Confused Uni Admissions Counselor Needing Guidance about TESU Transfers

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

Hello everyone, I'm probably not going be the average poster, but I would really appreciate any help you can provide. I have a TL;DR at the end, and thank you either way.

I'm a U.S. citizen currently serving as a college admissions counselor in Beijing, guiding students toward universities abroad. I also assist low-income students across the USA through a volunteer counseling program. This has provided me a strong professional background in higher education, but even with my experience, degree programs through universities such as TESU, Excelsior, etc. remain a fresh challenge. I am even completing post-grad college access certificate programs through both Columbia and Rice University, and I have never been exposed to such options. I intend to pursue a second MS in Higher Ed with a focus on college access in the near future, as I could not find much literature on the topic and it seems to open up doors for so many people. I've been reading FAQs and blogs linked from this forum, and now I'm here to ask the real experts, because I've been inspired by how supportive everyone has shown themselves to be.

Before bringing up any options with my own students, I've decided to use myself as a guinea pig. I completed a brick-and-mortar BS degree a decade ago and an online MS more recently. I understand that most people here may be "building forward" through bringing in CLEP, CC, and other sources of online credits, but I am kind of "building backward" by trying to transfer in my previous degrees. Still, just to see how the process plays out (and maybe even pick up an extra BA), I was curious about what I'd find, because my assumption is that having a BS/MS should result in a smooth transfer process.

Specifically, I was looking at the requirements for the TESU BA in History. I know that I could pay the $75 fee to get an accurate transfer evaluation, but just by scouring TESU's own course equivalency database for my two degree transcripts, I already encountered some preliminary questions:

• I only found ~40 credit hours that exactly matched courses from my transcript. This seems remarkably low, as I actually graduated with 140 undergraduate credits, many of which were honors or graduate-level courses due to a MS-transfer program. Plus, one of my minors was in History, but within this discipline, I only see equivalencies for my high school AP U.S. History! This experience leads me to believe that, even with a BS that spanned across History to the point of accidentally picking up a minor, TESU credit acceptance policies aren't necessarily as liberal as I had read. Would the actual evaluation process likely reveal that these other history courses--ranging from freshman Medieval Europe to graduate-level work in Brazilian history and even an honors thesis on immigration--transfer as part of core study History requirements at TESU?
  
• In terms of languages, I found the first two introductory Spanish options were transferable, but Intermediate Spanish was not. However, I see a Spanish III course (SPA-103) in the TESU catalog. Would this course likely be marked as equivalent to the apparently higher-level Intermediate Spanish that I already completed?
  
• Would other languages transfer as either electives or humanities? I also completed Portuguese, Japanese, and Mayan courses, living or working in the countries for years and speaking at least the first two on a daily basis. I only found basic Portuguese in the TESU catalog, but many of my students are bi- or trilingual in East Asian languages.
  
• Does TESU transfer lab sciences for credit? Another one of my minors was in Evolutionary Biology, but I was not able to find equivalencies for the Biology labwork beyond basic Cell Bio.
  
• If I see a course like AST-101 (Introductory Astronomy) or STA-201 (Principles of Statistics) while I have coursework called Descriptive Astronomy or Statistics I which don't appear in the database, would they likely transfer? Essentially, just how strict is TESU regarding transfers?
  
• Much of the remaining 100+ credit hours from the BS are in archaeological work or Brazilian History, but I don't know how/if they would transfer. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
  

I understand that my students would typically not have college coursework beyond ~5-8 AP exams, but my assumption was that my own degrees would reveal a lot more clear transfer options in my test case. My MS degree focuses on a lot of the content of some other courses that I found (grant-writing, educational administration, management, research, program evaluation, etc.) but none of those specific courses seem to transfer either. Would presenting a work portfolio help people like me/some of my students who have relevant experiences? For example, I've begun a statewide initiative to advocate for obesity in low-income children in my home state, mentored research projects and developed a high school research conference among Beijing students, uncovered a Mayan skeleton during a field school dig... aside from that last one, I was surprised to find so few direct equivalents at TESU even with relevant credit-based coursework. Even with two summa cum laude degrees behind me, according to their database, a basic course like ENC-102 (English Composition II) doesn't seem to transfer, and I earned 5's on all my AP coursework years ago and churned out hundreds of pages in a thesis. I'm concerned my students may not find the process worthwhile either if I recommend options like TESU to them, and they are much more capable than I was at their age, with much stronger life experiences. They're just eager to learn, too.

TL;DR: I apologize for the length, and I recognize that I may not be the typical poster working on bettering their own life, but I am very interested in expanding access to students from all backgrounds and with all levels of life experiences. I want to share these options with my own students, but I was struck by my preliminary findings regarding my anticipated amount of course transfers at TESU, even with my BS/MS degrees. Am I just missing a lot here? Thank you for any guidance you can provide this counselor, and I hope you all keep up the great work.