TESC duplicate transfer

[adavis84]

Hello all,

First let me say thank you to everyone on this forum! I was feeling pretty hopeless about my degree completion before I found this place and it has turned everything around for me!

Now, I just got my Academic Eval back from TESC and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm also going to make a separate post about my plan with questions for the more experienced here, but before I do, I wanted to see if anyone had encountered anything like the following:

Out of the 80 credits I wanted to transfer in, 77 were taken (all from a 4-year school in the U of WI system). They marked one course as duplicate because I have two courses from the same school with the same course number ("COMM 281"). However, they are not really duplicates but two different sections with different concentrations. It was required by my former school that theatre majors take both sections. Unfortunately, there is no indication of these being distinct courses on my transcripts and it really does look like I repeated a course (although they are both A's, so that would be weird). I really don't know why my former school chose to code these courses this way, but it's awfully confusing for the purposes of credit transfers. Is this the sort of thing that TESC would even take into consideration if I brought it up? What should I be prepared with as proof?

Thanks!

[cannoda]

Hello all,

First let me say thank you to everyone on this forum! I was feeling pretty hopeless about my degree completion before I found this place and it has turned everything around for me!

Now, I just got my Academic Eval back from TESC and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm also going to make a separate post about my plan with questions for the more experienced here, but before I do, I wanted to see if anyone had encountered anything like the following:

Out of the 80 credits I wanted to transfer in, 77 were taken (all from a 4-year school in the U of WI system). They marked one course as duplicate because I have two courses from the same school with the same course number ("COMM 281"). However, they are not really duplicates but two different sections with different concentrations. It was required by my former school that theatre majors take both sections. Unfortunately, there is no indication of these being distinct courses on my transcripts and it really does look like I repeated a course (although they are both A's, so that would be weird). I really don't know why my former school chose to code these courses this way, but it's awfully confusing for the purposes of credit transfers. Is this the sort of thing that TESC would even take into consideration if I brought it up? What should I be prepared with as proof?

Thanks!

Are the syllabi drastically differently? Does the course description in the catalog give any hint that it can be repeated for credit or might be a different topic in different semesters? Was it a special topics course (although that would be a weird course number for a special topics course)?

The registrar of that school may be able to provide a letter to support the fact that they are different courses.

[adavis84]

Thanks for the reply!

The courses were "COMM 281: Advanced Technical Theatre" There were actually three sections of the course, and my degree path required I take at least two of them. From the school's catalog: "Continuation of COMM 180: Intro to Technical Theatre emphasizing the more advanced technical principles of: Section 1, scenery construction, Section 2, lighting and sound technology, or Section 3, costume construction. Laboratory work required. Repeatable for different sections." I took Section 1 and 2, but the transcript just shows course numbers, not sections. Given that they are covering different-enough topics, I never understood why they weren't coded as different courses.

I'm really only interested in using this course as a free elective anyway, so maybe I'll see if I an get the syllabi and send them in for review.

[cookderosa]

It would be worth general elective credit (more valuable than just free elective credit) so it's worth discussing with an advisor. This wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but I'd absolutely put in a little effort to see if you can get this to count. You may have to provide additional documentation from your college, which would be normal. Maybe catalog course descriptions would be enough (that would be a copy/paste from the website- certainly the fastest). It's worth some effort, I say go for it.

[cannoda]

I found the school you attended. I used to live in the bigger town directly across the river.

The course description and theatre program description should be enough to establish that the course is repeatable for credit. You are going to need documentation that you took different sections of the course and probably from the registrar. Syllabi will help but may not be enough - you need to prove that you were actually enrolled in different sections. I'm sure this would not be the first time the registrar has had to deal with this issue.