Thomas Edison general question. How to proceed

[Ep2016]

So glad I found this forum.

I am trying to obtain a degree to further my studies. I am currently a physical therapists assistant and wanting to go back to get a physical therapist degree. To do that. I need to have a bachelor degree.

I have an associate degree from an accredited technical college and also 4 years of university course work from Russia. The credits from Russia has already been evaluated and I have 132 semester hours.

What is the best course of action to get a bachelor degree in the least amount of time with Thomas Edison.


Thank you !!!!

[Leherself]

I would go ahead and apply to get your credits evaluated. TESU does accept foreign credits, if they've been evaluated by certain organizations (they have a page about it on their website). Probably a BA in Liberal Studies is simplest if you already have a whole bunch of credits. Until you get an eval though, it's hard to say what requirements (if any) that you'll need to fulfill. With any luck, you'll just need to do the capstone course, and maybe some TECEPs to fill in any remaining general education requirements and get your residency requirement taken care of.

Have you already got your pre-requisites taken care of for applying to Physical Therapy school then? And are they recent? A lot of PT schools want your science classes to be less than 5 or 7 or 10 years old.

[Ep2016]

Yes. Got the Russia credentials evaluated by one of the agencies they accept.

How long does it take to get the credits evaluated after applying to Thomas Ed

Starting to work on taking the 5 pre-requisites classes. Wondering if they could then be transferred to Thomas Edison.

How many residency hours are needed for liberal arts. Also does my grade transfer or how is gpa calculated. I need a good gpa for pt school. I have 3.7 for my transfer credits so wondering if it will be reflective when I get a degree with thoma Edison.

I looked at other universities too like Phoenix and Liberty. Is tho,as a faster route to go?


Thanks.

[dfrecore]

TESU or one of the other Big 3 will be faster and MUCH cheaper than Phoenix (ugh) or Liberty (expensive).

Go ahead and apply at TESU, and see what they do with your credits. They are usually taking about 4 weeks right now, so expect that - the FULL 4 weeks to do the eval.

In the meantime, if you're working on taking pre-reqs for PT school, yes, you can transfer them to TESU when you get them. I'm assuming you're taking those at a local CC, and you'll just need to send your transcript to TESU when you're done. It normally costs about $15, although they do the first 1-2 for free.

TESU will add those courses to your eval, which takes again, 4 weeks. No really great way to speed that up.

I'm assuming that all of your credits will come over to TESU under the Liberal Studies degree. If that's not the case, then there may be some added costs.

The main thing at this point is to figure out which Tuition Plan you're going to enroll under. If you want to pay less, you will enroll in the Per-Credit Tuition plan, for which there are no fees. Then, assuming you are an out-of-state (not in NJ) student, you will pay $111 per TECEP exam for 7 TECEP's, plus $1560 for the Liberal Arts Capstone course ($2,337 total)

If you decide to go the faster but more expensive route, you can just do the Enrolled Options Plan, pay about $3300 for tuition, plus $741 for the Capstone, and you're done ($4,041 total).

As for the GPA, those don't "transfer" between schools. So, assuming that the 3.7 you got in Russia is good and accepted by a PT school, that's the GPA you'll have for those schools. Whatever you get at TESU is a separate GPA, so if you get an A on your capstone, you would have a 4.0 at TESU. Exams don't count in calculating your GPA. You'll also have a separate GPA from wherever you're taking your prereqs. The PT school will pull in all of the different courses you've taken, and calculate their own GPA for you, depending on whether they look at the last 30cr you take, the last 60cr, or all of your credits. Every school is different.

Anyway, hopefully that helps. If I were you, I would apply at TESU, and then focus on getting good grades on your prereqs now, and wait to see what TESU does with your eval. Then, come back onto the forum and let us know what they did, and we can help you from there.