As amazing applicants with 8-10 AP’s receive their rejection letters….This is an important development for future applicants to a highly competitive college or university. And that category includes many more than the “Ivies”. They are called MOOC (massive online open classes) that are free. Check it out!

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports:

Through a nonprofit consortium called edX, Harvard, MIT, the University of Texas, the University of California at Berkeley, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Caltech, the Sorbonne and dozens of other elite universities have begun offering complete online versions of their highly sought-after classes, free, to anyone with an Internet connection. Among other topics, you can learn about computer science, matrix algebra, poetry and Chinese history from Harvard; engineering, mathematics and jazz appreciation from UT; principles of economics and data analysis from Caltech. Other online education platforms such as Coursera offer thousands of additional courses from elite universities, free.

These are not watered-down classes. I took a genetics course through MITx, the university’s branch of edX. It was the same class taught to freshmen in Cambridge, Mass. — the same lectures, homework assignments, midterms and final exam. MOOC success is much more likely to predict success in college classes than SAT scores, because MOOC success is, in fact, success in college classes.

For the complete story see:

post-gazette.com/opinion/2015/03/29/The-coming-revolution-in-college-admissions-as-MOOCs-better-predict-college-success-than-SATs/stories/201503290128