Learning outside of the classroom.

A study by the Lumina Foundation revealed that students who participate in PLA programs are more likely to persist and graduate. PLA provides many benefits to students because it may:

• Lessen time required to complete a degree and helps lower tuition costs.
• Eliminate redundancies associated with reviewing material you have already mastered.
• Allow you to demonstrate learning for which there is no standardized exam.
• Be ideal if you perform better on written assignments than tests.

You are eligible to participate in the PLA program if you meet these requirements:

Undergraduate Students

• Be a fully matriculated student (completed the APUS application and orientation process, possess a student ID number, registered for a course in your current program, and are not on program hold or disenrolled)
• Have received a completed Transfer Credit Evaluation (TCE) from the APUS Transfer Credit Department if the student has credit to transfer or potential credit via training evaluation
• Have a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 for courses taken to date and are not on academic probation (actively taking course/s)
• Not yet applied for graduation or registered in a capstone or end-of-program option (thesis, portfolio, project, capstone, etc.)
• Not pursuing a degree program in which programmatic accreditation restricts prior learning credit

Note: Independent study courses and the senior seminar are not eligible for PLA.

Graduate Students

• Be a fully matriculated student (completed the APUS application and orientation process, possess a student ID number, registered for a course in your current program, and are not on program hold or disenrolled)
• Have received a completed Transfer Credit Evaluation (TCE) from the APUS Transfer Credit Department if the student has credit to transfer or potential credit via training evaluation
• Have a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 for courses taken to date and are not on academic probation (actively taking course/s)
• Not yet applied for graduation or registered in a capstone or end-of-program option (thesis, portfolio, project, capstone, etc.)
• Not pursuing a degree program in which programmatic accreditation restricts prior learning credit

To be awarded credit for prior learning, you must be able to demonstrate that you have met the learning objectives required in a university academic course. This is done by creating a portfolio.

Your prior learning portfolio is a collection of materials or artifacts compiled to demonstrate previous college-level learning relevant to your academic degree plan. A portfolio consists of multiple required components. Each component plays a role in demonstrating mastery of course objectives. The components that make up a portfolio include:

• The Professional Learning Summary (PLS) – The PLS combines your educational goals with an autobiography of your professional and personal learning since high school. It provides an opportunity to examine your motivation for learning and the application of knowledge while analyzing significant experiences and critical incidents that contributed to your learning. The summary helps prior learning evaluators understand when, how, and why your learning occurred, enabling them to provide meaningful feedback that supports continued lifelong learning
• The Résumé – A résumé allows you to highlight more detail about your responsibilities and accomplishments that have supported learning. The resume provides the evaluator with a timeline and demonstrates the progression of learning.
• The Narrative – This component is unique for every portfolio because the focus is on the learning objectives for a specific course. You must address each course objective found on the course syllabus, and demonstrate that you have mastered the objectives to the same extent as students who have completed the course.
• Documentation – You will need to supply documentation to support the narrative. Documentation is as individual as the learner. It may include items such as sample work products, training certificates, workplace evaluations, letters of recommendation, and/or photographs.

View your academic plan or search our course schedule to view syllabi for individual courses.

You are required to participate in a no-cost/no-credit workshop that will assist in the identification of individual prior learning that may be credit-worthy. You will work through a variety of exercises to analyze your experiences in terms of learning and to develop the various portfolio components.

Throughout the 8-week long workshop, a PLA team member provides feedback on assignments and portfolio components. You will complete the portfolio by the end of the workshop, though final editing might take longer. 

Once a student completes the PLA workshop, they must plan with the PLA team (PLA@apus.edu) to submit their entire portfolio to a subject matter expert. It is important to note that this is a separate process from the final submission in the workshop to the instructor.

You must submit a separate portfolio for each course for which you are petitioning for credit. Some components of your original portfolio may be used in multiple submissions. We strongly encourage you to work on one portfolio at a time, as this allows you to use feedback from the initial portfolio to inform the development of additional portfolios.

For the portfolio to be evaluated for credit, it must be reviewed by a subject matter expert. Students may develop additional portfolios once they have completed the workshop and submit them for evaluation. The fee for additional portfolio evaluations is $250 (undergraduate level) and $325 (graduate level) per portfolio. 

Credit petitioned via PLA must be for a specific university course within your academic program, but cannot be applied toward seminar, capstone, and/or independent study courses. The university awards credit for college-level learning that can be assessed and documented. Credit is awarded for learning, not experience. Evidence is critical for a successful portfolio. Your prior learning must be:

• Related to your current educational goals and objectives.
• College-level and relevant to a specific course for which the university grants academic credit.
• Transferable to situations other than that in which it was gained.
• Accompanied by the application of appropriate theories.
• Include evidence to support having achieved course learning objectives. Examples include:   
  • Certifications/training certificates
  • Professional evaluations
  • Awards/commendations

PLA credits are considered non-traditional transfer credits. Accrediting guidelines limit the amount of non-traditional credit applied toward degree completion as follows:

• Associate - no more than 30 semester hours
• Bachelor’s - no more than 60 semester hours
• Master’s - no more than 9 semester hours