Capella credibility

It's because of these long pointless diatribes that I rarely post on degreeinfo anymore. This site used to be supportive, now it seems like posters just want to attack one another.

 

I have taken close to twenty Capella courses and those who fall into the category previously mentioned of "60%... unable to demonstrate doctoral level critical thinking and writing skills" were much less. Out of a class of around 15-20 students, there may have been one such student and that was in only a couple of my courses.

 

And what then is your point I'm of the opinion someone might get such a degree for personal reasons or for a position other than teaching at the college level. In which case the standards may be in practice suitable for what they plan to do with the degree. And frankly the standards even in brick and mortar schools in writing has dropped over the last hundred years. If I recall civil war soldiers of relatively modest educations wrote with more maturity than a college graduate currently in most cases. Even in the last fifty years we saw a sharp drop in skills. Are you that suprised graduate level work is nt up to par?

I know a graduate of a college that never even wrote a major term paper in any class for his BS in a business concentration so it hardly shocks me that this is the case as you have stated above.

I do think its sad really if you ponder that for a moment.

 

So BlackBird, we know, was in psychology; simon, in which Capella grad program did you take the course you spoke of? Jim, which program was the student (who, again, had not yet graduated) taking?

 

It is not a secret that for profit schools are not exactly "rigorous". The issue seems to be that it cost so much to get a "customer" that profit schools do not fail students unless they don't do the minimum.

But it is not fair to say that all graduates of for-profit schools are bad. As an instructor at for profit schools, I had excellent students but also really bad ones that I wouldn't graduate if it was up to me.

I'm sure there is a gap between Capella graduates so it is not enough to judge by the School that was attended but by the quality of work generated.

One thing is for sure, a PhD nowadays doesn't mean anything. I have seen PhDs in Information Systems from traditional schools that are not able to install a simple application on a desktop computer or produce a simple program.

It is funny to see ads looking for Information Systems faculty at US schools that can speak english and program in a simple computer language when you would think that these simple requirements should be taken for granted but I guess that if it is written up front is for a reason.

The advent of the internet has also opened the door for the "bought" PhD even at traditional Universities. It is not so hard to find PhDs in India or Russia willing to write a full dissertation for less than 5K. Internet shools just makes this easier as the relationship student-advisor is almost done completely with the use of the net. May be the student in question just paid a PhD in India for all his assignments and dissertation for a package deal of 10K.

 

Re: Re: Capella credibility

You know, I never considered that - although I suspect Britons with advanced education (like the ones I bumped into at Oxford) would not use "have" that way.

Good point - How about the "this writer" usage

 

Re: Re: Capella credibility

It certainly is not - and I never said that they were.

 

It's considered ethical "good form" if you announce that you have a potential bias when responding to a post that may trigger an emotional "hot button" or simple conflict of interest.

You did not do this - imlying that your interest in Capella was solely because your wife was enrolled.

 

It is not a matter of being "surprised" as you stated regarding
"graduate level work is'nt up to par". Whether an individual is obtaining a doctorate for teaching or for "personal reasons" they should be able to meet the same rigorous academic and intellectual standards for this advanced degree. In addition, your statement that standards for writing skills in B&M schools has "dropped over the last hundred years" is incorrect. It is more like thirty five years since the advent of such policies as Social Promotion and Open Admissions. Furthermore, whether or not there has been a decline in writing skills in general has no bearing on the expectation for intellectual and academic excellence for those pursuing the doctoral degree and none of your explanations as to the cause in this decline changes this expectation.

 

Lets not be melodramatic. Yes there are some posters attacking one another and that unfortunately occurs when posters hold strong opposing perspectives or cannot support their position so resort to personal attacks as a defensive manuever. However, much of the discussion is relevant and every criticism is not an attack, although it may be mispeceived as such, and is very helpful in clarifying and elucidating issues of relevance to many of us.

 

Human Services.

 

A very good observation

 

That's a fair question - and I'm not going to answer it. The person submitted a resume for a job opening and they have an expectation of privacy - just as I will not discuss their gender.

In sum, I don't intend to provide any details from their resume.

 

Re: Re: Capella credibility

BlackBird: Unfortunately, this person was sloppy. I'm sure you guys run your manuscripts by someone who will check it for typos. You could have easily been accused of such if you had not done so.

SIMON: I disagree. If in fact this alledged job candidate did submit such a poorly composed cover letter ridden with grammatical and spelling errors and holds him/herself as a doctoral level student, it is not merely a matter of being "sloppy" but of ineptitude, poor judgement and/or entitlement.

Blackbird: Even though Capella may have some rotten apples, there are plenty of wonderful professional folks who give their hearts to the work. I can remember that even schools like Harvard (I think I have the right Ivy League school) have problems with slackers such as Teddy Kennedy, who cheated.


SIMON: "Some rotten apples"? You are misperceiving the gist of this discussion. We are not talking about "rotten apples" that implies they did something wrong or are culpable of some heinous act BUT of "learners" ( I love that term; it appears to denote a state of learning and academic performance that is below that expected from a "Student" )who may not have the academic and intellectual capacity to pursue doctoral level work.

 

Not exactly true if you read work by high school students from lets say 1900, 1950 and 2000 the earlier students were doing what now would be college level writing in the later years of study. College students of those years were writing at graduate levels. Now true I may have been overly dramatic but its clear the quality and veracity of writing quality is going down or at least was in decline for the last few decades. My point here is if the standards in high school and undergraduate education in writing is lower its clear that would carry to graduate level work. The overall expectations are lower across the board.

Oh and isn't the 35 years you stated in the 100 year window I stated so my point is not incorrect just inaccurate a bit.

By the way are you stating persons seeking a doctorate in open admission programs are not decent and hard working or their goals are unworthy? Perhaps just the standards are becoming more neutral an evolution of the educational process of sorts such as when the common worker in the United States was given societal respect. In Europe unlike here it used to be laborers and skilled tradesman were thought of as less important or lowly than a "white collar" worker or academic. We elevated workers as a noble thing and whose ethic was applauded and still is That I think is a good thing the American experiment created. Perhaps the open graduate degree program is the next evolution of that concept although that is just a point I cannot prove. Just an observation of the education system today from being a critical thinker.

 

Capella sucks.

NCU sucks.

You all suck.

I suck.

Hey, wait a second, I'm gay . . . I do suck.

And quite well, I might add.

 

All righty...I'm certainly glad we got that cleared up.

 

Blackbird is a long-time poster to this forum and has always talked about his experience at Capella. In that context, not sure not mentioning it in a post thread is much of an ethical lapse.

In my own experience at Capella I would say for a class of about twenty there would be between 0-3 folk who did not seem up to snuff, a large number who did adequate work and a small number of outstanding students (who turned in postings that would not look out of place in peer reviewed journals).

Capella is turing up the rigor dial, by the way. A major weakness of any online format is the quality of the postings (this is where academic weakness surfaces quite glaringly). At Capella, students are graded on these postings and the school has developed a more rigorous grading rubric that is supposedly being adhered to.

Finally, they are a volunteer participant in an experimental continuous quality improvement program being run by the NCA.

Regards,
GME