ENEB One Exam Master's Degrees

How is it different? It is very different.

I have never heard of any accredited school giving one exam that leads to earning an entire degree. Nothing comes close to this. Heriot-Watt has one exam per course, and those exams include essay questions. But, even Heriot-Watt is an exceptional case. I have taken undergraduate and graduate courses at many schools. Other than having the option of completing some sort of challenge exam (CLEP, DSST, certification, etc.), I can't recall taking a course that only had a final exam. So, to only require one 50 question, multiple choice test for an entire master's degree is nowhere near what anyone would find at a state university in the United States.

 

I earned 30 s.h. for one exam. I earned 39 s.h. for another. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this was absurd. (The school's policies have changed since then.)

These degrees under discussion are either milled or honorary. You choose.

 

Even if it was proctored there would still be plenty of other issues but the defining point for me is that it is un-proctored. They have literally removed all barriers they can to getting people's money and gave themselves just enough of "well, they took an exam." If this doesn't meet the definition of a mill I don't know what does. A small monetary payment, ChatGPT or even Google, and about an hour of your time on a multiple choice exam does not a "Master" make.

 

I remember when Excelsior and Charter Oak used to award a lot of undergraduate credits for the GRE Subject Tests. Excelsior no longer does. I haven't looked at Charter Oak's policies in a while. Empire State College also awarded undergraduate credits for the GRE Subject Test.

The GRE Subject Tests were nearly three hours, they're proctored, and the non-math tests had 100 to over 200 questions. Even then, COSC, Excelsior, and Empire weren't awarding entire degrees for one test, and most of the awarded credits were lower level. Plus, Empire required a high percentile to be awarded a lot of credits. It sounds like ENEB is only requiring a 50%, so you only need to answer 25 questions correctly for a master's degree.

 

Sort of related - EU, TESU, and COSC are far less flexible than they used to be, which makes me think their accreditors got stricter. Or, they were losing too much money.

 

This implies a common misunderstanding regarding measurement. It's the 90/80/70 = A/B/C trap. In reality, 50% could be an outstanding grade, depending on the difficulty of the test, while anything less than 100% might be failing (where every question is critical).

Exams meant to be consistent over time (and change) are often "normed" around a percentile (usually the median) so the scores convey the same meaning while each version of the exam changes. In other words, what it takes to get a 1260 SAT one year might be different from what it takes to get the same score the next, but the outcomes are equal. In other situations, the difficulty of the test is managed so that the same percentage is passing.

The bottom lines:
a. We don't know how worthy a passing grade of 50% is, and
b. We needn't care too much since awarding a degree for this is absurd.

 

Indeed. In Italy, university grades are 0 to 30. A passing grade is 18. I don't think this actually equates to 60%, though it might? I have it on reliable information that, in some fields, just getting an 18 or a 19 is a worthy accomplishment. It's not seen as something to be ashamed of in the same way that a C or C- might be in the US. For other degrees? Nothing less than a 30 will do. Students may demand a retake if they get a 28 or 29.

 

I wonder whether anyone from this board (or the sister board) has actually exchanged e-mails about the problematic nature of the new single exam option with ENEB staff. Mind sharing? Right now, I am just seeing a whole bunch of accusations, diploma mill labelling, etc. Is this new exam promotion a one-time thing aimed at certain target groups, or is there a permanent switch to the single exam as a legit option for the future?

 

Since they warn that the single-exam fee will go from 99 euro to 299 euro in July - it at least looks like it's meant to be permanent. I think we can consider 99 euro to be an "introductory offer."

 

I wonder if it's cheaper on Amazon? I have Prime, so I can get it delivered by tomorrow.

 

It's obviously not similar to CLEP or the SAT; those are norm-referenced tests with data on what a C student or some other minimum standard would score on the exam. This is a 50 question, multiple choice final exam. Typically, a 50% is not even acceptable for a final course exam.

 

I highly doubt that ENEB went through the trouble of getting a sample of people with those degrees to take their final exam so they could determine what a typical graduate would score. Therefore, only requiring a 50% would make this whole thing even more absurd. Most of their degrees are non-quantitative. The mathematics GRE Subject Test is only 66 questions, which makes sense because you have to calculate your answers. Of course, the subject test was not intended for schools to use to replace a degree's-worth of classes.

 

It would seem more reasonable if there were a 50-question exam available for each individual unit / course of the degree so they could still present a graded transcript.

 

As a UI1/ENEB graduate, I don’t worry a whole lot about the switch to the comprehensive exam option. European countries generally do not recognize Spain’s non-official degrees as equivalent to official Master’s degrees anyways. The European governments know that propios fall outside Spanish Ministry of Education’s degree approval process. Therefore, the potential switch wouldn’t mark any actual change in terms of degree recognition, at least on the continent. This was always meant to be a degree for people who are comfortable with the concept of non-official, professionally-oriented Master’s degrees that do not meet all the standards of a normal Master’s degree program in Europe, yet are issued by accredited institutions. This was abundantly clear to me from the beginning as the propio lacked the most fundamental component of a typical European Master’s degree program: a thesis, which even a requires a thesis defense in my own country.

Since I’ve already graduated, I wouldn’t face any consequences if Universidad Isabel I later ditched the association with ENEB as its official collaborating center (https://www.ui1.es/centros-colaboradores). My degree can always be verified with the Spanish university website, since I’ve earned it under an existing collaboration agreement and I have all my essays with me. I am not losing any sleep over this change in grading. Plus it’s not even clear that there is a replacement of the essay option, just an additional option added.

 

Small correction: By essay, I meant ' project'

 

Wow. Doubling down? Okay.

There is nothing inherently difficult or easy about any particular percentage. It's all based on how difficult the test questions are. That's why many professors grade on a "curve." They assume a normal distribution (or some other distribution) around a median and set the passing score after receiving the examinees' results. Or, as is often the case, the difficulty of the exam can be adjusted ahead of time to reflect whatever grading rubric is in force.

Again, 33% might be a passing score on one test while another might be 100%. It depends. Without further insight into the examination, there is no way to determine whether or not a score of 50% has demonstrated a sufficient level of learning.

 

I would not want to be associated with a school that was selling master's degrees by requiring a single test--no matter how difficult or easy passing it would be. It reminds me of the University of Central California, but even they required some work after the test.

 

At the same time, it has to be said that all the “outside the Ministry of Education approval” degrees that are issued by accredited institutions are controversial in one way or another, as they lack the kind of quality assurance and widespread recognition that are available with the official government accredited awards. Whether you examine the Brazilian Lato sensu Master, Spanish Título propio Master, Czech and Slovak non-official professional degrees with Master and Doctor titles in them, you will always be reminded of the fact that you’ve earned something that doesn’t quite match the official corresponding title award of Master and Doctor, even in a sense of basic recognition. It’s either something that you embrace or not. If you’re really uncomfortable with the very notion of possessing such an "alternative non-governmental degree", it’s probably not a good idea to pursue it. Also, graduates have no control of what an institution (especially a non-university collaborating center in the case of ENEB) does after their graduation. We have seen institutional "turns for the worse" in the past.

 

They grade on a curve after seeing a bunch of students in the class score low on the exam. We're talking about a predetermined passing grade of 50% for a new final exam, and I don't believe that ENEB has classes. Their programs are independent study. Are you saying that it's normal for professors to set their passing score at 50%?

 

It's not unheard of. Assuming a knowledge of 50-55% of the material is pretty standard in some parts of the world for granting a baseline passing score that we would regard as a C-. A Spanish friend of mine who migrated to the US actually had to explain to Immigration how his Master's was legitimate because he obtained his degree with three grades that were between 5.5 and 6, which sounds absurd to us.

Of course, I've never in my life heard of a non-mill offering a one-and-done 50 question exam with a 50% minimum passing score for the equivalent of a 18 months of graduate study, which is why I've written and submitted a complaint to both ENEB and the certifying university. Good gracious, even SOBAT requires 30-60 question exam for each of their classes, and they're a virtually free unaccredited school.