TESC June Graduation Denial

[saintanky]

Hello. I am finishing a dual area of study BA at TESC, with an additional AAS. I was intending to have both conferred in june. However, I signed up for the last 6 credits of one area of study for the BA in the March semester. This one ends 5/25. I applied for graduation in June, and was just informed that their final audit is having me rejected from June graduation and held over to September since allegedly they will be unable to post the grade and determine if I qualify for graduation between 5/25 and graduation.

Has this happened to anybody before? Do I have any recourse besides sitting and waiting for September? I was a bit shocked. My first time through college (at a brick & mortar school) there was only 4 days between the end of finals and graduation and there was no problem clearing people for graduation then (this was even during the era of paper grade forms being shuffled from the profs to the registrar).

Thank you in advance for your help.

[jtalama]

Hello. I am finishing a dual area of study BA at TESC, with an additional AAS. I was intending to have both conferred in june. However, I signed up for the last 6 credits of one area of study for the BA in the March semester. This one ends 5/25. I applied for graduation in June, and was just informed that their final audit is having me rejected from June graduation and held over to September since allegedly they will be unable to post the grade and determine if I qualify for graduation between 5/25 and graduation.

Has this happened to anybody before? Do I have any recourse besides sitting and waiting for September? I was a bit shocked. My first time through college (at a brick & mortar school) there was only 4 days between the end of finals and graduation and there was no problem clearing people for graduation then (this was even during the era of paper grade forms being shuffled from the profs to the registrar).

Thank you in advance for your help.

No valuable info to provide other than TESC takes a long time to do everything. Everything.

[emichele20]

Hi saintanky,

This almost happened to me. When you are close to graduating you have to be on top of them. I had contacted the registrar about four months prior to me being eligible for graduation and explained to them everything that I wanted to do. It was then that I found out that my annual enrollment was expiring on 3/2012. I literally missed September 2012 graduation along with having to pay another $2k by a week.

You are most certainly right that in most schools they do allow you to graduate as long as pass before the actual graduation date. Part of the problem is that even though your class ends on 5/25/2012 you have to remember that it will take TESC almost another 2 weeks to post your grade to your records. So even if they did that your grade would not be posted in enough time. They should note that on the application instead of having potential graduates think that as long as they finish before graduation they will be fine.

The next issue is that TESC does not have more frequent graduations. I think that for them to be one of the bigger online schools that is only continuing to grow they should look at having monthly graduations. In my case I finished my last courses in 2/2012 so I have had to wait almost four months just to get my degree. I also have to wait until then before I can start any masters program as my transcripts do not say that I have graduated yet.

It really sucks and I am sorry to hear about your issue. All that I can say is be patient and Sept 2012 will be here before you know it. Also congrats on being at the end !!!

[PeruGirls]

Ok, I am all for complaining if there is a problem, but you might be inventing one here. On the bottom of the first page of the graduation application it has the deadlines. You must apply by April 1st for June graduation. You must apply by July 1st for September graduation. What day did you send in your graduation application? Furthermore, the form says you must have all academic critera met and then " You may submit the Request for Graduation form once you have met the applicable criteria, as described above. If
you submit the form before you have met the criteria, we will return the form and you must resubmit it once you have
satisfied the academic and /or financial criteria."

They are following their posted rules and it is unfair to complain about that.

[bricabrac]

The graduation requirements are published in the catalog and online. Both others and myself have posted timelines here numerous times. Keep in mind TESC has four graduation cycles per year, brick and mortar schools have only one and they may let you walk but until you have been cleared by the bursar and the audit is final you do not receive diploma.

A course that ends on May 25th would not be considered for the June graduation. Final grades are not due to the school until the 4th of the following month which in this case would be June 4th. If you would have signed up for the February semester (ending April) you would have been included the June graduation. But as PeruGirls stated you would still need to fax over your graduation request form on or before April 1.