Bad Review for WGU: Dishonest, Incompetent, and Unreliable

[Merlin]

The academic transcript lists pass/fail only and is what you'll be sending to a transferring institution.

Receiving institutions will accept WGU courses as RA credit, but they're under no obligation to follow WGU's self-professed standards for grade equivalencies

I am not disagreeing with you that schools are under no obligation to honor the WGU transfer equivalencies. I indicated as much in my post.

Technically, colleges are not required to honor the self-professed letter grades awarded by any other school. In fact, many schools consider all incoming transfer credits as pass/fail by default. The only place where grades matter is when a school calculates a transfer GPA for entrance requirements. There is no agreement between schools for how this is done, so each college calculates transfer GPA according to their own rules. Obviously, most schools will take the letter grades assigned by schools at face value, but in doing so they are following the recommendations of the originating school on how to evaluate those credits. Logically, it is not really that much different than following the WGU recommendations on how to evaluate their credits.

Based on evidence from graduate experiences, it seems that most schools will follow the WGU guidelines for transfer GPA equivalence. Obviously not every college will do so, but those appear to be the exception rather than the rule. I have seen the same posts about claims to have been denied entry to grad programs based on the P/F nature of the WGU degrees, but we don't always know the full picture there. My guess is that they had a weak overall admissions application package. Admissions evaluators understand that not every school posts letter grades, so that is unlikely to be the sole factor for a declined admission. Either way, if you can't get into one school, find another school or appeal the decision. There are plenty of other options.

In any case, my intention isn't to suggest that WGU is perfect, or even that it should be a first-choice option for people who are looking to get into a top-tier graduate program. For people who are, this is probably the wrong place to be since alt. education is not the right path. Their chances will be vastly improved by attending a traditional college and pushing for top marks. But that really isn't the demographic for people on this forum. People here are mostly adult learners who are coming back for a degree later in life and they are looking to leverage their existing knowledge to complete a degree as quickly as possible using alternative education options. Most have no aspirations for graduate school or anything beyond getting a checkbox degree for a job promotion or career change. It is my personal opinion that for people who are interested in accelerating their degree path, but still want to pursue a graduate degree later on, WGU is a better option than TESU or one of the other Big 3 colleges as it offers a better chance of getting into a good grad school while keeping the price point low.

Also, to be clear, I am not a fan of the WGU grading system... it doesn't do students any favors. There is no reason for it since support exists for grades. Exams are already scored on a percentile basis by default, and PAs are evaluated according to a rubric that can be translated to grades easily. I suspect it is done to maximize their graduation rates. But it is what it is.