Excelsior honors

Does Excelsior award those funny "cums" like real colleges do to those graduating with high gpa's? What would 3.7 get me?

 

Indeed they do.

Associate Degree (minimum of 20 graded credits)
Honors 3.5
High Honors 3.75
Highest Honors 3.9

Baccalaureate Degree (minimum of 30 graded credits)
(Latin Honors)
Cum Laude 3.5
Magna Cum Laude 3.75
Summa Cum Laude 3.9

According to Wiki the funny names translate to the following.

cum laude, “with honor”; direct translation: “with praise”
magna cum laude, “with great honor”; direct translation: “with great praise”
summa cum laude, “with highest honor”; direct translation: “with highest praise”

 

It's on the diploma but not on the transcript.

In fact, Excelsior doesn't put the GPA on the transcript either...

 

does excelsior not take some credits by request to make a better gpa? I have 140 credits with them currently and I was wondering if i could remove some of my cleps that I did not score that well on and got C's. would they do that? I don't need them to satisfy any requirements. I have a 3.25 and i would like to do anything possible to get a 3.5 so i can get Cum Laude

 

I believe they will remove any credits that are not from Excelsior at your request.

 

Yeah, I had that discussion with them - they do honor the requests to remove some courses as long as it doesn't jeopardize your eligibility for graduation. Excelsior credits can be removed too, the advisor told me, there were some exceptions though.

 

Hmmm

I was just wondering, how could one respect any honors achieved by removing bad scores? I am not trying to be disrespectful, but this practice seems to be, for lack of better words, cheesy.

 

Part of me certainly agrees with that. I believe there are traditional colleges that have methods of improving bad scores as well though, usually by retaking the same course. I would also have to assume that you could opt to not transfer in credits with low scores to a traditional program.

 

note - Excelsior is a "real" college, not "like a real college" (that's been bothering me since I read it and didn't comment) -- I'm sure the intent wasn't to imply otherwise.

While Excelsior will allow you to manipulate your GPA by selective transfer of credit - the only thing manipulated is your own ego (which isn't in itself a bad thing) and possibly the opinion of some who see the diploma with a "cum laude" sticker on it. Grad schools will require an evaluation of the entire academic record (cumulative collegiate GPA) and Excelsior doesn't put GPA on transcripts.

In defense of selective manipulation of an Excelsior transcript - I now regret that I didn't take that action. My Excelsior BS transcript includes 196 semester hours (cum laude) which to a reviewer makes me appear to be a real live professional student (which I am). 196 hours at FT=24 per year is the 8+ year plan. It may be that selectively managing the transcript to near 120 hours is the best idea. Just a thought.

 

Many institutions do not count any transfer credit toward their gpa. So . . .at many schools a community college transfer student starts with a clean slate with respect to Latin honors. Like Coach says though, most grad schools will recalculate the cumulative gpa based on ALL transfer credit.

 

Interesting Question: Is there a way to ascribe a grade to things like CLEPs and DANTES'es and GREs prior learning assessments? Or are those simply either you passed or you didn't?

 

I say that anyone who would even think of engaging in the suppression of evidence (especially things like evidence of bad grades - ) is just so dishonorable that they shouldn't be allowed to graduate with honors.

 

It is cheesy and I don't respect honors or "education" I've gotten from them. It's just if the opportunity is there, I'll take advantage of it and let grad school sort it out. The grad school told me that my foreign coursework was not an equivalent of an American BS, so I used Excelsior for a quick and dirty diploma.

Excelsior advisor told me they'll erase most B's off my record which will get me a golden seal on a diploma and a super cum magna or whatever on a transcript. I wonder if that special diploma looks as cheesy as regular Excelsior diplomas I've seen?

 

More than likely if you didnt respect the education you were earning there then you were not making the most of it. Why for God's sake didnt you drop out and attend another school?

A good grad school will sort it out real quick!

Sometimes the quick and dirty is not the best approach.

Good luck,
Gavin

 

A real college would transfer only up to 60 credits (if that), which would require me to study full time for 2 years and be much more expensive. Of course, I wish I could do it, but I'm a poor foreigner and don't have the time or the money.

Excelsior transfered over 100 credits and gave me 12 more (6UL+6low) right off the bat for speaking in my native language on the phone for 30 mins.

Yes, I know that good grad schools look down upon distance "education," law school advisor told me. However, she said that my situation is a bit different. They see that I had 3+ years of real undergrad coursework, did very well, and only used Excelsior as a formality because I had to.

 

if you think distance learning schools are "not real" or "fake" why are you even on this forum?

 

As I use "real" below - I'm referring to B&M schools I know the programs of such as the University of NC, University of SC, Clemson, etc...

Any "real" college will generally transfer 90 hours (not 60) in accordance with the standards of SACS et al. It's very standard and is not generally exceeded except by the Big Three. It's the way "real colleges" really work.

Any "real" college will also give you 9-12 hours for speaking in your native language "right off the bat" as long as you don't mind a departmental assessment (such as Excelsior did). You could have likely gotten more though - you blew that one. I'm betting you could have assessed for some native language literature credit as well at a "real" college but the Big Three have higher standards there than many "real" colleges and require standardized tests. Certainly you don't contend that you don't speak your native language better than someone who took 12 hours of class in that language? Or, maybe you think you should have been required to take an introductory course (how to say hello) in your native tongue for credit... That's not "real".

You also got poor advising somewhere. If you only had 90 hours to transfer, assuming that you have 90 good hours, you could have taken those to just about any college in the US and they'd have transfered those hours had they applied to your degree. Don't believe me? Look up some colleges of your choice online and read their transfer policy. You'll find the right program in their "degree completion" or "interdisciplinary studies" section most likely.

As for "look down upon" - only the completely ignorant educators have a blanket bad opinion of DL -- the competent educators understand that almost every school in the United States has adopted DL into their curriculum with some of the top universities in the world now offering entire degrees by DL. Harvard is among those. Most "real" colleges now require their undergrads to take some courses online so that they are prepared for the present "real world" which has embraced DL in training settings.

If you don't think your Excelsior College diploma is of value to you - send it back and decline it. It seems to me that you've gotten very poor advise about how "real colleges" in the USA work for real...

"Only used Excelsior as a formality..." How do you think most Excelsior students got the bulk of their credit? They attended what you refer to as a "real college" and studied in the seat for it. You think you're the only person on Earth that had 100+ hours and needed a place to put them together into a degree? That's what Excelsior (and COSC and TESC) exist for, people just like you (and me). Grad schools don't see you as any different than any other Excelsior grad - you had a bunch of credit from somewhere but didn't get a degree from there. You added a few more credits from somewhere else and Excelsior gave you a degree. You sir, are not special in that account...

You are the same as every other Excelsior graduate - that's all. It's a "real" regionally accredited college, that awards "real" regionally accredited degrees, that are academically more valuable than the education many people get at their "real" tier four state university.

Strangely enough - I can't take my degree from a "real" state university and transfer the credit to Excelsior and meet their requirements. Excelsior's standards in that respect are higher (by 15 hours) than my "real" degree from a state school. Imagine that!

 

Thanks for setting the record straight Coach! I just called excelsior about the original issue, deleting credits to raise you GPA they said starting in august they will no longer do that, something about them becoming state funded. Anyways I guess I will have to sneak in there quick before they change things.

 

formality

Hey , if you can score well in those CLEP and DANTE multiple choice questions; chances are you will do well on the GMAT........

especially if you have a high score on english composition and college math....

so try it out ...... I heard some excelsior grads have gone to YALE due to high GMAT scores......