How valid is all this information for International Students?

[Geta]

Hey all!  I came across the forum today, and I've spent hours with my head swimming with new terms.  I'm an adult and I want to get a degree purely for personal reasons, and this approach looks fantastic and makes a lot of sense to me.

The thing is, I'm Australian, and I'm just not sure how viable this is for non-American students.  I've searched here but couldn't really find anything on it.

I note that TESU accepts International Students, but I've seen a common first step in the process is to create an ACE Credit Registry account, and that requires a Social Security Number which I obviously don't have (or perhaps a student number).

Even if there's a work-around for that, I'm not sure what else I might come up against in the future, and I don't want to start investing a lot of time unless I know it's viable for me.

If anyone has any advice it would be most welcome, and if anyone can point me in the direction of any existing threads on the subject that would be great too.

Thanks so much.

Edit: Ok, now when I look at my post, I can see some relevant threads below! Not sure why I couldn't find them when I searched before. I also note that the SSN isn't a required field with the ACE account.

[rachel83az]

There are several people here that aren't American citizens and who don't live in the US. About 90% of the information here is applicable no matter where you are and where you're from. The SSN is not required to create an ACE account; I think you can just leave it blank.

Some schools, like WGU and Pierpont, do only accept Americans. TESU, COSC, and Excelsior don't care where you are from.

What degree are you Interested in? The best advice if you're serious about getting a degree at TESU is for you to sign up at Sophia.org and complete as many of their credits as possible. The Foundations courses and the College Readiness course do not transfer to TESU but everything else does. IIRC, that's 84 credits. Most people can complete everything in about 4 months. 4 * $79USD = $316USD / less than $4USD per credit. It's an even better deal if you can find someone to split a yearly membership with but time is running out on that and there are many fewer people left who have this offer available to them.

[Geta]

There are several people here that aren't American citizens and who don't live in the US. About 90% of the information here is applicable no matter where you are and where you're from. The SSN is not required to create an ACE account; I think you can just leave it blank.

Some schools, like WGU and Pierpont, do only accept Americans. TESU, COSC, and Excelsior don't care where you are from.

What degree are you Interested in? The best advice if you're serious about getting a degree at TESU is for you to sign up at Sophia.org and complete as many of their credits as possible. The Foundations courses and the College Readiness course do not transfer to ASU but everything else does. IIRC, that's 84 credits. Most people can complete everything in about 4 months. 4 * $79USD = $316USD / less than $4USD per credit. It's an even better deal if you can find someone to split a yearly membership with but time is running out on that and there are many fewer people left who have this offer available to them.

That's fantastic, thanks so much for the reply!  Sophia.org seems to be highly recommended.  I'm probably starting from scratch - I have what's known as a Certificate IV here in Aus which I might be able to get some credit for, and a Private Pilot License which I saw somewhere might get me some credit too, but that's about it.  No biggie though!  I'm looking forward to the challenge.

I had my heart set on a BA in International Studies as I love to travel and I'm fascinated with the world around me and all it's facets, but I read that it's not a great option as not a lot can carry over to it...  So I may do an undergrad degree in something else that's fairly quick and not too expensive, and then look at options for a masters in something that interests me more...

[rachel83az]

International Studies would definitely be difficult. IIRC, there are some classes that you absolutely have to take from TESU. This adds thousands of dollars to the degree. Some degrees (such as English) are only feasable if you have access to CLEP tests. In Australia, there are no CLEP testing centers, so that is going to be a no-go for you unless you're willing to pay to take those classes at TESU (which, again, brings up the cost of the degree).

It looks like a Certificate IV might be almost equivalent to an American associate's degree. However, academic evaluation of your certificate wouldn't be free and could possibly cost you more money than just redoing any applicable classes at Sophia/SDC. Hopefully, someone who is more knowledgable about this sort of thing will be able to chime in.

[Geta]

That's interesting about the Cert IV. I think an Aussie Diploma is equivalent to an Associate's Degree, and that's a rung above a Cert IV. It may be well be best just to forget about that and start fresh.

I'm interested in Psychology as well, so that's an option I might look at instead of International Studies. It's all very confusing, but beginning to make a little more sense, bit by bit!

Thanks for taking the time to help me out

[rachel83az]

Psychology is relatively easy to do at TESU with alternate credit. There are definitely people here who have gotten a psychology degree or who are pursuing one right now. There is a recent one in the "completed degree plans" that is comp sci & psychology that you can review to get an idea of what is required. You can ignore the comp sci aspect because I don't think there is any overlap between CS and psychology except for the general ed credits that everyone has to get.

[ss20ts]

There are several people here that aren't American citizens and who don't live in the US. About 90% of the information here is applicable no matter where you are and where you're from. The SSN is not required to create an ACE account; I think you can just leave it blank.

Some schools, like WGU and Pierpont, do only accept Americans. TESU, COSC, and Excelsior don't care where you are from.

What degree are you Interested in? The best advice if you're serious about getting a degree at TESU is for you to sign up at Sophia.org and complete as many of their credits as possible. The Foundations courses and the College Readiness course do not transfer to ASU but everything else does. IIRC, that's 84 credits. Most people can complete everything in about 4 months. 4 * $79USD = $316USD / less than $4USD per credit. It's an even better deal if you can find someone to split a yearly membership with but time is running out on that and there are many fewer people left who have this offer available to them.

That's fantastic, thanks so much for the reply!  Sophia.org seems to be highly recommended.  I'm probably starting from scratch - I have what's known as a Certificate IV here in Aus which I might be able to get some credit for, and a Private Pilot License which I saw somewhere might get me some credit too, but that's about it.  No biggie though!  I'm looking forward to the challenge.

I had my heart set on a BA in International Studies as I love to travel and I'm fascinated with the world around me and all it's facets, but I read that it's not a great option as not a lot can carry over to it...  So I may do an undergrad degree in something else that's fairly quick and not too expensive, and then look at options for a masters in something that interests me more...

The International Studies degree at TESU canNOT be completed online. These are the only degrees they offer which can be completed online:

https://www.tesu.edu/academics/online-degrees

[rachel83az]

The International Studies degree at TESU canNOT be completed online. These are the only degrees they offer which can be completed online:

https://www.tesu.edu/academics/online-degrees

Yes, and International Studies is there. International Business, however, is not. Someone was interested in International Business a little while ago; that one is an offline degree. International Studies is online but I'm not sure how many classes can be completed elsewhere vs. needing to take a class at TESU.

[ss20ts]

The International Studies degree at TESU canNOT be completed online. These are the only degrees they offer which can be completed online:

https://www.tesu.edu/academics/online-degrees

Yes, and International Studies is there. International Business, however, is not. Someone was interested in International Business a little while ago; that one is an offline degree. International Studies is online but I'm not sure how many classes can be completed elsewhere vs. needing to take a class at TESU.

Oh I was thinking of the international business degree. The options for taking the classes for the international studies outside of TESU are almost impossible for many of the courses. They're only offered at TESU. Some courses may be available at other 4 year schools, but they won't be cheap. 

OP if you're in Australia, why not go to university there?

[rachel83az]

I just checked the University of Sydney to get an idea of costs. It looks like, while cheaper than most American universities, it's still not super cheap. It's around $7kAUD ($5k USD) per year for a BA in Psychology, times 3 years, that's $21k ($15k USD). A TESU degree, even with the high residency waiver fee, is probably still going to be less than half that once you add up all the fees for Sophia, SDC, Coopersmith, etc.