TESU residency requirements

[miah]

How does TESU work for transfer students bringing in the maximum credits towards a bachelor degree? 
What are the residency requirements? What courses/How many credits need to be earned locally? 
(Excelsior isn't bringing in as many as expected so just curious if FAC should stay at SUNY ESC and finish up the remaining 19 of 31 credits to meet their residency requirements or look into TESU (since EC doesn't appear as promising at the moment without some significant shift in credits.)
Also, is there a list of majors for the bachelor degrees they offer. ie- do they offer a Biology or Natural Science option?)
TIA!

[Johmford]

the most common way you will hear about on here is paying the residency fee at TESU

[Ideas]

If you pay the residency waiver fee which most of us on here do, the only residency requirement is the capstone which is usually 3 credits. 

And the 1 credit cornerstone course if you don't have Study.com affiliation, which is recommended.

The majors can be found at https://www.tesu.edu/academics/undergrad-degrees
You have to click on Bachelor of Arts to see the many majors that fall under that degree (which include Biology).

[miah]

TY jjsafari, would you be able to point me to where I can find that info. I looked at the TESU webpage, but I couldn't seem to find it. TIA!

---

If you pay the residency waiver fee which most of us on here do, the only residency requirement is the capstone which is usually 3 credits. 

And the 1 credit cornerstone course if you don't have Study.com affiliation, which is recommended.

The majors can be found at https://www.tesu.edu/academics/undergrad-degrees
You have to click on Bachelor of Arts to see the many majors that fall under that degree (which include Biology).

It looks like for a Biology degree though that he'd have to take OrgChem 1&2 and Physics 1&2 which with the Capstone and Cornerstone puts him back up to a similar number of credits as the current DL college, so I'm thinking it looks likes FAC should just stay put at ESC and just finish up there as Pell and other grants should cover the required expenses and it would probably be no less expensive. Thanks again Ideas for the info!

[dfrecore]

I just looked up "residency" on their website, and here's what I got: https://www.tesu.edu/academics/catalog/r...quirements

Academic Residency Requirement
All degree programs that have a capstone course requirement must have that capstone requirement fulfilled by Thomas Edison State University credit. The capstone requirement cannot be fulfilled via transfer credit. See Capstone Transfer Policy.

And: https://www.tesu.edu/tuition/per-credit

Residency Requirement
Students who select the Per Credit Tuition Plan (excluding those who enroll under a military plan) with the intention of earning an associates or bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State University must complete 16 credits via Thomas Edison State University Online (OL), Guided Study (GS) or e-Pack (EP) courses. This requirement may be waived by paying the Residency Waiver fee.

======================

So, you can bring in 117cr (or more) and then take the capstone from TESU. You will have to pay the residency requirement, which is currently $2500 w/no discounts.

[adrianeraldo]

So if you bring 117 credits from external sources, what happens with your GPA?
What if you do those 16 credits to avoid paying the residency, would they count towards a GPA?
Because if that's the case you could do 16 credits on courses that you are sure your going to ace, and then your GPA would be phenomenal? Am I missing something here?
Adrian

[allvia]

So if you bring 117 credits from external sources, what happens with your GPA?

They do not affect your TESU GPA - even if they are graded credits from another school 

What if you do those 16 credits to avoid paying the residency, would they count towards a GPA?

Yes. They do affect your TESU GPA - combined they are your TESU GPA.  


Because if that's the case you could do 16 credits on courses that you are sure your going to ace, and then your GPA would be phenomenal? Am I missing something here?

You could, however it is a slow and expensive option - even if you only took one course with TESU and you get an "A" that is all you need to have a phenomenal TESU GPA.

Note: that with the changes of the Cornerstone coming to an end and now both SOS-110: Living in the Information Age (replaces cornerstone) and the Capstone being required you will be taking two TESU courses (6 credits) at a minimum that will give you a TESU GPA.    The cost of the remaining 10 credits at TESU needed would still cost you more than the residency waiver.  

[davewill]

So if you bring 117 credits from external sources, what happens with your GPA?
What if you do those 16 credits to avoid paying the residency, would they count towards a GPA?
Because if that's the case you could do 16 credits on courses that you are sure your going to ace, and then your GPA would be phenomenal? Am I missing something here?
Adrian

Sure, you could carefully get yourself a 4.0 GPA. For that matter, you can get a 4.0 GPA with just the cornerstone and capstone on your transcript. Anyone who really cares about your GPA, however, will look at your transcript and know exactly how many courses went into it. If GPA is important for some reason, like grad school, then you need to understand what the criteria are for judging your GPA. Is there a minimum number of credits or particular courses they will want to see grades in? That sort of thing.

[Merlin]

So if you bring 117 credits from external sources, what happens with your GPA?
What if you do those 16 credits to avoid paying the residency, would they count towards a GPA?
Because if that's the case you could do 16 credits on courses that you are sure your going to ace, and then your GPA would be phenomenal? Am I missing something here?
Adrian

Each school maintains a GPA for each enrolled student which is based only on the courses taken at that school, this is called an institutional GPA. The GPA earned at other schools will be tied to the transcripts from those schools and usually doesn't impact the institutional GPA when transferring to a new school.

For example, I transferred in 118.68 of the 121.68 credits used towards my degree, and I only took the capstone course from TESU itself. Thus, on my graduation transcript it will show that I earned a degree with a 4.0 GPA at the school. Technically it is true... I earned an A in the only course I took at TESU, so that is my institutional GPA. Some schools will track the transfer GPA (which is the GPA of the credits transferred to the school) but that is usually only used to determine if a student meets admissions or degree program requirements.

That said, the majority of my credits were earned from nontraditional sources like Study.com and Straighterline, so they are all ungraded, "credit only" courses, and therefore won't contribute to a college GPA. Nearly all of my Study.com and Straighterline courses were completed with scores in the 95-100% range, so if a school wanted to see those transcripts they would see that I was earning A equivalents from them as well, but it's unlikely that any school would care enough to do so.

Most graduate schools that care about GPA will want to see all of your transcripts and will calculate their own overall GPA based on the last 60 graded credits earned, or they will look at the specific prerequisite courses to see the grades earned there.

[adrianeraldo]

Thanks, makes sense now.