Is TESC a fraud? Please help!

I spoke to the director of admissions at Thomas Edison State College recently, and he said that he never heard of a student transferring in with an A.A. and completing a B.A. entirely through portfolio assessment.

Question: TESC has MANY majors whereby they do not provide online courses (or any means other than portfolio assessment) to fulfill THEIR degree requirements. How do you complete a degree THEY offer when THEY do not provide a means of obtaining said courses (except through a means [portfolio] they claim is not a realistic venue)? In other words, many of THEIR degrees require courses THEY do not provide a means of completing and yet they are stating portfolio has not been used to complete the degree major.

For example: If you want to get a B.A. in Political Science, and you currently have met the general education requirements with a regionally accredited A.A. degree, the only means of completing the degree major is through portfolio assessment because TESC does not offer courses required in the major’s curriculum.

Is this a scam?

 

TESC accepts unlimited transfer credit; it's assumed that you'll take the courses elsewhere and apply them towards the degree. Of the 123 hours with which I earned my USNY/Regents/Excelsior degree, exactly zero came directly from Excelsior. 6 were from Ole Miss, 3 from Penn State, and the rest by CLEP, DANTES, and GRE subject exams.


Cheers,

 

TESC, like COSC, was patterned after the University of the State of New York's Regents External Degree Program, now Excelsior College. The Regents'--and by extension, TESC's--core function is to assess learning done elsewhere. This differs dramatically from tradition institutions, which offer instruction and then measure the learning gained from it.

It is most certainly not a scam. TESC (and Excelsior and COSC) offers people with substantial experience and knowledge an opportunity to demonstrate it for college credit. These programs are designed for people with knowledge that, if properly credited, would take them to--or near--degree completion. Oh, sure, the occasional wise-ass like me or Tom Head completes the program young (we were, respectively, around 19 or 20 when we finished our Regents program), but the average age of graduate is somewhere in the late 30's, people who again have substantial knowledge and experience that can be credited towards a degree.

For those people who still need credit to finish, there are many options, including coursework and self-study for examinations. Either can take a variety of forms and occur in a multitude of locations and formats.

As for completing the entire second half of a bachelor's by portfolio, I'm not surprised that it doesn't happen. How likely would it be that someone had just the right experiences to fill ALL the varied requirements for a degree, in all the right credit amounts, and at all the right levels?

 

TESC

Good Morning, TESC is a growing RA institution with some huge communication problems. There used to be a story on the website about a student who had achieved 75% of his degree through portfolio. I would not advise this unless a person has boxes of certificates. Feel free to bounce questions my way. Hille

 

I was ready to jump on in and apply to TESC until I read this thread.

It's not the first poster's contention that it's a scam that concerns me, but the seemingly COMPLETE lack of some of the major they advertise having to be taken elsewhere?

Why wouldn't I just apply somewhere else?

Now I'm really in a mire with what to do.....

 

TESC is not a scam.

As has been posted previously, you can complete a degree through TESC by transferring credit from other sources. TESC, COSC, and Excelsior offer an advantage over other schools because of their flexible transfer policies. So, if you have already earned a lot of credit toward a degree from many different sources, TESC may be a very good option for you since most traditional proprams allow only very limited transfer credit.

 

Well, like I said I wasn't contending that it was a scam. Poeple have a lot of good things to say about them here on the forums.

BUT, I would like to complete my degree at one place without the hassle of attending courses at other institutions.

I have ~60 credits to transfer from other institutions. I'm looking for a degree in Computer science or an IT degree.

Do you think TESC is a wise choice for me, taking the above into consideration?

 

There was, in fact, a student who completed his degree a few years ago 100% through the portfolio process. He was an older man, as I recall (in his early 70's, perhaps), who obviously had a load of life experience that could be translated into college credit through TESC's portfolio process.

If I were to break down my own B.A. in Humanities (1987) from TESC - 98 credits by portfolio, 16 credits by testing out, and 6 credits by transfer - the result would be 81.7% by portfolio, 13.3% by exam, and only 5% by actual coursework.

As for the dearth of courses available from TESC, at one time they had no courses at all. (Nor did Excelsior, then Regents.) All courses had to be taken elsewhere and transferred in; TESC used to recommend, in particular, from Ohio University, the University of Iowa, and the University of North Carolina for both correspondence courses and exams. Thus, TESC's own selection was never intended to cover the entire gamut of courses available from colleges and universities - just the basics one would find in most liberal arts programs.

Finally, why would one choose TESC over any of the other schools? Simple: if you are one of the rare breed (like me ) that can actually pull off a portfolio-based degree, you can do it much faster. My degree took only a year and a half to complete, and all I went in with were the original six credits from coursework I had taken years earlier. (If I had known then what I know today about how the system works, I could have done it faster. But speed is not everything, and can sometimes be a drawback - I had the chance to chop six months off the certification phase of my Ph.D. from Union, but chose not to do so because I felt it would have made the degree questionable.)

TESC has one - and only one - drawback: They do not grant credit for the GRE exams. Excelsior and Charter Oak grant up to 30-ish credits for the GRE (depending on your score). Therefore, if you had 60 credits and wanted to pull off a degree fast by using the GRE, TESC may not be your best choice. If you want to do the same by portfolio, however, TESC has the most flexible (yet legit) standards for granting portfolio credit.

If one is hesitant about any school, it's probably best not to choose that school - you must be comfortable about your choice. But in nontraditional education of any type, it's important to be able to "think outside the box." Once you can do that, you'll realize that there is no "hassle of attending courses at other institutions." (Attending courses? Indeed...)

 

TESC is not a scam. I am not a fan of portfolio/life experience/CLEP undergraduate degrees and when I first made it across the barren & frozen plains from Canada to the USA, I thought it was a hoax. Nonetheless, my opinions aside, TESC is regionally accredited and should provide good utility. We have examples of fine and upstanding members of this forum such as Tom Head, Rich D., and Steve Levicoff who not only graduated but went on to other RA graduate level degree (Steve is a Piled Higher and Deeper grad from TUIU/UIU and Rich is in the process at UIU and Tom is a doctoral student at a well respected Foreign School). TESC is likely quite a good choice for you!

Good luck!

North

 

I received my BS from Regents (now Excelsior). I earned all my credits from other colleges and universities over many years (except I earned English credit via CLEP test). Most traditional schools have a fairly rigid set of course requirements whereas Regents was more liberal.
By earning credits from a variety of sources can reduce the cost of earning a degree (especialy if you live in Califonia and take community college courses).

 

TESC, Charter Oak State College, or Excelsior College are generally the most liberal and flexible about accepting transfer credit. However, you probably will have to take at least some courses from other schools.

There are schools which offer computer science or IT programs that you can complete at a distance, taking all the courses from one school -- but these probably would be not so liberal about accepting as transfer the credits that you already have.

 

Thanks for the info everybody.

Just this afternoon I ran across Troy State University that has 100% online CS program.

I spoke with an advisor who would examine my transfer credits but from the looks of it I match up pretty well.

This looks like the better choice for me.

 

If you're planning to complete your degree mostly through coursework (rather than mostly exams or portfolio), then I would recommend that you check out other options before considering TESC. There are many CS/IT programs out there, such as the BS in CS from Troy State, the BS in CS from Touro, the BS in IT from UMass Lowell, etc. The big advantage to a school like TESC is that they don't require you to take 30+ credits directly from them, while most schools do have that requirement. It sounds as though that really isn't an issue for you though, so I'd check out the other options (there are many more than the few which I've mentioned).

Though it should still answer the requirement for a "bachelor's degree in computer science, "IMO the BA in CS from TESC is a relatively weak CS degree; enough so that I'm planning to supplement mine with an MS in CS in order to give me a stronger academic credential in CS. I probably wouldn't feel the need to do that if I had a strong BS in CS instead. However, since I was able to initially transfer over 100 credits into TESC, I'll be able to get an MS in CS in not much more time than it would have taken me to finish a BS in CS from a more traditional school with residency requirements, and an MS in CS should almost always trump a BS in CS. TESC is a great solution for people in my situation, but I think that I would look for a solid BS in CS program if I were in yours.

Good luck!

 

question regarding TESC:

Hi friends.

TESC´s Degree Requirements say:

Thomas Edison State College awards degrees
which reflect the general content of an American
education. As part of the 120 semester hour requirement
for the bachelor’s degree, foreign citizens will be
required to complete a minimum of 30 semester hour
credits in subject areas taught in American colleges
and universities.

Would CLEP and similar tests count as "American Education" in that sense? What do you think?

Thanx!

Trigger

 

Gregor: "Just this afternoon I ran across Troy State University... This looks like the better choice for me..."

John: Perhaps it is. But a gentle reminder that choosing a school is one of the most important (and expensive) decisions one makes in a lifetime, and one that requires as much research and due diligence as one can muster, not just the chance of running across something.

There are many hundreds of properly accredited distance learning programs out there, and it usually pays to shop around for price, academic model, how prior learning will be handled, timing, and the intangibles of how they present themselves, communicate with you, and so on.

 

Re: question regarding TESC:

Yes, most definitely. I think what they are getting at is that they won't exempt foreign students from the general education requirements.

 

portfolio is a poor name

I think many admissions personnel try to discourage people from using the "credit for life skills approach" for a number of reasons.
The "credit for life skills" would only be useful for individuals with a great deal of unrecognized training/experience.
It can be difficult to provide verification of skills learned.
There tends to be an assumption that if I worked in a job it should be worth college credit. It really depends on the job and the skills learned.
Finally, 12 years work as a chef/cook maybe only worth 3 credits in cooking.
2 years as a cook, 2 years as a programmer, 2 years as a salesman, 2 years as a marketer may be worth 3 credits in each of the 3 areas.
So it is far easier for an admissions worker to downplay the credit for life skills option.
And, anyone with significant skills could "test out" of the subject. I think it is Ohio U. that publizes this approach. But many instititions will allow you to challenge a course and test out of it. and of course there are clep/dantes etc. If you know the field, you should be able to pass a clep test.
All the best!

 

Thanks, Gary!

I think I will try to get my German university diploma to be transfered into 90 of the 120 TESC B.Sc. in Business Admin. credits to get an additional US diploma - shouldn´t look too bad on my resume these days...

What somehow strikes me is that there does not seem to be a requirement to use a "foreign credential evaluation service" at TESC (like Excelsior does with ECE) -> could that be?

Are there any non-US-citizens (or US-citizens with knowledge) on board who have experiences with TESC´s credit transfer policy?

Thanx,
Trigger