I know there have been a lot of UNISA questions posted lately, and I have published many of those. I am still concerned about the question of UNISA's accreditation acceptance in the US. I was wanting to know if anyone on the board has ever had UNISA's degrees (at any level) evaluated by an evaluation service to determine its equivalent US accreditation level. If so, what were the results? What was the degree? (MA, PHD, etc.)? Also, if any one knows the answer to this question: Would any of the evaluation services give a PRELIMINARY evaluation of a degree? After all, if one wants to pursue a degree but that certain degree won't be accredited to the desired level, then why pursue it? Thanks for any input.
Yes... but it can be tricky... or not, just depends. It's relatively easy to get any of the evaluators to take a look at a given foreign college/university and basically declare it legit and the equivalent of "accredited" in its country, etc. They might even do it for free. And if it's a larger evaluator that has actually evaluated degrees from said foreign college/university, then it might also be willing to list the ones it has evaluated and indicate how it evaluated/rated them... but only in very general terms; and only in a way that is intended to give you the reassurance that you need, but not in a way that you could then take to some university and use it to say that you got a degree from there and, "hey, look, this evaluator says the degree is equivalent to RA" or anything like that. They may or may not do that for free; but if they don't, the fee should be fairly small... probably nowhere near what they charge to do a student-specific, post-graduation evaluation of the type that you'd be asking them to do for you and your degree once you actually have the degree. Now, here's the potentially tricky part: If you want a US foreign credential evaluator to declare that a certain foreign degree program into which you'd like to enroll will, once you've graduated from it, be equivalent to a US regionally-accredited degree, then you'll need the help of the university to send you the syllabus, reading list, etc. for each course that you'll be taking in fulfillment of the degree. Then you'll need to list all those courses, course numbers, hours of credit, etc. -- all the same info that's typically on a transcript -- and you'll need to put that list, and all the syllabi, behind a nice cover letter to the evaluator explaining that you're asking for more of a hypothetical, pre-enrollment evaluation of a degree plan, not a degree; a degree you haven't yet earned, but are planning on earning, but you need to know how it will evaluate once you've done so. And you'll further explain that all you're asking for is a declaration, on their letterhead (as opposed to the special transcript-type paper they use for their actual evaluations), that said degree will or will not evaluate as equivalent to a US regionally-accredited degree, once you've earned it. Because you could, theoretically use that letter as a pseudo-evaluation after you've graduated, the smart credential evaluator will charge you just the same as if you were getting the evaluation post-graduation. Or maybe not... who knows. Some evaluators may refuse, but many others will, I'm sure, agree to do it. And, of course, you'll probably have to pay yet again, once you've graduated, for the formal, official evaluation that you'll actually use throughout your lifetime. But in the master scheme of things, it's not really that much money if you end-up having to pay twice. Usually it costs from $100 to $500 per evaluation, but you only have to pay for, in your case, the two evaluations just once in your entire life. Those who, unlike you (based on what you're thinking of doing), only get a post-graduation evaluation end-up paying half, over their lifetime, than what you'll pay if you do both evaluations. The only reason you'd ever have to do it more than once in your lifetime would be if you pick "ABC Evalation Service" now (either for your pre-enrollment evaluation, or your post-graduation evaluation, or both); and then, later, after you've gotten the degree, you run into an employer or school that only accepts "XYZ Evaluation Service" evaluations, and no other. Even if both evaluators are NACES members; and even though you can show them that you already went through an evaluabon from an agency that was also a NACES member agency, the employer or school may not budge, and may only accept an evaluation from "XYZ Evaluation Service" and that's that. If so, then, yes, you'll have to do it a second time (or, in your case, perhaps, a third), for a cost of from $100 to $500... yet again. But when you consider the money you'll be saving on the UNISA degree (over what you would have paid for the equivalent degree at a US RA school), you'll be able to afford several credential evaluations over the course of your lifetime, and still have saved tons and tons of money. So don't worry about it!
