ACE awareness for HS Counselors

[Vle045]

I brought up Sophia courses to my son’s HS Guidance Counselor.  I was actually surprised to find out that she had no idea what ACE credits are.  Do you think this is common, or is ours just out of the loop?  I feel like these would be great resources for them to share with college bound students.  Do I have this all wrong?

[jsd]

I would bet this is very common, but this is just an educated guess with nothing to back it on. It's a very niche thing and we are in a pretty small group that utilizes it (outside of military JST)

[rachel83az]

You're not wrong. As far as I can tell, ACE credits are relatively unknown by most people and are looked upon with suspicion by others. I saw a Quora post recently to the effect of "don't trust Study.com, it's too cheap". They didn't really have anything else to say except that it was too cheap.

[natshar]

Yeah high school counselors don't know and college ones don't either. Most college counselors never even heard of ACE either and mine barley knew anything about CLEP. The counselors at my college didn't know much about it, even though the college accepted CLEP and had a page on the website with equivalencies. And the testing center was an open CLEP center and there was a poster on wall of test center for both CLEP and DSST.
And they had no idea what DSST was even though the college website said they accept DSST but no known equivalencies posted. Turns out, I was the first student to transfer in DSST in a decade.

I took a bunch of ACE courses (almost all free or super cheap) with intent of earning a TESU degree. But then I had the opportunity to get the college experience at an RA college at pretty low cost too. I took the opportunity and thought since the college accepted ACE I might even be able to get some to transfer. (I also have 6 NCCRS credits from study.com courses that aren't ACE approved but the school didn't accept NCCRS.)

My university accepted ACE credit, BUT you had to go through a lengthy process to get it accepted and most of the people never heard of it. Basically you needed an ACE transcript and they syllabus of the course and then they would evaluate if it matched one of the courses at college. I was told multiple people in the past had gotten ALEKS to work and at least one person did something on straighterline. But the whole process took months because it was all done by one person and not a priority (especially given Covid and since I was already an enrolled student they had already evaluated my transfer credit which was RA, CLEP, and DSST) And apparently even though they didn't accept NCCRS you could submit it via portfolio credit and at least one person had gotten something to work that way. I decided I just wanted to graduate and be done, so I signed up for a course costing $1000 so I graduate quicker even though there was possibility ACE could have worked for this requirement. I don't regret it and I finished degree.

In the end, I still have never used my ACE credit for anything. I am very slowly working towards a second bachelors at TESU and it might even take a few years. It's more of a side project when I have time/money to work on it. I have just wanted to "hack" a degree for a decade now, I want to accomplish what I started and put the ACE credit to use.

[Vle045]

I am really hoping to get my son to do at least the ones with no touchstones. He’s only 15 and writing is not his strength. I am even considering bribing him by offering like $10 per completed course or something. We are already paying for Catholic High School. If he could collect some college credits along the way, that would be great. I think he could easily do the History, economics and environmental science ones, at least. If we can continue to afford HS tuition, we will have paid about $40,000 into his education. He gets no support there for his ADHD so his grades are all over the map. I don’t think they will put him in an AP or CCP while he is there.

[rachel83az]

It's your money, but I sure wouldn't spend anything on a school that didn't actively support my child.

[Vle045]

It's your money, but I sure wouldn't spend anything on a school that didn't actively support my child.

I definitely hear you on that.  It has some positive points and for now he wants to be there.  But I am struggling with whether to pursue legal representation.  He had a 504 plan and to my knowledge they can’t just refuse to implement it, but they seem to think they can.  And the tricky part is that I also work there.  I am part time now since my job got reduced with COVID and I have a different full time job.  I’d be blazing some major trails.

[ss20ts]

I am really hoping to get my son to do at least the ones with no touchstones.  He’s only 15 and writing is not his strength.  I am even considering bribing him by offering like $10 per completed course or something.  We are already paying for Catholic High School.  If he could collect some college credits along the way, that would be great.  I think he could easily do the History, economics and environmental science ones, at least.   If we can continue to afford HS tuition, we will have paid about $40,000 into his education.  He gets no support there for his ADHD so his grades are all over the map.   I don’t think they will put him in an AP or CCP while he is there.

ACE credits like a Sophia class with a Touchstone could be a great way for him to practice his writing. he'll need writing for college and it's just a useful skill to have. He's likely to have several careers during his lifetime. One never knows what skills you may need in the future. 


I'm not surprised a high school counselor doesn't know anything about ACE. When I graduated from high school it took 3 people to figure out if I had enough credits! I had more than enough credits. The issue came down to did I have enough music credits to get my Regents diploma. It took them months to figure that out. I did end up getting the Regents diploma but it was meaningless outside of NY.

[LevelUP]

I brought up Sophia courses to my son’s HS Guidance Counselor.  I was actually surprised to find out that she had no idea what ACE credits are.  Do you think this is common, or is ours just out of the loop?  I feel like these would be great resources for them to share with college bound students.  Do I have this all wrong?

We heard this song many times before. 

A new idea is introduced, and there are always plenty of people there to reject it or ignore it. 

Electricity? You guys are dumb. I'm not running wiring into my house just to power one lightbulb when we do just fine with an oil lamp.

Cars? Paying a fortune for a car when a horse does the job without worries of breaking down.

Computers? For what, wordprocessing and games? It's useless for everyday people. 

Internet? Ya, whatever, I can read papers to find out the news and sports scores. I can go to the store to buy the things I need.

ACE credits? Colleges have worked fine for over 100 years. There is no need to change. So quit putting silly thoughts into my head. I know what I'm doing.

[jsd]

I agree with your overall point -- people are dismissive of what they're not familiar with.

But ACE isn't a new idea. The ACE CREDIT registry has been around since 1974. ACE has not done a good job raising awareness of and "marketing" this service. AP in particular and CLEP to a lesser extent do not have this problem, so it's not like a good awareness campaign wouldn't work. But they need to better utilize their partnership with schools.