolio reviews. Unlike many of the other school that focus on "online" learning, the professors here made the classes challenging and forced you to actually know the material. I had professors with Doctorates from the likes of MIT, Harvard,... Read More Yale, and Columbia. This is a quality education for those students that want to put forth the effort needed for an online course.

I enrolled in this online state college after completing my associates degree at a local community college where I did about 2/3 online and 1/3 on campus. I needed to be able to take my courses exclusively online because of my children's activities. The courses were all about the same. Submit 5-10 posts to an online discussion board each week, respond to at least 5-10 of your classmates posts each week, take a small quiz each week, work on 2-4 group projects, write a major paper throughout the entire... Read More course, move on. The school is more interested in how many times you can post nonsense to an online chat room than how much information is being retained and applied. Professors rarely give actual constructive criticism and most professors have a hard time grading anything before the 8 week semester is complete. I had two classes where the professors suddenly disappeared about 1/2 way through the course and the college had to locate replacements and add time onto the end of classes. When I requested constructive criticism, I was told to refer to my syllabus and rubrics, which were very often extremely out of date. Course descriptions almost never matched up with what was taught in class. Textbooks did not seem to be chosen well and were often newer versions than that which the online coursework was built off of which caused a lot of issues and confusion. The financial aid office is a joke in so many ways, it is ridiculous. I am a veteran and in the state in which I reside, am entitled to 100% free tuition. COSC happens to also be in my home state so this should apply but they have some special rule about how they only do 50% tuition waiver. I took out student loans through COSC (the only kind they accept) and often had to wait until 2-3 days before the end of a semester to get my overage deposits. I was not able to enroll in any courses without electronic advisor approval - which often took weeks and caused me to have to attend more semesters because courses filled up before I could get in. Many required courses for my degree were only offered once per year and if I missed one, I had to wait a full year to try to get back into it. Overall, I feel like they are just issuing meaningless pieces of paper (degrees), overcharging, and then not answering any requests for more information or clarification.