Reputable & Recognized Unaccredited D/L

There was another thread started with the request for the name of a "Reputable & Recognized Unaccredited D/L" institution. That got closed due to apparent shilling. DesElms already addressed this but I couldn't resist saying my piece.

It is arguable that the set of reputable institutions and the set of unaccredited institutions do or do not intersect. However, the set of recognized and the set of unaccredited institutions do not intersect, at least not from a generally accepted recognized point of view. Accreditation is the generally accepted method of recognition. So, unrecognized equates to unaccredited.

If one is searching for a reputable and recognized unaccredited institution that will accept transfer credits from a unrecognized institution and the person thinks that they might have found one then they should remember the words of Groucho Marx. "I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would accept me as a member." The very fact that an institution would accept unaccredited units for transfer would make them a questionable and disreputable institution.

 

Bill,

Are you referring only to individual credits from an unaccredited school accepted in transfer toward a degree or degrees from an unaccredited school accepted as a basis for graduate school?

While it's certainly the exception, rather than the rule, both have happened with accredited schools.

Best wishes,

DG

 

I think that they do intersect. Given the explosion of internet DL degree-mills, the sets don't overlap by very much. But they do. I mean, if there was no intersection, than non-accredited schools could never be accredited.

That's circular. I think that it's possible for unaccredited schools to have recognition in their specialty fields. It even happens on occasion.

I think that I agree in the case of Fairfax.

But I can think of occasions when accredited schools recognize unaccredited ones. There's the University of the Holy Land that was mentioned in a recent thread. (Oregon gives it a 'D'.) This school has operated summer study programs in Israel for years. I have no reason to doubt them when they tell us that credit for these has been accepted by lots of schools:

For more than a decade UHL has been involved in academic credit exchange with a large number of institutions including the University of Fribourg, Switzerland; the Biblical Graduate School of Theology, Singapore; the University of Kent at Canterbury; Hebrew University and the Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem; and in the US with Bethany College, Scotts Valley, California; City University of New York; Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin; Drew University, New Jersey; Fordham University, Mercy College, Union Theological Seminary, and Jewish Theological Seminary, New York; Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and the University of Arizona, Tucson.

 

Re: Re: Reputable & Recognized Unaccredited D/L

It may be true. But if we take this claim seriously, then we should also consider the University of the Holy Land's claim that it is a recognized degree-granting institution in Israel. If this is also true, then UHL may not, in fact, be "unaccredited" by Israeli standards.
It seems that the only reason for assuming otherwise is the Oregon ODA list. While I support, in principle, what ODA is trying to do, it wouldn't surprise me if some of their classifications proved to be inaccurate, especially for foreign schools.

 

Re: Re: Reputable & Recognized Unaccredited D/L

I agree that the UHL is a strange animal.

I also agree that my argument was circular. Generally accepted recognition means GAAP accredited, at least to me. Since the orginal author of the phrase "reputable and recognized unaccredited D/L" didn't specify any specialty field, I assumed that he meant generally accepted. In my post, I had tried to rule out recognition in a specialty field, sorry that I was unclear.

I was referring to credits for individual classes being generally accepted from an unaccredited school (the specific example was Fairfax in the other thread) by an accredited school as a matter of policy at the accredited school. I guess that I should also specify here an unaccredited school in this context meaning an unaccredited school that is not on the path to accreditation.



One thing that makes these discussions on academia so fun is that even a statement that is almost a tautology will seem to have exceptions.

 

Re: Re: Reputable & Recognized Unaccredited D/L

I guess that I should mention that I agree that there is some small intersection of the two sets, even if we ignore the unaccredited schools that will soon be accredited. The intersecting set also seems to be shrinking in size rather than growing.

The argument for the intersecting set being the empty set is that the general public will frequently equate unaccredited with disreputable. A good example of this can be found in a Google search of California Coast University degrees. There were multiple examples where it was insinuated in newspaper articles that a person with a CCU degree had a degree mill diploma. Of course, this was all prior to CCU receiving accreditation.

 

Ooops.
I thought this was leading in the SCUPS ->NCU direction.

 

I nominate the SANS Institute www.sans.edu as the most reputable unaccredited school today. Their reputation in IT security field is unquestionable. I don't think they're DL (you attend lectures on their "conferences" throughout the country), and they appear to be seeking accreditation.