2 yr. college courses transferring as Upper Level...

Here's something odd. I noticed when my (regionally accredited)school, TESC gave me my first evaluation of credits, a lot of courses I took at the local Community College transferred as 300 and 400 level credits into the new school. I thought it was too good to be true but it wasn't. They were also used for my concentration. Most other colleges (Including the other 2 of the BIG 3) don't don't allow this and also don't allow 2 yr college credits to be used toward the concentration.

I must also add that my school counts anything 200 level and above as Upper Level for the concentration. Needless to say I was quite happy and 2 months after that piece of mail I'm a college graduate.

I'm just curious, are there any other regionally accredited schools that allow for any of that??? (Most seem require at least 30 credits 300 level or above with a C or Better and all of them earned at a 4 yr college) Many won't even allow testing out of courses for the major...Many won't even let you CLEP out of a course you already took to wipe out a "D" either.

DISCLAIMER: This was my experience and some majors or concentrations may be different. This is no guarantee that what I mentioned above will be the case for everyone who enrolls in any particular school.

 

Correction- I said MANY of my Community College credits..... SOME of my credits would be more accurate...

ALSO some "lower level" Exams might be used as Upper Level... EG Analyzing and Interpreting Lit. was numbered Lit... 291 & 292... If my major was either Humanities or Liberal Studies I could have used that as "upper" level in my concentration. Also DSST World Religions is listed as REL 405 there- it's normally lower level in most other places.

 

Park University does this. I took abnormal Psych at a community college in Illinois and was given upper level credit for it by Park.

There is a down side. If you take an upperlevel class and transfer it to Park and the class in considered lower level, you loose the upperlevel credit. In my case, it has only worked in my favor.

 

DePaul and Roosevelt will do this in the CIS area. Many CC's offer classes in Internetworking, Security and Wireless that are essentially 300-level classes - but CC's can only label them as "200-level".

 

Hi LJinPA:
I am currently a student at University of Iowa Bachelor of Liberal arts Student via distance study. I transferred into UOI with 102 community college credits, 13 of those credits were P.E. so those will not count of course. UOI accepted me into the program with 60 sh towards my BA. I currently have 78 sh with UOI.

I just took the Spanish CLEP and will receive 12 credits. I plan on also taking the Analyzing and Interpreting Lit. Anyway, I am going to start taking more CLEP and DANTES exams so I can transfer into one of the big three.

Do you think I should apply at TESC and Charter Oak to see who gives me more credit? Please advise.

I merely wish to complete my BA in general/liberal studies. I really don't even care what the major of my degree is in, just want to complete it.

Thanks, Abner It sounds like what you are saying is that TESC is much more flexible than COSC or Excelsior.

 

UOP's rule is that it has to be of comparable content, from a regionally accredited school, and the same # level (300-400).

 

Definately TESC!!!- they all accept 80-90 credits from a 2 yr college. Tesc though, may accept A FEW of your credits as upper level and anything 200 level and above mat count as upper level (sometimes I even get a little nervous thinking it was too good to be true), but hey it's a fully accredited state school. I PRAY that tesc doesnt change any policies before my graduation date now that I'm finished (such as toughen the degree requirements).

Excelsior is the second most flexible but Upper Level credits have to be 300 level+. A plus with Excelsior is their policies are the most CLEAR... the policies of the other 2 seem ambiguous at times.

Remember with TESC- they will not answer any advisement questions until you pay about $2000 to enroll and THEN you get your eveluation. The other 2 provide pre-enrollmant evaluations. Without getting off the subject or into TOO much detail I will say I've had both good and bad experiences with TESC- yet overall I would still recommend it big-time. When looking at the BIG picture, it's the "good" experiences that will matter.

Remember too that every degree program is different, a BA program in Liberal Arts or some broad BA program would be more flexible than an applied professional degree.

 

Thanks for the info. !

 

LJ, LJ, LJ, hast thou not yet learned the system? (Relax, dude, I'm joking.)

Historically, TESC's policy has been this: Anything over six credits in a single subject area is counted as upper level, regardless of the level it might be placed at another school.

Say you take four 3-credit music courses: Piano 101, Voice 101, Woodwinds 101, an Brass 101. At most schools, they would all be considered lower-level intro courses. But at TESC, the first two courses (6 cr.) would be considered lower level, and the other two (6 cr.) would be considered upper level.

With TESC's newer recognition of course numbers, you have the best of both worlds . . . If a course is upper level at another university, you can have it treated he same way by TESC. But the old, tried-and-true can still work: anything over six credits in a single subject area is also upper level.

 

a-ha

Thanks Steve, that explains PART of it... The thing is I wonder how it is legal or possible(that one can have an accredited BA with nothing over 2 yr college credits). I mean I'm quite happy I'm graduated don't get me wrong...but it does sound too good to be true and makes me wonder how my degree will be accepted. I sometimes wonder if this school has been there 30 years, why haven't many people heard if it. I know of many people who would have degrees by now if they knew about the big 3.
If I knew about the big 3 when I was 21 I would have been long graduated.

Thomas Edison also has this computer software that shuffles the courses every time a new one is put in- designed to make the student look favorable. I'm not sure how this software works. I thought I knew the system well by the what I read in the catalog, but had no idea about this software and still have no idea exactly how it works.

TESC limits CC credits to 80 but you can CLEP/DSST out of the rest.
***I'll put it this way, when I went to the community college a decade ago(and they offer CLEPS, I wasn't aware of that back then) I had no idea that it was possible -in a sense, for me to get a legitimate Bachelors degree entirely on that campus, and nor are a lot of people aware or they would have saved a lot of money and all have degrees by now. I'm very happy, but kinda of curious, and hopeful that my employers will accept my degree as legit.