Stay Away From Kw

Stay away from GAAP

An interesting point here, and one that Dick alludes to, is that Lazybee has a foreign MBA but has found that it has not met his/her needs -- and in particular has not opened doors in the U.S.

This resonates with my own opinion that people in the U.S. should generally avoid foreign DL schools (even if they meet "GAAP" criteria).

 

Why AM I Still Here ???

You make statements such as you guarantee that a whole lot of people.. I suppose I may make things more complicated that they need be. What is a whole lot... I can surely guarantee a whole lot as well.. I believe there are a "whole lot" of posters on this board who make issues too black and white.

When I see statements like "Pretend to .." and "Masquerade as ..", I don't think I am looking at factual statements. I see opinions. Maybe my critical thinking skills and work in regulatory environments have caused me to be a bit too critical (jaded). I did not start out with that question "You start out with one question. Does the "University" have a process of providing academic credits based on generally accepted assessment principles and practices? " That is your statment not mine. I am not going to argue a statement I did not make. You make it look like I made it when I believe you are using it in the context of the Southern Y'all.

Since I did not arrive at the same conclusion to your straw man scenario as you, I suppose I am "Not Quite Clear" yet

I think OXpecker understood my post.

Dick

 

Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

Okay, facts only. I heard the accusations and rumblings over K-W. I read the opinions and negative statements regarding K-W. I, like you, am prone to skepticism and need for clear and validated data.

I spent my $50 and personally applied to K-W in the Executive MBA program. I provided the most succinct resume I could muster. It was a page and a half in length. I was told to include at least 10 references to conferences I had attended, which I did. No mention as to any activities or training that took place. Simply that I attended 10 conferences. I could have been in the Hilton Tiki-Tiki bar for the duration. Apparently that activity lands you just as many KW graduate credits.

There you have it. A page and a half resume and a few references to conferences attended landed me the equivalent of two thirds to three quarters of a standard EMBA program from a university that has submitted itself to some independent oversight and review process. I only had to take four K-W MBA courses of my choosing and a thesis.

It is not speculation or hearsay of what I speak. It is personal experience. I can guarantee that there was no information provided that would have enabled anyone to make any reasonable judgement regarding my knowledge or competencies relative to graduate level courses.

You would like this to be a topic for which one man's truth is another man's sham. Some things do not lend themselves to truth seeking. That the earth rotates round the sun is not debatable. That the K-W assessment process is academically bankrupt falls under the same rules of absolute.

 

Facts:

K-WU has never been accredited by any recognized agency.

K-WU operated in California under the Authorized category, where it was not evaluated by state officials.

K-WU still operates in California, but moved its license (twice) when state authorities changed the rules and would begin evaluating it.

K-WU awards bachelor's degrees for very little work.

K-WU awards life-experience credit towards its graduate degrees, based on very little or no documentation.

K-WU has claimed spurious accreditation.


Question: What would indicate that K-WU is anything but illegiitmate? Seriously, is there some aspect of the school that would indicate otherwise? Anything? Anything at all? Even one little thing? I'd love to hear it, because I can't recall anyone ever defending the school except by minimizing the importance of the facts listed above. Really, just one thing that other people can see that would lend credence to K-WU. Just one.

 

Re: Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

This should have said:

KW indicated that I would only need to take four courses of my choosing and a thesis to be awarded the degree of EMBA.

I want to make clear that this was strictly a fact finding mission. I did not take any courses or enroll in any offerings of KW.

 

Re: Re: Where AM I ???

Hi Dick,
I never applied at Phd level,I applied Ms in engg managment,my previous experience is in this field.
The only draw back with a foreign degree is,if you want to start back here,you don't get much transfer credit,otherwise quality is good enough,nothing wrong with that.
How employers look at foreign education ....I don't know.
Regards

 

Facts:

K-WU has never been accredited by any recognized agency.

(K-W has been saying for the last several years that they our Lisenced by the WY Depatrment of Education - not claiming accreditation.)

K-WU operated in California under the Authorized category, where it was not evaluated by state officials.

(So what, so did many schools.)

K-WU still operates in California, but moved its license (twice) when state authorities changed the rules and would begin evaluating it.

(K-W legally meets the regulatory requirements of WY's DoE, and has had residence there for several years. Schools move including UoP; it is unfortanate that K-W chose to leave it's registry from CA, for this reason they are enjoined. However, they make the information clear that they can not enroll students from CA.)

K-WU awards bachelor's degrees for very little work.

(Coursework must be completed by all; guidelines for minium entry mandate an AS/AA Degree, or 5 years professional work experience. I agree that their techniques for LC should be published.)

K-WU awards life-experience credit towards its graduate degrees, based on very little or no documentation.

(I had to supply transcripts and professional references, as well as complete their portfolio eval forms.)

K-WU has claimed spurious accreditation.

(So have many schools which have achieved accreditation, including Columbia Southern)

 

There is nothing to misunderstand about their "techniques". If you have a resume that indicates you have had a job you will be awarded college level credit. No requirement is made to have you even pretend that you know anything, only that you have held a job. The credit awarded is not for knowledge or competencies it is for the ability to hold a job. This is the sum total of the technique. It is not assessment under any definition of the term. It is the basis for what makes the KW exactly what it is and isn't.

To pretend that any documentation submitted is used in the assessment of college level knowledge, skills, or competenecies is to deny reality and continue the process of rationalization.

 

Hi RJT,
I didn't posted my views to challange KW accredition,or its students, or how they operate etc. Neither to cause any stir/disturbance among students based on my experience.
The sole purpose was to ,who ever is interested in enrolling with KW should make sure,ask as many related questions,refund policy,etc,then decide.
I did a mistake,I don't anyone else to do the same.
Regards

 

Lazybee,

Don't apologize, WY license is only good to deceive potential students. Please read the article by the Chronicle that talks about the poweful "WY" license.

http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i28/28a03401.htm


Here is a list of degree mills, some of them "licensed by WY".

http://www.web-miner.com/deunaccredited.htm

 

Re: Re: Re: Where AM I ???

I don't know the origin of your MBA, mine is also from a foreign (Canadian) university and never had a problem with potential employers in the US. I know of several engineers working in the US with indian and chinese degrees. No matter where you finished your degree, if it is an accredited institution, you can get a foreign equivalence and show it to your prospect employers. The belief that a KW degree can be better than a foreign degree in the US is totally false, a GAAP foreign degree would put you always in a better position than a degree from a substandard and poor institution like KW.

 

Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

Dick, I presume the PE means you are registered Professional Engineer. How about if KW starts awarding their PE equivalent to people that can say they have 20 ears experience in an engineering related occupation. Damn that PE testing process let them get their PE from the legitimate KW with no need to demonstrate anything. Been a draftsman in an engineering office for most of your life? You deserve a PE from KW.

How would you view a PE awarded with no testing required? Probably very similar to how many would view an MBA awarded with two thirds of the credit awarded with no demonstrated equivalent knowledge or competencies.

 

Re: Re: Re: Where AM I ???

Thanks for the correction. I was in error when I read some posts in another fourum.

A few of my Romainian freinds had problems in the early 80s with degree recognition. The closed communist society prevented an evaluation of their academic credentials and with no transcripts avaiable it was a battle for employment.

I wish you well in your quest for employment and future educational pursuit.

Dick

 

Re: Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

You presume right Paul. I am a registered professional engineer.

The practice of engineering is regulated by each state. And with that regulation comes two 8 hour marathon exams as part of the registration process. Even this process is no assurance that some applicants can slip under the qualification bar at a lower level.

In my registration package, I had to submit my transcripts, record of experience and recommendation for licensure by 5 other PEs. These "5" attested to my character and work experience. I have no knowledge that anyone from the Commonwealth ever called any of my employers or recommenders to verify my application. Could it all have been a fabrication? Why yes it could have. I could have possibly even had someone show up at the test with a fake ID claiming to be me. The process is not fail proof.

How would I view a PE awarded with no testing required??? Actually I would view it a legal license. Each state has the power to confer a PE with out testing. It's called the "Grandfather" clause. The minimum experience level is usually 20 years. It wasn't too long ago that you could secure a PE in the state of California with nothing other than an employment history, 5 recommendations and your check.

Employers confer the title Engineer on their employees every day. They can do this because every state registration board carries the Industrial Exemption clause. Even a Federal employee can claim to be an Engineer. I've worked in companies that call some employees engineers with no academic credentials other than a CAD certificate. Actions such as this usually lead to problems in litigation over product liability. If you presume KW is a business masquerading as a university, I see no difference in your scenario than what happens every day in industry when employers confer the title engineer. The National Society of Professional Engineers has been fighting these issues for decades. No sucess yet. They lost the court battle in Iowa over a person claimng the right to advertise himself as an Engineer because he passed the Certified Network Engineer exam.

In reality the title Professional Engineer gives you the right to defend yourself in court over malpractice. The PE cannot hide behind an Industial Exemption clause and let his employer foot the legal expenses.

Sometimes I do wonder why I went through this process. It would have been easier to hide behind the Industrial Exemption clause and never have started my own business. However, when I read my quarterly report from the state, I know if I advertized my services to the public, it would only be a matter of time before I made the public list of individuals fined over lack of registration. I judge this not be worth the thousands of dollars in fines for such advertising.


Dick

 

Re: Re: Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

At every opportunity, you skirt the real issue. You know full well that this is not a debate over what "can" be done within the legal sense of the word. This is a debate over having some reasonable means by which to gauge the validity of a title or degree conferred upon an individual. Yes, a PE may be able to get grandfathered in, in some rare circumstance. The person that passes the PE exam process has, at a minimum, demonstrated to the world that they have met certain minimum competencies in the discipline. Someone that is grandfathered in has demonstrated nothing to anyone of their competencies. No system is 100%. But an attempt at a legitimate process is a whole lot more reliable than the implementation of a bogus process.

Under your logic and position, there would be no need to ever test for any subject in school. What would be reasonable would be to say that if a person "experienced" the class, they would be presumed to have gleaned sufficient knowledge from that experience. No need to test to see if they actually have learned anything, only look at the course roster to see if they showed up. No need to test doctors or engineers or physical therapists or social workers or electricians or building inspectors. If they showed up for class they should be presumed to have the knowledge and skills that come from what was taught.

Of course, reasonable thinking people understand full well that testing and legitimate assessment of knowledge and skills provides at least some measure of what you can expect of an individual’s knowledge of a discipline. The absence of this may offer a legal confirmation but has nothing to do with offering the community at large any sense at all as to the worth of that confirmation in terms of reasonable expected capacities of the conferee.

You are playing a game that will never end. You will have an unlimited number of examples to dance around the practical and functional differences between something that is legal and something that is academically defensible. I could not care less of the legal implications in this case. As I have said, I don’t even care about the accreditation or lack thereof. It is not about any of that. It is about a make-believe process. It is about the awarding academic credit without any attempt to correlate knowledge and competencies to academic learning. Life experience has nothing to do with knowledge and competencies.

My naiveté had me, at one point, presuming that those that justify what KW does must simply be bereft of understanding the legitimate practices associated with academic assessment. My review of this thread, and other KW threads, have convinced me otherwise. I understand that there are indeed any number of individuals that understand full well the difference between legitimate academic assessment and what KW does and are still willing to rationalize away the difference in order to lessen the cognitive dissonance it would otherwise incite within them.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

No, you stated a specific example: KWU awarding a PE. His response was that PE is not an "academic" qualification but rather a professional, state licensure issue. No school in the US "awards" a PE license, it is only issued by the specific state after meeting some stringent guidelines (and yes 20+ years of stasifactory work experience in the area of registration, attested to by other professional engineers is stringent).

I am not a fan of KWU or anyother school that tries to make money off of individuals lack of knowledge (in particular to what is accreditation and what it means).

But, if you are going to use specific examples you should try to get the facts straight. And, yes I also have my professional registration in mining engineering from the State of Arizona.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why AM I Still Here ???

1. First off, you’re wrong. My exact words were How about if KW starts awarding their PE equivalent to people.... PE equivilent, not "the" PE. If you are going to hang your hat on details and avoid the focus of the debate, you better be correct aboutht the details. You weren't. This is debate about a process, not about specifics. The analogy speaks to the issue that Dick has a PE. It requires, except in the most rare cases, that an individual demonstrate specific knowledge and competencies through a testing process in order to be granted this status. My point was that if KW were to be in a position to award a PE like registration, their own practices would indicate that an award would be made, not based on testing and assessment, but simply on experience. This would turn the whole PE process upside down, for good reason. Why does it not do the same for awarding an MBA in that same manner? This is the point.

2. How in the world can you come away form a serious question and debate of academic legitimacy with the only concern being a reference to a clumsy analogy? It is not about specific examples it is not about what is legal and what is not. It is about the one thing that Dick and others will forever refuse to address- the process of assessing life experiences in order to equate academic credit to those experiences. This is what it is about. This is what the examples, whether of the highest order or not, are about. There can be no focus on some word or sentence or example or obfuscated reference except to avoid the facts associated with the KW process.

The focus is about the complete lack of any attempt at legitimate assessment on the part of KW in equating experience with academic achievement. If anyone, whether a defender of KW or a casual bystander can refute the very specific point in reference to the KW process of translating experience into academic achievement, that would be absolutely terrific. It would be wonderful. It would shed a light on the otherwise dismal tactics of the KW camp. But, alas, it will never happen. There will only be debate for debate sake and obfuscation and talk of what is legal and dancing around the issue.

Please, someone, anyone, defend the assessment practice of KW. This is the foundation of the creditability of KW as an academic institution. If their process is defensible, defend it. If it is not, accept it and quit trying to focus attention on meaningless points of analogy or example.

If the only thing you got out of my posts were that I made a less than stellar analogy, the whole debate is a lost cause. I stand by my position that those who refuse to debate the issue of equating experience with academic achievement do so in order to rationalize and lessen the cognitive dissonance it would otherwise incite within them.