The self-paced courses can be a blessing and a curse. I started off with the best of intentions, then found myself 4.5 months later with just under 3 of the required 10 modules done, plus the final which you might know is 30% of your grade and you need a score of at least 70% on the final to pass the course. The 6-mos deadline is FIRM. I was prepared to take a W and repeat the course, but I surprised myself and not only finished on time, but I got an A! (This is for Genetics; my other online course had a fixed schedule.) So - yes, with decent effort, you can get an A. Keep in mind that Genetics was my absolute favorite course material so far, I feel like I have a knack for it, and a good portion of it covered the same ground as my Bio I lecture, although often in greater detail. I thought the final was fair, but hard. One challenge is that because there are several different professors using the same syllabus and final, the terminology and question style wasn't always a perfect match, e.g., my professor (and the textbook) usually used "heterozygote" but the final referred to "monohybrid." Manageable if you know the material, but it gave me a flash of panic at first.
My professor for online Genetics was John Placyk. He was incredibly prompt in grading and responding to questions. I reached out to him when I realized I was going to have to crank though about two modules a week to make my deadline, and he had more faith in me than I did in myself! He was very encouraging. There were a couple of points of frustration where I just couldn't get my question across clearly enough electronically; I'd ask a follow-on question for clarification, and the response would relate to that piece of the question only, rather than the whole thread. It's definitely easier to get clarification in person in a real-time conversation - no avoiding that. If I had it to do again, I might have looked for a tutor. Also, you can't really confer with the other students since everyone is working at a different pace, and the online forum isn't really set up for that, or maybe I just didn't crack the code. I think this is the nature of online. Things worked out well in the end for me so I was pretty happy.
Re: Mary Alice Yund's grading - first, her exams are open book and open notes. She will claim that it won't help you, but it definitely helped me. BUT, this was for Biochem. I don't think her Genetics exams were open book. In Biochem, she set the B+/A- cutoff at 85% right out of the gate, and said she would curve in our favor only, i.e., the cutoff might drop to 82%, but it would never climb above 85%. Again, not sure if this is true for Genetics; I think my classmates said it wasn't. What probably does stay constant across all her courses is her philosophy of giving you credit where she can for any demonstration of correct understanding, versus having a punchlist of points that you have to cover in your answer (excepting T-F and multiple choice, of course). She wants to give you a good grade. Genetics is probably a different beast since the material is more black and white, but it never hurts to have a professor who will give you the benefit of the doubt as often as possible. I really underperformed in Biochem (totally my own fault), but still got a B. On the other hand, her final was crazy hard - even students who'd been right on top of the material the whole semester were thinking, "Were we in the right classroom?" Hard to say if I could have gotten an A if I'd worked harder, but things could have definitely been much worse. A friend taking Biochem from a different UCBX instructor at the same time put in way more work than I did, and ended up having to drop the course and repeat it.
My biggest tip for Genetics is to do all of the suggested practice problems and understand the explanations from the Solutions Manual. Don't worry too much about being able to derive the answers without help, but understand the answers given, keeping in mind that the Solutions Manual is a little hinky. Then before the exams, repeat all of the relevant worksheets, discussion questions, and "In Depth Questions." Before the final, go over 100% of the homework and the previous quizzes. The questions on the final were definitely detailed, as is the nature of genetics, but I wouldn't say they were obscure. More like comprehensive. I prepped for the final by collating all of the questions from the homework and previous quizzes and working them all from scratch again. Some of them I went through twice. I wasn't sure this was going to pay off, especially since it took almost a whole day of my very limited remaining time to assemble everything, but it ended up working well.
Last suggestion - if you have a flexible timeline, consider holding off on enrolling until John Placyk's section opens up again. The UCBX online office might be able to tell you when that will be. Like Yund, Placyk wants you to do well in the course. I guess one more thing - PM me if you have any questions on the material! Obviously I can't share the answers, but I'll do what I can to help clarify the concepts.
Let me know what you decide!
Actually, even one more thing (I can't stop typing!) - one other recco for online would be for Monica Ranes-Goldberg. I'm taking a second online course from her because she is phenomenal. Crazy experienced in online teaching (something like 20 yrs experience teaching online), prompt grader, very skilled at giving detailed feedback and explanations on the material. She will expect a lot and has high standards, so it will consume a lot of time, but she puts in a ton of effort to help you understand things. Big thumbs up for her. Like with Genetics, she rotates in among other instructors. I think she teaches Immunology online, Hematology, and the Advanced Biosciences courses, possibly others. In case you need/want another online course. 🙂
When I said "same here" I was referring to there not being any other options in my area. 
When I said "same here" I was referring to there not being any other options in my area.
