Admission is open and rolling with no SAT or ACT, application handled through Excelsior's own portal, and the credit evaluation itself free, which matters enormously here because the evaluation is the whole game: up to 90 credits toward a 120-credit bachelor's can arrive from prior college work, credit-by-exam including Excelsior's own examinations plus CLEP and DSST, ACE-evaluated military and workforce training, prior-learning assessment, and partner providers. The calendar runs three trimesters a year, spring, summer, fall, each holding one 15-week full term and two 8-week sub-terms, roughly nine entry points annually, so the next door is never more than weeks away.
The enrollment sequence, optimized
Sweep before you apply for anything else
Every transcript, every exam already passed, every military and workforce record, every partner course: the free evaluation converts them, and at Excelsior the conversion routinely deletes years.
Fork the residual requirements
What survives the sweep splits between exam routes and course routes, per the fork flagship; decide requirement by requirement, not by mood.
Choose the clock per trimester
Full term or sub-terms, same content, different densities; sprint quiet seasons, stretch brutal ones, re-decide every trimester.
Know your program's floors on day one
The 2.0 and 3.0 cumulatives, the gen-ed C rule, and nursing's own progression expectations, per the grading manual.
Nursing's shape here, told straight
Excelsior nursing is ACEN-accredited with no NP tracks and no DNP: the online lineup runs the RN to BS completion, the AAS, and three MS specializations, education, informatics, leadership and administration, whose capstones carry 135-hour practice experiences arranged with a mentor rather than a preceptor, compliance paperwork riding through the standard clearance channels. That shape keeps the graduate nursing writing squarely in coursework-and-capstone territory, which is exactly this site's lane, and the MS desk carries it end to end.
Starting strong on the trimester clock
- Map the first term in its first sitting, whichever clock you chose
- Book the next sub-term before the current final week; nine doors a year reward chains
- Run the fork consult before registering for anything an exam could clear
- First term wobbling? Week-three intervention beats week-seven heroics on the 8-week clock
A door opens within weeks, always
Send your transcripts and target program. The sweep plan and fork map come back free.
Sources and verification
Facts on this page come from official and independent sources, and anything that matters is worth checking against the originals:
- www.excelsior.edu/calendars/academic: the official academic calendar, primary source for the trimester and sub-term structure
- www.excelsior.edu transfer-credit guidelines: the official transfer machinery, exams and training included
- www.msche.org: the institutional accreditor
- www.acenursing.org: the nursing accreditor
- apastyle.apa.org: APA Style, the official style authority