Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.

Hello, Will any RA school accept credits from a school with the above accreditation? Thanks. Hille

 

I would assume RA schools that currently accept NA degrees such as DETC would also accept ACICS.

 

I say if you know in advance what RA schools you want to go to eventually, call ahead and ask if they take ACICS credits in transfer. Also check whether the ACICS school's classes are ACE evaluated.

 

On the day that Armstrong University in Berkeley had its WASC revoked, they announced their accreditation by ACICS. It seems safe to say that WASC is one regional accreditor that may not recognize ACICS.

 

Initially, I would say that any RA school which accepts an NA degree would accept a degree by an ACICS-accredited school.

However, I think it really depends on the nature of the degree. Many of the fields of study accredited by ACICS are of a vocational or technical school nature, i.e. culinary arts, radio broadcasting, locksmithing, etc. You would probably have a hard time getting transfer credit with a degree from the Golf Academy of Hawaii or the Academy of Court Reporting (both ACICS-accredited schools). I think the advice about checking whether an ACICS-accredited institution's courses are ACE-evaluated is sound.

That being said, there are ACICS-accredited institutions with programs which look decent, such as ITT or Florida Metropolitan University, which offers online courses.

 

Hille,

You're obviously still collecting information for the DL bachelors program you're trying to put together for your friend. I'm a little dumfounded as to why you're doing it so piecemeal. You've got several threads going now trying to put it all together. Why not just answer the questions I posed in your other thread (which would, as a byproduct, also get pretty much all your other threads' questions answered along the way) and just let some people who have done this before help you get straight to your answers? It would be a heck of alot faster; and of higher quality, I'm guessing.

As for ACICS, it's a better accreditor than this thread may be leading you to believe. It's true that its beginnings were just secretarial schools, and beauty schools, etc. But it's now accrediting bona fide academic programs in al most exactly the same way that DETC now is. Any RA school that would accept DETC credits, but would not also accept ACICS credits is not paying attention and does not truly understand ACICS.

ACICS is also promoting its Transfer Alliance, and is actively recruiting RA schools to join it.

All that said, there's no question that ACICS is not looked upon by the general universe as being as good a national accreditor as, for example, DETC (though, once you understand both agencies' accreditattion standards, there's clearly no reason that that should be so). So, yes, it would probably be not insignificantly more difficult -- at least for the moment -- to get an RA institution to accept ACICS credits. Not impossible, mind you, but more difficult... and, in some cases, perhaps impossible.