SOPHIA LEARNING:
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE
What is Sophia Learning?
Sophia Learning is a learning platform offering self-paced, online courses for college credit. This platform allows students to take unlimited courses for as low as $99 a month. These courses will mainly cover general education credits and many schools don’t accept credit from Sophia.
Sofia Learning believes that personal and professional advancement should be affordable and accessible to students at every stage of their educational career. Since 2012, Sophia has been providing high-quality online courses for college-level credit with a curriculum committed to meeting the higher education needs of students and working adults.
Sophia’s ACE® Credit- and DEAC-recommended courses have been accepted for credit at hundreds of colleges and universities. The American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE®️ Credit) has evaluated and recommended college credit for 33 of Sophia's online courses for college credit. Students can earn College level credit at their own pace. They can help students save time and money toward earning their degree.
What Schools Accept Sophia?
Sophia has a list of partner institutions on their website, which encompasses some, but not all, of the schools that accept their credits. There are 40 partner institutions, but 290 schools have accepted Sophia credit.
The best way to figure out what credits your school accepts is to research their policies - typically located on their website and/or within a transfer equivalency portal. Examples of transfer equivalency portals include the Transfer Evaluation System from CollegeSource and Transferology.
What Sofia can offer?
• An affordable way to earn college-level credit
• Smart, user-friendly tech provides the support you need
• Self-paced courses can be accessed anytime, anywhere
• ACE®-recommended for transfer credit
How does Sophia Learning works?
1. Become a member of Sophia. Choose from more than 40 online courses. Enroll with your chosen course.
2. Complete your work. Finish all assessments and pass the course. Dive right into problem solving mode with their Challenges, learning new concepts along the way through instructional tutorials. Next, successfully complete timed Milestones, demonstrating your mastery of the concepts, complete the Final Milestone, demonstrating your retention of key course concepts then submit your final score.
3. Transfer Credit. Send transcripts for consideration.
To earn credits from Sophia, you must:
• Complete each Challenge by attempting each of the questions.
• Pass each Unit Milestone by getting at least half of the points in each assessment.
• Achieve a total average score of 70% or better across all Challenges and Milestones.
• Pass your Final Milestone with a score of 50% or higher, which contributes to your overall course score
How much does it cost?
As a Sophia member, you don’t pay for individual courses. Instead, you can take as many courses as you like during your membership period. You can start a free trial. Then choose the membership option that works best for you and gain unlimited access to all Sophia courses. You can be active in two courses at a time. Below are their membership options:
1. $99
1 MONTH
You want to work quickly through one or two courses.
Per month. Auto-renews.
2. $299
4 MONTHS
You want to knock out several gen eds over a few months.
25% savings
For four months. Auto-renews.
3. $599
12 MONTHS
You prefer to work through courses at a slower pace.
50% savings
Per year. Auto-renews.
Are there additional fees, like books and materials?
There are no course registration fees or additional fees for material, textbooks or eBooks. Everything is included as part of your membership
Is there a time commitment?
With Sophia, you determine your own level of time commitment. You can move through course work quickly or slow down your pace.
Are you limited to two courses each month?
You can take as many courses as you'd like each month and are allowed to be active in two courses at the same time.
Will my plan automatically renew?
Yes, your membership will automatically renew. At that time, you’ll also be billed for your new membership period.
Tips on how to complete Sophia Courses
1. Studying the course content
While this is quite tiresome and time-consuming, it is the surest way of getting correct Sophia learning answers.
Sophia provides reading material for each unit both in pdf and online versions. The material usually covers everything in the unit extensively and usually most of the questions will come from the material.
You can download the PDF version of the tutorials which you can go through any time you are free. The material can also be used when competing challenges and milestones since they are usually open book, and not proctored.
As such reading the tutorials is the best way to get Sophia learning answers.
2. Using the practice milestones
You can always use the practice milestone to gauge how well you understand the course content. However, what most students don’t know is that the practice milestone has almost similar questions and answers as the real milestone.
As such, always ensure that you take the practice milestone before you attempt the real milestone. Unfortunately, the final does not have a practice final, and you will have to read and use the knowledge acquired from all the units to complete the final.
3. Trial and error
Yes, you can use trial and error to get Sophia pathways answers. You may ask, how does this work? Well, as you know Sophia offers multiple-choice questions. You can eliminate the choices that you see wrong as you zero in on the correct answer. This way you are assured of getting the correct answer.
For challenges, this method works perfectly as you are allowed 2 attempts for every question. In the case, you are conflicted between 2 answers you can input one on the first attempt, and in case it’s wrong you can input the other one on the second attempt.
For milestones, you are only allowed to retake the milestone in the event you fail, therefore, this method will not work perfectly for milestones.
4. Search online
If you are lucky enough you can get Sophia courses answers by doing a quick online search. Yes, there is so much information available online and you are assured of getting some answers online by doing a simple search on Google or other search engines.
5. Use Quizlet
Most people know Quizlet for flashcards. However, some students have posted Sophia learning answers on Quizlet as flashcards. Therefore, you can try searching help on Quizlet.
However, Sophia usually has several variations of the questions and as such, it is difficult to get questions and answers word for word.
6. Use Sophia online tutors
Some courses have online tutors who you can contact or schedule a session with them to get any necessary help that you need. While the tutors cannot give you the answers to the milestones and challenges, they can help you understand difficult concepts that you have a problem understanding.
Courses like algebra will have tutors who can help you understand areas that you have problems with. As such you can contact them in case you need help.
Pros and Cons of Sophia Learning
There are many advantages and drawbacks of choosing Sophia learning. However, choosing a variety of factors will determine if it fits you or not.
Here are some of the pros and cons you need to consider if it is an ideal learning method for you or your child.
The Pros
- It has a free Trial
- Sophia Learning offers you a free trial period to learn. You can go to the website, create an account, and take courses and tests to earn college credit.
- It also has a paid version costing $99 a month. To many, it may be affordable considering you take as many courses as you want.
- It helps you save money and complete your education faster
Sophia Learning is designed to help you complete your college degree faster. With this program, you can learn and complete courses online and earn credit transfer to your primary course at college or university.
- With a credit transfer, you will not need to go through the university coursework, which means more time to move ahead, thus completing your degree faster.
- t’s an alternative to the expensive cost of college textbooks
- You Learn at your Pace
- It is ACE Accredited
- Extensive Partnership with Learning Institutions. Sophia Learning has partnered with 40 universities and colleges and continues expanding its wings. The result is that there is a high chance your institution accepts credit transfers from this learning program. However, you need to confirm with your university or college if they are partners.
- Extensive Course Offerings. Sophia Learning has an extensive portfolio of courses it offers. This allows many students to access the courses, learn and apply for credit transfers in their respective learning institutions
The Cons
Despite the many advantages of Sophia Learning, some cons make it unfavorable.
- It is not ideal for people who are teacher-dependent. Sophia Learning is not friendly to individuals who constantly need guidance from teachers, which may limit the number of students who use it
It is not cost-effective
- Limited Number of Courses and Partners. Sophia Learning only has about 40 courses and partners. With the many learning institutions and courses, the program is limited in the number of students it can reach, thus proving ineffective.
Conclusion
Sophia Learning is worth it if you’re looking for an affordable way to get college credit, save time by learning at your own pace, and have a go-to source for all your online course needs. With Sophia Learning, you can learn in the best way for you.
On the negative side, it may not be ideal if you need more help in learning. However, it is generally worth it and is highly recommended.