Non-matriculated Online Graduate Courses

[bunkuski]

I am applying to two post bachelor degree programs, but in the meantime I would like to take some courses that I will be able to transfer in at the graduate level. I am looking to take Advance Physiology, Advance Pharmacology and Biostatistics. I have been researching this for several days and my head is starting to spin. Does anyone have any information on any affordable online colleges that will allow me to take these without being a degree-seeking student?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

According to what I found, no program will transfer outside courses on this condition, for the very obvious reason of wanting all your money for itself. Only one exclusion may be multi-campus universities with interconnected programs of the same specialty like University of Michigan. But such places probably will not give you access to grad courses prior to being officially enrolled in some of their programs.

I did two grad level courses together with FNP students as electives during my last BSN semester. Passed them both with A, but no MSN program I contacted, FNP or not, recognized them for transfer. Their argument was that I was not enrolled grad program at that time, but I met other students who were, and their grad courses were declined because their grad programs were not FNP, or had no certain national certification. Only people who were transferring from one FNP program to another due to, say, moving across the state, got some (not all, not clinical) credits transferred.

If you just want to get a brain refresher, contact your former professors and ask them to let you sit in their grad classes if they teach them, or give you a contact. Or go to your specialty's site and search. Critical care nursing association offers excellent online courses about patho, ECG, pharm and many others, for adequate money, which courses can be used for CE credits. But all that will not anything to do with transfer credits.