Southern New Hampshire University
SNHU Highlights
Southern New Hampshire is a non-profit, regionally accredited college.
- 135k+ student enrollment
- 100+ Bachelor's Degrees + large variety of other degrees to choose from
- Cost per credit $320 (less cost compared to most schools)
- Transfer up to 90 credits to the university towards a degree
- For IT degrees, many industry certificates are accepted for credit. One certificate can count for many courses.
- Student feedback is good. (write papers for each class, no proctoring & grading isn't hard)
- 18yr students and international students accepted
- Named most innovative university by U.S. News & World Report 3 years in a row
How Classes And Terms Work for SNHU
Terms for SNHU are 2 months. Full-time is 2 courses, and part-time is 1 course. For the first 2 terms, the most courses you can take are 2 courses. Then after that, you can take a maximum of 3 courses per term. So considering you transferred in max credits, then it would take 8-10 months to complete your degree.
You can transfer credits after you are enrolled. Courses typically are not that long and require 3-8hrs of work per week per course. Papers and discussion posts are generally due every Sunday, with the exception of the first discussion post.
You can work ahead on assignments though it is not recommended to turn them in before near the due date because many professors place a grading emphasis on your ability to incorporate their feedback into your assignments. You would want to work 1-2 weeks ahead in case of an emergency or an upcoming vacation.
Grading Is Heavily Weighted in the Student’s Favor
Graduation Stats From 2017
- no honors: 100/201 = 49.8%
- cum laude: 37/201 = 18.4% (3.500- 3.699 GPA)
- magna cum laude: 12/201 = 6.0% (3.700- 3.849 GPA)
- summa cum laude: 52/201 = 25.9% (3.850- 4.000 GPA)
- all honors: 101/201 = 50.2%
The rubrics are ridiculously weighted in the students favor in many instances. For example the options may be 30, 28, 25, or 0. It would be rare to receive a 0 score.
If you get a low grade on an assignment, many professors will give you 2nd, 3rd chances to turn in the assignments for a higher grade.
DO NOT TURN IN A LATE ASSIGNMENT OR YOU WILL MOST LIKELY LOSE 10%
Does It Take Longer to Get a Degree at SNHU Than Other Online Options?
Yes, and sort of.
Let's compare 3 other schools, TESU, PUG, and WGU, for their computer science and IT programs.
PUG courses are similar to SNHU, with lots of writing assignments. Though you can finish in 6 months with PUG if you work fast enough. The conclusion is time spent doing courses in both schools is similar.
WGU courses such as Discrete Mathematics II, Data Structures and Algorithms II, and Capstone might take at least 40 hours to do. While some courses, such as Ethics in Technology, might take only 5 hours to do. Some exams are tough, and if you fail, you have to retake an exam. It is a close call which could be faster or slower comparing WGU with SNHU. Though with WGU finishing in 6 months should be possible for most people that put in 20hr a week studying.
TESU courses have a capstone that can take 80 hours +/- 20hrs and an Info Literacy course that takes around 40 hours. Other than that, you need either Software Engineering, around a 20hr course, or pass a TECEP Networking exam. If starting from scratch, you also have to consider the time it takes to gather up the credits to hit the 30 RA requirement, which can add around 1-2 months. With TESU, you would be finishing in 3 months for sure once you start your term.
Conclusion
You would spend around 6 months gathering up all your alternative transfer credits with all schools. With TESU, you would spend an additional 1-2 months gathering up RA credits. Then you would graduate in around 12 months with PUG, WGU, 10-11 months with TESU, and 14-16 months with SNHU.
Though not recommended, you could gather up alt credits for 3 months, then enroll with SNHU. As you are taking courses with SNHU, you are working on alt credits at the same time. In this case, you would graduate in 11-13 months, similar to WGU/PUG.
All these time assumptions are based on students studying 20-30 hours per week and not getting stuck on difficult courses such as Calculus. It's very common to require extra time for several difficult courses.
An on-campus degree takes 4-5 years to do, with classes typically requiring at least 80hrs of time. So whatever online college you choose, you are coming out way ahead of the typical on-campus student.