Why is DETC considered GAAP by some when many RA schools (even some of the poorer ones) won't accept schools that are only DETC accredited?
On a related point, I've always wondered how acceptable "GAAP" is outside this board / AED (both consumer-centric). I never hear of it anyplace else. As well, I've not heard of a "list" of GAAP schools being maintained by some recognized body. (Just because I haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.) Maybe someone can enlighten me on this. Thoughts? Barry Foster
Rightly or wrongly, I think of GAAP as a list of approved lists. Compiling the approved lists into a single document would be daunting task.
The phrase was coined by AACRAO (the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officials). It was popularized by John and Mariah Bear in their Bears' Guides. John's research with admissions officials really validated the concept of GAAP. To put it in simple terms, I'd rate the categories on a 1 to 10 scale (10 highest) thus: 10 - RA 9 - RA 100% non-res 8 - Foreign Credential Services 8 - Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 8 - AACRAO/PIER World Education Series 7 - International Handbook of Universities 5 - National Accreditation (i.e. DETC) 2 - Caribbean schools 2 - USDOE Handbook (Privately published) 1 - State Approved - some standards 1 - State Approved - little or no standards 1 - Unrecognized accreditation 1 - Private European accreditation There's GAAP, DETC, and everything else. Rich Douglas
This would be admissions officials at US schools. And also, the ranking of 1-10 would be acceptance at US RA schools, correct? I don't think, for example, Oxford, Cambridge, etc. would view RA as being a 10, and a UK Royal Charter only an 8. This scale would seem to apply to acceptance in US schools. Given the scale, Potchefstroom rates quite well, 8-8-7. Member of the Association Commonwealth Universities, listed in World Series (PIER), and listed in International Handbook of Universities. Russell
I would suggest that "Generally Accepted" should really only be 8 and up on your list. John's research with admissions officials really validated the concept of GAAP. To put it in simple terms, I'd rate the categories on a 1 to 10 scale (10 highest) thus: 10 - RA 9 - RA 100% non-res 8 - Foreign Credential Services 8 - Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 8 - AACRAO/PIER World Education Series 7 - International Handbook of Universities 5 - National Accreditation (i.e. DETC) 2 - Caribbean schools 2 - USDOE Handbook (Privately published) 1 - State Approved - some standards 1 - State Approved - little or no standards 1 - Unrecognized accreditation 1 - Private European accreditation There's GAAP, DETC, and everything else. Rich Douglas[/B][/QUOTE]
I applaud Bear and Douglas' work. We finally have some empirical evidence about how admissions officers respond in different situations. I hope that the authors publish it somehow so that we can see the details. But on reading this acceptability hierarchy, I find that I have more questions after I read it than I had before I started. It's intellectual entropy, the tragedy of the philosophy major: It's much easier to ask questions than to answer them. In what way? Does this average across different departments? I can understand questions about accepting DL laboratory science courses. If you averaged the hard sciences in with lit courses, it might look like there was less acceptance of the latter than there really was. It's as if more issues are being added as you move down Rich's list. A 100% non-residential course would raise issues, at least in some fields. Now the 'GAAP' issue adds a whole new layer of questions on top of that, for non-residential foreign programs at least. At first the question was within regional accreditation. Now it is one of equivalency to regional accreditation. Now we are out of the RA orbit. Those schools that have an RA-only policy (at least officially) can be more emphatic here. With 'GAAP' it was overwhelmingly "Yes, but...", now you are probably getting a significant number of respondents saying "No, but..." Would a Caribbean 'GAAP' school be an '8' or a '2'? Is this a statistical average of schools as diverse as UWI (entirely legitimate), Berne ('GAAP' but doubtful) and Ashington (Trinity C&U's little brother)? It's not hard to see how Ashington and Capitol could pull down the average, but does the lack of acceptance apply to the Caribbean across the board? I'm not sure what that is. Does the US government print a world education directory, or is this just the list of schools with student financial aid numbers? That's an awfully diverse group, but I can see that admissions officers may often reject it wholesale. I would really like to see more credible assesment programs on the TESC/WGU model, offering credible RA bachelors and masters level assessment degrees in as many fields as possible. Then you could use the better state approved schools as tutoring institutions preparing students for those exams. Basically that's the long established University of London external programme model. Then admissions office rejection of the better state approved schools would no longer be a problem, and you would have an objective indicator of state-approved schools' academic credibility in the success rate of their graduates in the exams. Hopefully you could redeem some of the real education that is currently being lost in '1'-land that way. And in the process isolate the scams still further.
A interesting thing: back in 1994 when I try to get a catalog from BYU (if my memory is correct), there is a piece of note in the package saying that degrees from Chinese radio & tv universities or evening colleges are not considered the same as an US undergraduate degree. Recently China Ministry of Education said that foreign degrees by correspondence study are not recognized in China. So I wonder whether DETC degrees are widely recognized out of US. ------------------ Jonathan Liu http://www.geocities.com/liu_jonathan/distance.html
Interesting that BYU would make such a distinction. I haven't checked recently but I thought that there have been some foreign schools that are seeking DETC accreditation. In light of GAAP I wonder why? John
This survey measured responses from admissions officials at U.S. RA schools. It would not be prudent to extrapolate beyond that population. Rich Douglas
It is natural to ask a bunch of questions not included in the original research. But that shouldn't take away from what was found. It sounds like there is lots more room for exploration. When one drifts away from the numbers into their meaning, one's comments are certainly open to discussion. I contend this survey sends a very clear message about GAAP. That there is much more to know is also clear, as Bill's questions point out. The USDOE guide was published by the USDOE for many years. They stopped in the early 1980's, and a private company (HEP) picked up where they left off. This company changed the look--and sometimes the criteria for inclusion. It no longer has the backing of the USDOE, but it did for many years, hence its inclusion. My 1-10 scale was for illustrative simplicity. When one uses the actual numbers--as John and I both have--they get twisted around and repeated incorrectly. I was simply trying to draw a comparison of the dichotomy that exists in the data. I repeat, there is GAAP, then everything else (with poor little DETC trying to catch up to its RA big brothers). Rich Douglas
I continue to be baffled by the way people treat GAAP, positively or negatively, as if were a firm and fixed concept. Consider GATP, Generally Accepted Toothbrushing Practices. I just made up the term, but it seems safe to say that the concept exists, and has since Dr. Bristle came up with (etc.). But within that concept, there are the once a day people, the twice a day, the after every meal, the flossers, the up and down, the back and forth, the manual, the electric, the vibrating, the rotating, on and on and on. Would anyone deny that there is the concept of GATP, whether any given person calls it that or not? The folks on www.DentalInfo.com can debate till the cows come home which practices should be included in GATP, but I doubt if any of them would say there is no such concept as generally accepted toothbrushing practices. And so it is with GAAP as applied to accreditation. If the term does not appear in formal articles, the concept appears in every article and book ever written on school and degree acceptance, and that is all we're talking about here. Shorthand. When a California-run school, with a Montana license suddenly claims accreditation from the human resources (not education) ministry of Malawi, one could say, "It seems unlikely that a degree from Columbia Commonwealth University would be acceptable to the majority of US registrars for purposes of transfering credit and recognizing the degree, etc. etc. etc." or one could say, "Not GAAP." Same thing. If I were doing a 15th edition of Bears' Guide today, I'd probably make some changes in my choice of GAAP criteria, based on my recent research project, and other information. And by the time I (or someone) will need to make that decision in a year or so, it will probably be different yet again. John Bear [email protected]
Rich, Would you make any differentiation between traditional schools offering non-resident degrees and virtual schools... i.e. say between a Cal State DH and a Touro???
Lewchuk asks, <<So... as of today, how would you change your GAAP criteria???>> I just haven't had time to think this through in any detail, but that work needs to be done. A couple of thoughts in progress. For Caribbean schools (a growing number, mostly run from US), I'd probably add that specific approval from the U of the West Indies is needed. I'd seriously consider dropping the International Handbook of Universities, now that I know more about their criteria for being listed (i.e., approval of your country, regardless of what their standards may be). I'd like somehow to at least acknowledge the difference between DETC-accredited schools where the courses have been separately evaluated by the American Council on Education, and those that haven't. This might make a find forum topic for next fall -- but I will not be thinking further about it at least until then. That's "fall" north of the equator, aka "spring" in Australia.
The survey did not, but John reported something interesting that was said while he was at the AACRAO convention. One of the attendees, when discussing the marked difference in scores between the two RA categories (RA with some residency and RA 100% non-res, essentially said, "But how would we know (that the degree was earned non-residentially)?" This is a common topic here (the differences between residential and non-res programs at the same school, along with the credential being awarded). It is often a FAQ item at diploma mills. ("Will my diploma/transcript indicate how the degree was earned?") I would suspect there is some lower level of acceptance of degrees from virtual schools like Touro International and Jones International, simply because it IS clear how the degree was earned. This wouldn't be the case with a degree from CSUDH earned externally. But this was not measured. Rich Douglas
