DETC and Transfer Credit

tcord1964 — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 16:55:00 GMT

Even though I am still in my first semester of studies at Penn Foster College, I am already looking ahead to other colleges to transfer to for my bachelor degree and eventually, my MBA.

Transferring my Penn Foster College associate degree should not present much of a problem. I have already identified at least two regionally-accredited colleges which will take the entire degree in transfer with no problem. They are Peru State College in Nebraska, and Bellevue University, also in Nebraska. I have heard from students at other DETC-accredited schools that Bellevue has accepted their degrees in transfer, and I emailed an admissions counselor at Peru directly. I pointed out that Penn Foster College is nationally-accredited, although many of its courses are reviewed by the American Council on Education, or ACE. Their response: “sure, we’ll accept the degree. We don’t want you to have to take the same courses twice!” Nice. I still have to check with Charter Oak State College and see if they will accept my degree from Penn Foster.

I had considered another DETC-accredited college for my bachelor degree: Andrew Jackson University. It offers a BA in Communications, which is what I really want, and the price is right. Eventually, I would like to get an MBA from the University of Oklahoma, which has a part-time program. So I emailed someone from admissions and asked if the BA from Andrew Jackson University would pass muster. The response I got was not encouraging.

"Although Andrew Jackson University is accredited by the Distant Education and Training Council which is approved by the Department of Education and it is a legitimate school, we only accept individual courses from DETC accredited schools which are substantially equivalent to OU courses. So we typically do not accept many courses from these schools or their degrees for consideration for our graduate programs.”

Ouch.

So, Andrew Jackson is out, and I still have to check with Charter Oak. The lesson here is clear: although you may only be starting your college studies, if you have plans for obtaining a higher degree down the road, ALWAYS check to make sure your degree will meet your current and future needs. This applies not only to future applications to colleges and universities, but to potential future employers as well. While many would be hard-pressed to tell you the difference between regional and national accreditation, some businesses only recognize regionally-accredited degrees. Taking time out now to check the utility of your degree can save you some time, money and effort in the future.

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tcord1964 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:15:00 GMT

One of the things that convinced me to enroll at Penn Foster College rather than another nationally-accredited school is the fact that many of the courses in Penn Foster’s degree programs are reviewed by the American Council on Education, or ACE. The vast majority of colleges and universities, including those that are regionally-accredited, follow the ACE recommendations for credit transfers. That means that even though Penn Foster College is nationally-accredited, many of the courses in its degree programs will transfer to a regionally-accredited college. That’s often not the case for other nationally-accredited institutions which do not have their courses reviewed by ACE.

ACE also reviews workplace and military training programs and recommends many of them for college-level credit when transferred to an institution of higher learning. For example, my Navy boot camp and military journalism training is good for nearly 90 credit hours. Workplace training courses at companies like IBM and Home Depot have also been evaluated for college-level credit.

I was curious about how many of my first-semester courses at Penn Foster had actually been reviewed by ACE, so I checked it out. You can find the credit recommendations at www.acenet.edu/nationalguide . You have to register to use the national guide, but it is free and easy to obtain.

It turns out that all but two of my first semester courses are reviewed by ACE. The one-credit Information Literacy and Penn Foster’s English Composition courses are not evaluated for college level credit, according to ACE. I plan to get around this by taking the English Composition w/essay CLEP exam immediately after I take the Penn Foster course. CLEP exams are accepted by nearly every college and university, although many of them do place limits on the amount of CLEP credit they will accept.

This means that once I finish the first semester at Penn Foster College and pass the end-of-semester proctored examination, I will have 14 credit hours from Penn Foster which can be transferred when I (eventually) advance to another college for my bachelor degree.

ACE also has a transcript service which will compile all of your ACE-evaluated college courses and training programs onto one transcript. ACE can then release your transcript to any college at any time once you apply for admission. This is much easier than trying to track down multiple transcripts from several sources.

I have found ACE to be a very important, yet often overlooked, resource for the adult learner. If you are considering pursuing studies as an adult student, you should definitely try to ACE your previous training and courses.

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My Penn Foster College Experience : ACE

DETC and Transfer Credit

ACE your classes