I was reading that excelsior college has a generous transfer credit policy towards an MPA degree. I am wondering if my two masters degree credits will transfer over well? Has anyone attempted to gain admissions by transferring credits? My two programs: MS in Criminal Justice https://www.monroecollege.edu/uploadedFiles/King_CriminalJustice.pdf MA in Urban Affairs Queens College Urban Studies » MA Program
I don't think anyone here is going to be able to answer this better than their admissions department will.
They will accept a maximum of 15 credits if they are relevant and not too old. https://my.excelsior.edu/documents/78666/102207/School_of_Public_Service_Catalog.pdf/8566c021-e83b-4c13-a760-7c04f5937957
"You'll benefit from: Generous graduate credit-transfer - up to 33 credits from other accredited graduate schools provided that the credits meet the needs of the MPA program. This allows you build on your existing knowledge and earn your MPA more quickly." Excelsior College | Public Administration [Without Concentration]
So I'm guessing that the credits would have to be 1) recent and 2) an exact match of the courses required in their own MPA program. The degree to which that is true for you, with your degrees is unclear. Nobody will be able to answer that except the school which will require you to officially apply and submit transcripts, etc. before making a determination. But considering that the Excelsior MPA is a 36 credit program, I'm doubtful that they will accept 33 credits, let you take the capstone course and then hand you a Masters degree. My guess is that you'll be lucky to get the 15 credits referenced earlier. But, I suppose crazier things have happened and there's only one way to find out for sure. One thing I'm curious about is your general motivation for the degree. You've already got 2 Masters degrees, what are you going to be able to do with an MPA that you can't already do?
Congrats! That is great to hear! How did you find the program? Was the school open to many transfer credits (if you went that route)?
Futuredegree - what kind of work did the courses entail? Were they mostly test based, paper based, varied? Were the exams proctored, timed, repeatable? I am considering doing the MPA because they are willing to accept 18 credits from other coursework I've completed. That leaves 4 classes and the capstone. Don't see any downside, except I don't really want to be bogged down with unnecessary busy work type of homework when a test is more predictive.
I was able to transfer 18 credits, they are somewhat picky on what they want to accept. It should be closely related to public administration. Best advice is send over all your transcripts to admissions and pay the fee to get it evaluated.
For the MPA program over at Excelsior College it was all paper writings, video presentations, and weekly thread posts with responding to others. I didn't have any exams but this could always be subject to change. My advice would be to stay on top of your weekly assignments and posts. If doing papers is not for you this might not be the program for you.
If anyone is curious up to now less then 50 people have completed the program, Its a new program , in January 2020 I was granted a diploma in the 30's.
It looks like the ship has sailed on this program. They use to accept up to 27 transfer credits for the 30 credit program. Now they only accept 15 transfer credits and switched a few courses. I went on the website to compare courses with another program I was looking at and noticed the change. I am glad I jumped in when it was up to 27 graduate transfer credits afforded. I was able to transfer 21 of my credits between my existing graduate degrees and only had to complete three courses. It is a great program overall for anyone still considering pursuing that degree.
By the way I got them to accept 21 credit I said 18 earlier in the post but forgot I got them to give me a 3 credit elective after contacting the dean to graduate. Sorry for double post