5 Tips Explaining How to Use MOOCs In College Applications


Monday, April 27, 2020

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can fill academic gaps or show a passionate interest in college and university course work.



Are you thinking about applying to a top four-year college or one of the best universities in the U.S. in order to earn your bachelor’s degree?

Earning a bachelor’s degree is a huge academic feat, so it is no surprise that the top college and best university admissions offices use specific criteria to determine which students will be admitted to their schools.

If earning a bachelor’s degree at your college or university of choice is your goal, let’s talk about how we can make your college application stand out. The current present day is marked strongly by the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in the closure of high school and college campuses across the nation.

In this article, we will discuss a great online option that can help you sharpen yourself for college applications.

Massive open online courses change how Internet-savvy students learn since they first appeared in 2008. They were first hailed as a revolution with the power to make traditional colleges and universities obsolete. Nowadays, MOOCs are seen as a top online supplement to in-person education.

Although useful in their own right, MOOCs give high school students and college students looking to apply to other universities the opportunity to set themselves apart from their peers.

Here are five pieces of advice to help students make the most of a MOOC on a college application. 

(1) Establish goals.

The obvious use of a MOOC is to address weaknesses in high school performance or augment your curriculum. If your high school focuses on basic science classes, you can use a MOOC to demonstrate commitments to specific advanced subjects such as basic science classes or astronomy. If you don’t have access to an Advanced Placement English Literature and composition course, for example, consider enrolling in a western literature MOOC.

If you received an uncharacteristically poor grade in a high school course, you can also select a MOOC to show you are determined to correct past mistakes. The most important aspect is to identify the specific goal you are working toward.

(2) Know who your audience is.

Research the admissions qualifications for the short list of colleges. If you plan to request immediate entry to a specific major, your choice of MOOCs can emphasize commitment to a specific course of study. A high school student who has already completed several classes in his or her intended major may be taken more seriously than a student who appears to have little familiarity with his or her proposed course of study.

Your major-specific foundation may be solid, but your preferred college is interested in well-rounded individuals who are curious about the world. You may fit the description perfectly but have a transcript that does not necessarily demonstrate the same breadth.

If you are applying to a science program at a liberal arts college or university, an online class in art history or international politics can highlight your full range of academic interests. Likewise, a MOOC focused on biomechanics or math can help an aspiring art student show interest in the world beyond his or her studio.

(3) Seek proof of completion.

Some MOOCs offer completion certificates, while others do not. Use MOOC List or Coursera to search specifically for MOOCs that offer some form of formal acknowledgement. Even if a course includes a certificate, it is often wise to conduct further research about what it means.

There is no centralized standard for certification, so MOOCs can vary in their requirements. Try to choose courses for which proof of completion is easy to share. Remember that you will share accomplishments with an admissions department that will wish to verify claims.

(4) Share your accomplishments.

MOOC List also has a tool that allows users to aggregate completed MOOCs in one easy-to-share location. The Internet landscape evolves quickly, do your best to avoid relying on a single tool, but maintain a list of your MOOCs. You want to showcase your online certificates!

Most college applicants will not have a field for listing MOOCs, so you may have to be creative in how you let college admissions staff know about your MOOC record. One possible method is to integrate completed or ongoing classes into your social media profiles, such as a LinkedIn profile. Your experiences as a high school student in courses intended for college students could be the subject of a blog.

You can use your college admissions essay to allude to your MOOC credentials and provide evidence of leadership, of independence and of moments where you showed initiative. Completing a MOOC demonstrates all three of these aspects.

(5) Be proactive.

MOOCs are designed by accomplished instructors for the students at top, elite institutions. As a high school student, you may find the subject matter of a class quite challenging. Be proactive in seeking help, through message boards associated with the course, online videos not formally part of the course or teachers at your high school.

College will be challenging. You can treat this experience as a tune-up. Record your struggles and use them in your admissions essays.

Taking a MOOC can help make your college application stand out while you are in the process of applying to a top university in order to earn your bachelor’s degree. By using MOOCs wisely, you can make sure that your college application to earn a bachelor’s degree a a top university stands out as much as possible.




Get Instant Information about the University

By clicking “Get Information Now,” I hereby authorize startuniversity.us, their dependents, subcontractors, or associates to contact me in regards to education proposals offered by universities in the United States.