Associate Degrees at TESU

[rlw74]

So I'm curious, has anyone transferred an Associate's Degree from TESU to a four year B&M college? or from WVCC? How did that go?

I'm looking into options for my 8th grader who starts high school next year. She is in a couple of advanced classes at the school already and wants to work on an Associates concurrently with high school work. Here are the options we are considering:

1. Ideally, our plan right now is to enroll her in a program our high school has. She can take classes at a community college and get credit for both high school and college at the same time. However, they don't accept everyone into the program and there is a possibility she can't start until she is a junior.

2. If that doesn't work out, she has an opportunity to enroll part-time with the school (take a couple of classes, participate in extra-curricular opportunities etc) but take the rest of her coursework at home. They may accept alternates like SL or study.com but I have to check on that and make sure it would be approved.

3. She can take all her alternate credits in addition to her high school credits and possibly get an associates online. What I don't want to have happen though is her taking a lot of credits that don't transfer anywhere. Yes, she can get a Bachelors from TESU and do it all online. However, I really prefer she sit in a classroom and have that experience. Right now she doesn't have a degree in mind so I only want her to focus on Gen Ed courses anyway.

I'm assuming an Associates, while fine, will not guarantee those courses will be accepted elsewhere unless that school happens to accept credits from places like SL or study.com etc. I am looking into the option of CLEP exams too. CLEPs are more universally accepted but schools put limits on what they will accept. She won't get a full 60 credits that way.

Has anyone looked into other options for a similar situation?

[davewill]

You don't really "transfer" associate's degrees. You transfer the courses that you took. In special cases where an articulation agreement is in place, an associate's can be accepted in a "block transfer" that automatically fulfills part of a bachelor's program. These agreements are usually between 2 year and 4 year colleges in the same state or community. Sometimes they are mandated by law. New Jersey is an example of this where all of the state's public 4 year colleges are required to accept an associate's from the state's community colleges as satisfying 60 units towards a bachelor's. Note that TESU is on the 4 year school side of that equation NOT the 2 year side so earning a associate's from them doesn't automatically get you 60 units at Rutgers, for instance.

WGU accepts associate's degrees from any RA school as fulfilling the GenEd requirements for at least some bachelor's degrees there, and there may be others. At least one person here has used their AAS from WVNCC for this purpose. However, in general you must assume that the individual courses will have to transfer into the new school/program. So if the 4 year school doesn't accept ACE, then the ACE courses will be "lost".

[dfrecore]

If I were you, I would do #1, as all of those credits would easily transfer to any other school. Once you add SL/ACE courses into the mix, you are doing an alternative plan, and most schools won't accept those particular credits (although they will still accept the CC courses).

For a teenager who doesn't know what they want to major in, it's kind of a waste of time to take a bunch of ACE courses to get an alternative AA. It's not that helpful for the future. If she wants to go to a 4-yr college (or CC then a 4-yr college), she has PLENTY of time. Do it the traditional way, with lots of major/career exploration along the way, especially early on. If you need to save money, research what they will accept at the 4-yr school she wants to go to - that's the ultimate arbiter of what courses/exams will count. If they accept CLEP, find out which ones, and have her take some of those.

[rlw74]

OK, this confirms what I was thinking. The best bet would be for her to take the cc courses in a traditional way from her high school or possibly on her own when she has the time. She is the one pushing for this and asking about her options every day. She has a wide variety of career interests and all of them indicate many, many years of schooling (med school and becoming a heart surgeon are on her short list!). But while I'll encourage those interests I'm also aware that she hasn't been exposed to the higher math or science courses yet. And she is only 13. At that age my career interests changed every 10 minutes.

[dfrecore]

OK, this confirms what I was thinking. The best bet would be for her to take the cc courses in a traditional way from her high school or possibly on her own when she has the time. She is the one pushing for this and asking about her options every day. She has a wide variety of career interests and all of them indicate many, many years of schooling (med school and becoming a heart surgeon are on her short list!). But while I'll encourage those interests I'm also aware that she hasn't been exposed to the higher math or science courses yet. And she is only 13. At that age my career interests changed every 10 minutes.

I have a 13yo, and he changes his mind on a monthly basis.  He DOES want to go to college though, so we are planning high school with that in mind (as opposed to my 15yo who wants a job "that requires as little college as possible.")

Our local CC has a policy that lets him try to enroll in courses, but the instructor has to agree to it.  I've tried twice, and both said no.  So I kind of gave that up for a little bit.  Your CC might have a similar policy, so don't be surprised if CC is not ready for her yet, even if she's ready for CC!!

If med school is on her list of possibilities, keep in mind that you might want to take science courses at the CC, rather than CLEP'ing out of them.  Some schools won't care, some schools will.

[rlw74]

Some schools have time limits on those science courses too. I've explained that to her a few times.

I've been looking at the honors high school program in our high school and they even offer some summer camps at local colleges geared around various career interests. She can start some of those as early as next summer. So we'll see. Even though she wants to start study.com and SL now, I'm going to have her hold off for a bit. Or if she really wants to pursue those I'll have her work, not for college credit, but for personal development to prepare her for the classes she will take in the future.