American College of Computer and Information Systems (ACCIS)

Hello, everyone. I was considering ACCIS for my Computer Science degree, as it is 1/4th the price of the private college I am attending in Everett, WA.

I saw a post where people were slamming this online school AFTER it received accreditation from the Distance Education and Training Council, Accrediting Commission -- which is recognized as a national accreditation body by the US Department of Education. Are all accreditations not alike? Is regional BETTER than a national one?

Please advise, and thanks.

Sincerely,

Pat W.
Computer Science Student

 

If you've read that, you can read the many posts describing the limitations of DETC accreditation vs. regional accreditation. Please do.

The answers to your questions are "no" and "yes," respectively. The details are widely available on this board via a search of its threads.

 

Dear Pat Walters

The post-DETC-accreditation "slamming" was more a slamming of the DETC process, which presumably did not take into account the fact that this school was claiming worthless accreditation (from the dreadful World Association of Universities and Colleges) until the day they got DETC's blessing. That DETC chooses to ignore such things is their business. And getting really annoyed that they do so is (some of) our business.

This school clearly meets many people's needs. If you have no plans to go on for a Master's later, it may well be a reasonable choice for you.

 

I still can't think of a good reason for pursuing a CS degree from ACCIS when there are RA (regionally accredited) schools (e.g. Troy State) offering online RA degrees for around the same cost. You may someday encounter a situation where an RA degree is acceptable, while a DETC degree is not (or is less desirable), so ACCIS just doesn't seem like a wise choice unless you rule out the RA options for some reason.

 

I want to say "Thank you!" to those of you who responded.

I actually DO intend to get a Master's degree at some point and perhaps more. This is very helpful, actually.

Would someone care to repost the brick-and-mortar Regionally Accredited (RA for us new members) schools that offer a specific Bachelor of Science in Computer SCIENCE degree? I'm having trouble finding it, and I know there are others that know this off the top of their heads.

One of the issues is that so many of these schools, like City University, offer distance learning degrees in things that SOUND like Computer Science, but are NOT. I want, and many others want, a Computer Science degree from a distance learning school that will:

1) Allow us to obtain gainful employment as computer scientists.
2) Allow us to rather seamlessly put use our degree as a STANDARD for entrance to professional degree programs in Computer Science.

Thank you again to those of you who responded in helping me with this.

Sincerely,

Pat Walters

 

A quick search on Peterson's turned up:

Athabasca University
California National University for Advanced Studies
California State University, Chico
Duquesne University
Florida State University
Mercy College
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Old Dominion University
Regis University
Thomas Edison State College
Touro University International

 

If cost is a big factor then Troy State (see the link in my post above), at $135 per credit (semester hour), is probably your best bet for an RA BSCS. However, you may find that their CS curriculum is more applied than that of most CS programs, which could potentially lead to prerequisite deficiencies when applying to grad school, depending upon the grad program, if you weren't careful to work in those extra courses. There are some other cost effective options available for residents of certain states (the cost can sometimes be very high for non-residents), but I don't recall any in Washington off the top of my head. Some people have found that a CIS degree works fine for getting into grad school, provided that prerequisites are met, so you might want to consider options other than a strict CS major. For example, someone here got into Illinois, which is a top 5 CS grad program, with a BSCIS from Excelsior College.

Regardless of which school you choose, I'd recommend that you take advantage of credit by exam (CLEP, etc.) in order to reduce both your cost and your time to graduation. Check with the schools you're interested in to see what their policies are for earning/applying this type of credit.

 

John Bear wrote:

> this school was claiming worthless accreditation (from the
> dreadful World Association of Universities and Colleges) until
> the day they got DETC's blessing.

St Clements University's Website says: "As St Clements University is an accredited member of WAUC its degrees are recognized by over 40 other Universities & Colleges world wide."

WAUC itself doesn't seem to make this claim. In fact, WAUC's FAQ page says: "Acceptance of a degree program is at the discretion of the university to which the degree is submitted."

But what if St Clements is right, and ACCIS was one of the 40? Does this mean that a student with lucky timing could have got a Bachelor's degree from a WAUC-accredited mill, followed by a DETC-accredited Master of Science in Information Systems from ACCIS?