Why aren't transcript reviews automated?

[jamshid666]

<rant> Why is it that here in the 21st century, we have self-driving cars, and growing levels of artificial intelligence to handle mundane tasks, but when you apply to any of the "Big 3," transcript reviews are still manually executed by a person?  All of that activity should be automated and the only time a person should be involved is when a new course comes in that the school hadn't seen before or if a student has a question about how a specific course got transferred into the college.  That, and maybe a manual review to validate the AI is working correctly.  </rant>

[sanantone]

Every school has human review of transcripts. There are around 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. plus an unknown number of universities around the world. Each school has hundreds to thousands of courses.

[jamshid666]

Every school has human review of transcripts. There are around 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. plus an unknown number of universities around the world. Each school has hundreds to thousands of courses.

Which seems like an awful waste of time to me.  The first time a student transfers in from Whatever U., those courses should be added to a database along with the associated local equivalency.  When another student from Whatever U. transfers in, an automated system should compare the records from what was captured by the admission of the first student and then flag those classes that aren't already in the database for manual review.  Upon that review, those courses would also be added to the database.  Over time, as more schools and courses are added to the database, the process should become a lot more efficient and flags for manual review should happen less frequently.  If the school wanted to be strict, maybe add an aging field to review how a course transfers in every 3-4 years to make sure the originating college is still meeting the standards of the local college, but that would still be a lot less manual overhead than how things currently work.

[jsh1138]

The Big Three don't get enough transcripts to be worth worrying about. Why would they buy an AI or whatever to automate a process that one person can comfortably do? It just doesn't make economic sense.

I mean look at the graduation numbers for TESU or COSC sometime, it's a pretty small number of people you're talking about

[sanantone]

Every school has human review of transcripts. There are around 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. plus an unknown number of universities around the world. Each school has hundreds to thousands of courses.

Which seems like an awful waste of time to me.  The first time a student transfers in from Whatever U., those courses should be added to a database along with the associated local equivalency.  When another student from Whatever U. transfers in, an automated system should compare the records from what was captured by the admission of the first student and then flag those classes that aren't already in the database for manual review.  Upon that review, those courses would also be added to the database.  Over time, as more schools and courses are added to the database, the process should become a lot more efficient and flags for manual review should happen less frequently.  If the school wanted to be strict, maybe add an aging field to review how a course transfers in every 3-4 years to make sure the originating college is still meeting the standards of the local college, but that would still be a lot less manual overhead than how things currently work.

They probably haven't seen transcripts from a tenth of the schools in the U.S. Among the schools they have seen, the transcripts they've received likely don't come close to having all the courses.

TESU and the other two have been around since the 1970s. I had a lot of credits that weren't in TESU's PLA database. The Big 3 will never gather enough transcripts to justify spending money on an AI program that can do such a sophisticated task. These schools will probably be closed before they see transcripts from half the colleges out there, which would mean that humans will still be reviewing most of the transcripts. 

Colleges and universities do keep a database of the courses they've reviewed. TESU's PLA database is largely based on courses they've seen from other schools.

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There's also more to reviewing transcripts than matching course codes in a database. A school may not have been accredited or regionally accredited in a semester listed on the transcript but is accredited now.

[natshar]

There are so many reasons it can't be automated.

-They need to make sure each transcript is legit and not faked.

Also transferring isn't all black and white:

-Different courses transfer differently depending on major (WGU for example accepts different clep and ace depending on school of IT vs business. My school didn't give me credit for a DSST but they would have had I a picked a different major)

-The age of the course plays a role (lots of schools say x number of credits over 10 years old, etc. Technology computer-based majors usually have to be newer credits for AOS, etc.)

-Different requirements that make things confusing as to where to place credits (x% of credits at school must be earned at the institution, x% of major, x number of p/f courses, etc.) For me they had to move around where my credits fell to meet the residency requirements set by the school.

[jamshid666]

Thanks everyone for the great input, lots of items I had not considered, the biggest of which is that the "Big 3" aren't as big in enrollment numbers as I thought they would be.

[Life Long Learning]

Thanks everyone for the great input, lots of items I had not considered, the biggest of which is that the "Big 3" aren't as big in enrollment numbers as I thought they would be.

That's because Americans are dumb!

[dfrecore]

Every school does have a database of courses people have brought in, and then given equivalency for. But, you have to get a LOT of transcripts over a long period of time for that database to become large enough to be of use; and even then, every person brings in a different amount of credits, from different schools, to different degree plans. It's much more complex than you can imagine.

[sanantone]

If someone has a prior degree, then they have to differentiate between credits earned before and after conferral. The old credits might fit in gen ed and electives, but they can't be used in the major because you need 30 new credits.