Federal Govt and Undergraduate Credit Hours

This is a current GS-0018 SAFTEY AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH SPECIALIST that the USAF has open. However I took notice of the limit of GPA standards and non traditional educational means.

Applicants must meet one of the following qualification requirements:

a. Successful completion of a 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university by 30 June 2003. In addition, one of the following conditions must be met: 1) a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.95 in the undergraduate degree, either overall or in the last two academic years; 2) 3.45 GPA in the major field of study,
either overall or in the last two academic years; 3) rank in the upper third (1/3) of your graduating class or major subdivision based on courses completed, or 4) hold membership in a National Honor Society. If more than 10 percent of your total undergraduate credit hours are non-graded, (i.e.,
pass/fail, CLEP, CCAF, DANTES, military credit, etc.) you cannot qualify based on GPA, if attempting to qualify based on education. You can qualify only if you rank in the top 1/3 of your graduating class or major subdivision, e.g., College of Liberal Arts or School of Business. If you have not yet graduated,
you may be offered a position contingent upon your final grade point average or class ranking.

Those applicants qualifying based on education must have a degree in safety or occupational health fields i.e. safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene, OR degree in other related fields that was supplemented by 24 semester hours in safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine, toxicology, public health, mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biological sciences, engineering, and industrial psychology.

 

Two different concepts are at work.

- There is no problem in competitively qualifying for a Federal civil service position using degree earned with "nontraditonal" credits.

- There IS a problem trying to:

a) Seek non-competitive appointment through the Outstanding Scholar Program, or

b) Seek non-competitive appointment at a higher than entry-level grade-- usually GS-7-- under the "Superior Academic Achievement" provisions alone

.. if a large number of your credits are ungraded. This would be true whether you had lots of "credit/no-credit" courses at a brick & mortar institution, or had an Excelsior degree earned entirely by testing.

If the hiring agency has chosen to limit the area of consideration to Outstanding Scholar eligibles, then you're out of luck. (So am I, but then, I'm not part of the "target audience" for OS hiring anyway. This is a "hiring flexibility" that came about after the Luvano consent decree, which mandated that Uncle take steps to hire a more diverse population into white-collar entry-level positions. Most agencies have missed this point; OPM periodically reminds agencies what the point of the OS program is, and it ISN'T to routinely fill every position with a college graduate, outstanding or not.)***

If the position is announced at the GS-7 level, and you're trying to qualify at the GS-7 level solely on the basis of your undergraduate degree (rather than by experience, or a combination of education & experience) then you're also out of luck.

Bottom line: A large number of ungraded credits is an impediment if you're looking for one of the "special appointment authorities" rather than a competitive appointment, or if you're trying to qualify for a GS-7 job without any accompanying experience.

If it were simple, it wouldn't be the government, would it?

- Dennis

*** At my last agency, employees who made noteworthy, non-common-sensical blunders (firearms mishaps, putting gasoline in a diesel-only vehicle, forwarding chain e-mail to cabinet-level officials, et cetera) were sardonically referred to as "Outstanding Scholar candidates," tribute to the high percentage of OS hires contributing material for the stories. I've always referred to myself as a product of the "Mediocre Scholar Program," which involved dropping out of college, taking a not-particularly-attractive GS-5 job and working my butt off, one grade at a time. A friend refers to himself as a "Standing Out Scholar"; having finished his Master's degree, he's eminently qualified to stand out in the middle of the desert near Del Rio, Texas and count illegal aliens for GS-9 pay.