I noticed the same change to admission policy because until recently a bachelor degree was sufficient. I wonder if this change is related to the business accreditation NCU received?
Maybe because they are going to lose their accreditation...hey someone was going to say it - right. Let's start the rumor early
It appears that they now offer only the 51-credit doctoral degree (i.e., they no longer offer the 81-credit doctorate with master's in passing). www.ncu.edu/academics/graduate/business_phd.aspx
So you'll just earn an MBA on the way to a PhD... roughly same number of credits, 2 degrees instead of 1.
I am trying to start on my Ph.D early, but after speaking with the Admission advisor. I was told to complete my Master first. Secondly, I cannot start taking any course without admitting to the program. I think for the accreditation purposes, they are no longer taking easy on these category include accepting NA credits.
That does not make sense. I look at USF's admission requires for the PhD in Information Systems and they do not say they require a masters. By the way, this is the one and only that I looked at. I did not search for find one that matches what I wanted to find. A. Prerequisites and prior degrees Applications for the ISDS PhD program are encouraged from students with a wide variety of prior (four-year) undergraduate backgrounds such as, but not restricted to, business, computer science, economics, engineering and psychology. We do not require that applicants have a prior business degree or a graduate degree in information systems. However, students with prior business degrees or graduate degrees in information systems may be able to waive some foundational and core courses as noted in the Program Structure section.
A lot of schools admit people to doctoral programs with only a bachelor's degree; however, this does not imply there is less work involved to earn the doctorate. I had a professor at Old Dominion University a while back that had his BS from the University of Virginia and his PhD from Princeton. He did not have a master's degree. The credit hours required for a doctorate for someone without a master's degree is roughly equivalent to a master's degree + a doctorate. There is nothing to lose by earning a master's degree on your way to a doctorate.
Either way, it would be/have been two degrees. It's just that the old way allowed one to go from the bachelor's degree to doctoral admissions to master's in passing to doctorate while nowadays one goes from bachelor's degree to admission to (and earning of) the master's and then on to doctoral admmissions (and hopefully the doctoral degree itself).
It's true that USF doesn't require a Masters degree for entrance into their PhD program, but they DO require a GRE or a GMAT. Thus, NCU requires a Masters degree while USF requires a GRE or GMAT.
NCU no longer accepts nationally accredited degrees I talked to an NCU admissions rep today about possibly transferring from the Ed.D program at Liberty U. to a doctoral program at NCU. I was thinking about transferring, since I'm no longer sure I want to travel to Liberty's campus for three intensives over the course of the program. Well, I can scratch off that idea. I was told that NCU does not accept students with nationally accredited degrees--I have two NA Master's. Just last year NCU told me they do accept NA degrees. So, I think I'll just stay at Liberty. I'll be traveling to the campus this July for my first intensive. I'm glad there are schools like Liberty that accept NA degrees.
We try to warn people about the lack of utility of DETC/NA degrees. Not everyone recognizes DETC accreditation, particularly in the academic world. USF doesn't accept or recognize DETC accreditation either. Caveat Emptor.
Dakota State University is the same way. DSU only accepts credits from RA schools. I tried transferring some graduate level courses I completed when I was in the Army. Despite these credits being ACE approved and Florida Tech accepting them for credit for my master's degree, DSU would not accept them.
