Sophia Introduction to Statistics - ACE will stop recommending credit in transfer

[seekingskills]

I received the email below from Thomas Edison State University on January 26, 2016 after asking about Sophia Introduction to Statistics.

The Sophia course, Introduction to Statistics, will transfer over as STA-201, Principles of Statistics. However, please be aware that the American Council on Education (ACE) will stop recommending credit in transfer for this course beginning February 28, 2016. If you do not complete the course and transfer it by then, the University will not apply credit towards your degree for this transfer.

[dfrecore]

About half of their courses have an expiration date of 2/28/16, with additional ones having 4/30, 10/31, and some in 2017. I sent them an email asking if they were going to renew their courses. I'll let you know what I hear back.

BTW, all ACE-recommended courses have expiration dates, and companies have the option of renewing them or not.

[adavis84]

I noticed the 4/30 expiration as well when I was recommending the Sophia Visual Comm course to someone. They were planning to take it over the summer, so I hope it gets renewed for their sake.

I'm interested in knowing how the duration of the recommendation works. Looking over my ace transcripts, it looks like all of mine have at least a 3 year period listed, while some are as high as 6 or 8.

[cookderosa]

dfrecore is right- you can always look these dates up and check for yourself. The issue is always when there is a lag between an expiration and a renewal. That's happened a few times, and in general, TESC has been gracious enough to allow transfer.

The person who wrote you back doesn't have a clue as to whether or not the Sophia course will seek and or retain approval- that's between Sophia and ACE, and frankly, it's probably confidential. Does anyone really think that Sophia and or ACE is calling around to the 2000 colleges on the ACE list and telling them, "hey we aren't going to renew?" lol

Having ACE evaluation costs money, and maybe they're assessing their business model? Maybe this new business of theirs isn't as profitable as they'd hoped? I know that 4 of their courses are locked into the Alternative Credit Project, and that makes *those* courses valid through May.... the bottom line, if Sophia is planning to stay in business, they're planning to renew. There is no market for non-ACE business offered courses for $329 a pop.

[dfrecore]

Got an answer in less than 8 hours!! Love when companies are responsive!!

"Thanks for contacting us. Yes, those course are currently going through renewal with the American Council on Education. You will see the dates updated on the ACE site sometime next month. Thank you."

There you go.

That was a strange response from TESU, so I'm imagining that someone was asked if that course was "authorized", wasn't sure, and had to go into ACE to look up the info to make sure it was ACE-approved and they saw the expiration date and decided to be nice and pass along the info. Not realizing that these dates are always changing as companies go through the renewal process on a regular basis. Or something like that.

Anyway, good to know that Sophia is on top of this.