I recently began my grad degree program at an online RA university. I am just amazed at the difference in mentoring that goes on at the RA school. All my submitted assignments have been critically scrutinized and evaluated with detailed constructive feedback. I never received this type of scrutiny at any NA school that I have attended, and I have attended three. Sometimes I wondered if the NA professors even looked at my work. I am wondering if it is just because it is grad school or is there truly a significant difference in academic rigor between RA and NA.
How perfect this thread is for an email I just received. I emailed Indiana Wesleyan to inform them I am no longer interested enrolling since I am enrolled in FLET. The response inquired about the program, etc. Here is the reply to my response: Here is my reply:
On this forum, we often talk about the "professional"doctorate vs. the "dissertation" or "academic" doctorate. I think that the same distinction appies to Master's degrees. An MBA usually represents a high level of professional knowledge and skill to be used in business. I suspect that a decent DETC MBA probably covers the same ground as an R/A program would but with no pretensions toward an academic life. However, a thesis based M.A. in Management is a genine research Master's degree, designed primarily to prepare the student for doctoral work and an academic career. Doubtless these generalizations are too broad to be entirely true, but that's how it looks to me. So, as always, the question is, "What do you want the degree FOR?" As to feedback, have pity on the poor LL.M. student for whom the only feedback is his mark on the final exam!
There is a great deal of variation. I have experienced a couple of top notch RA schools where papers seldom had any substantive notations. The most apparent scrutiny & commentary was in my Canadian undergraduate degree. Yet, I would be careful about making the assumption based on that, that Canadian education is far superior. Also, note Nosbourne's comments about the U of London LLM (certainly a strenous program) which contains only marks. North
I have attended RA nad NA schools, distance and B&M. Without a doubt, Briercrest Bible College (NA) is BY FAR the most involved and critical with regard to their grading, comments, feedback, and mentoring. I really think it just depends on the school, not necessarily the accreditation. Pug
I agree, Pug. By the way, how are you? Been awhile since you've posted. Temple Baptist Seminary (TRACS) is on a ten-point grading system. FLET (DETC) has the following grading system: A+ 99-100 4.00 A 95-98 3.75 A- 93-94 3.50 B+ 91-92 3.25 B 87-90 3.00 B- 85-86 2.67 C+ 82-84 2.33 C 79-81 2.00 C- 76-78 1.67 D+ 74-75 1.33 D- 70-71 .50 F less than 70 0.00 I don't think I have ever seen such a strict grading system.
Those of us who do measurements and testing for a living might differ. Not with the numbers, but with the assumption behind them. Not all percentages reflect the same level of achievement. A 90 on one test might be easier than a 50 on another. One cannot assume otherwise. It would be a simple thing to announce that, in the future, a passing grade for tests and/or courses will be, say 85, then make the measurements easier and, thus, making the grade more attainable. There is nothing, nothing at all, inherent in a numerical scale for grades. What is important is the body of knowledge and what is done to measure student accomplishment. That's why effective training programs don't merely test and score; they measure student accomplishment against behavioral objectives. Assuming a normal distribution of students, it is sometimes useful to norm the grades. That's what the CLEP tests do, which is why you can't compare scores from test-to-test. A 53 in Statistics isn't the same as a 53 in American History. In short, requiring a 98 for an "A" isn't difficult if the test is very, very easy.
High School That is the grading school I had when I was in high school, anything below 70 was an F. Every college I have ever been to has been the 10 point grading system, while some used the - + system (Longwod U, Liberty U, and UOP) and some didin't (ODU and NVCC)
I slacked off in my one of my management course assignments very very slightly (at Aspen which is DETC accredited), and was asked by the prof to redo the entire module... he wouldn't even grade the assignment unless I had things sorted out down to the wire. Same in accounting... I had to be thorough with my analysis or face an embarrassing grade. In my opinion, it usually depends on the prof as to how vigorous the grading is... not necessarily the school or the accrediting body. I have yet to write that dreaded proctored exam next month... I will let you know how "easy" or "hard" it is after I am done, rest assured.
I have attended both NA and RA schools, and found that both NA and RA graded fairly but it varied from professor to professor. I found at the NA school that I got more individualized attention as well.
