Degree Completion Advice Pierpont/TESU

[shadowgem]

Since there seems to be so much confusion regarding the natural world sequence requirements for the BSTS, my husband decided to try to preplan them prior to investing time and money into potentially the wrong courses.

He sent this email to academic advising:

According to my current evaluation in order to complete my BSTS I still need the following courses:

Information Literacy
Civic Engagement
Natural World

I would like to go ahead and get preapproval and preplan the following courses to meet my remaining credits:

Information Literacy | Study.com | Library Science 101: Information Literacy (NCCRS) - completed
Civic Engagement | Davar Academy | POS 101 American Government (NCCRS) - completed 
Natural World | Study.com | Physics 101: Intro to Physics (ACE)
Natural World | Straighterline | General Physics 1 Lab PHY250L (ACE)
Natural World | Ed4Credit | CHM130: General Chemistry 1 (ACE)
Natural World | Straighterline | General Chemistry 1 Lab CHEM101L (ACE)


This was the response:

In regard to your request, and as per policy, we do not pre-plan courses that are recommended for credit by either the National College Credit Recommendation Services or the American Council on Education.  This planning is restricted due to each organization's reserved right to re-equate coursework at their discretion.  
In addition to this policy, we no longer accept credit in transfer for Living in the Information Age (SOS-110) from Study.com

Course transfer equivalencies and areas of applicability below: 

• Davar Academy American Government (DAPOS101) will transfer in as American Government and may be applied to the Section B, Civic Learning requirement 
  
• Straighterline General Chemistry I lab (OOSL0016) will transfer in as Chemisty I Lab (CHE-128) until 04/30/21 and may be applied to the Section D, Natural World Requirement 
  
• Straighterline General Physics I Lab (OOSL0085) will transfer in as Physics I Lab (PHY-128) until 04/30/21 and may be applied to the Section D, Natural World Requirement 
  
• Study.com Introduction to Physics (SCPHY101) will transfer in as Physics I Lecture (PHY-111) until 9/30/2020 and may be applied to the Section D, Natural World Requirement 
  
• Ed4credit General Chemistry (EDFC0023) will transfer in as  General Chemistry I Lecture (CHE-111) until 10/31/2019 and may be applied to the Section D, Natural World Requirement 
  

When did they stop allowing courses to be pre-planned?  

He took the cornerstone in August 2018. He took the SDC Library Science course in September 2018 prior to his capstone, but apparently SDC never sent the transcript he requested then. They have since received it, but do not appear to have reviewed it yet. Why did the adviser bring up Living in the Information Age (SOS-110)?  Is the adviser suggesting that is the only course now that will fill the Information Literacy requirement? Or that the SDC course would be a duplicate now? This is very confusing. 

Also how can he be certain the science courses will work as planned if he can not get TESU to pre-plan them and the catalog and website can no longer be trusted as accurate?

[dfrecore]

Since there seems to be so much confusion regarding the natural world sequence requirements for the BSTS, my husband decided to try to preplan them prior to investing time and money into potentially the wrong courses.

Natural World | Study.com | Physics 101: Intro to Physics (ACE)
Natural World | Straighterline | General Physics 1 Lab PHY250L (ACE)
Natural World | Ed4Credit | CHM130: General Chemistry 1 (ACE)
Natural World | Straighterline | General Chemistry 1 Lab CHEM101L (ACE)

Also how can he be certain the science courses will work as planned if he can not get TESU to pre-plan them and the catalog and website can no longer be trusted as accurate?

So, I am only answering part of this.  Instead of asking about pre-planning/pre-approving, because that's not the real question you're trying to get answered here - ask them if TESU's Chem I w/Lab and Physics I w/Lab can be used to meet the DEGREE REQUIREMENTS.  I say this because getting the courses you listed will obviously work for the Understanding they Physical & Natural World requirements.  BUT the problem is, you need to know about the actual degree requirements, which are over and above the science/comp science courses you can use to fulfill the GE.  You can bring in all kind of courses for that section, but whether they meet the degree requirements is another story.

Once you know if Chem I w/Lab and Physics I w/Lab will meet the degree requirements or not (rather than the Chem I & II or Physics I & II sequences), then you'll be able to figure out if OTHER Chem/Physics courses will also meet the requirements.

Hopefully this is clear.

[davewill]

I guess this way, nobody can hold them to what they promise since they won't promise anything. You just have to take the courses and get them transferred as quickly as you can before they change their mind.

[shadowgem]

Advising already answered that Chem I/lab and Physic I/lab would work fine when he originally inquired. This was months ago. However, some members here said that was not their experience when attempting to do the same thing. 

When he inquired about Chem I at both SL and SDC, he learned that both of those courses had been downgraded to Intro Chem and would no longer work, despite the SL transfer agreement still stating it was the equivalent. We wanted to confirm that the ED4Credit course had not also been downgraded, and to reconfirm that the science courses did not need to be consecutive. Fortunately for anyone looking for Chem I/Lab, it appears the Ed4Credit course does, based on this advisers reply. 

After reporting back here that advising stated that he could choose to do any combination of the Chem/Physics in this thread, it was suggested that advising still could be providing misinformation and he should not trust it until either a) it was pre-planned or b) he took the courses and they worked. Since the latter option holds the risk of wasted time and money, he sent the request to have them pre-planned and this was the response. 

Additionally, I have no idea why the adviser mentioned the SOS course at all, so I have no idea what the adviser was trying to communicate there. The only thing I could think was that maybe he means to say that Information Literacy can only be met via the SOS course?? I hope that is not the case, since the two science courses are literally all he had left to complete..or so we thought. lol

[davewill]

...
Additionally, I have no idea why the adviser mentioned the SOS course at all, so I have no idea what the adviser was trying to communicate there. The only thing I could think was that maybe he means to say that Information Literacy can only be met via the SOS course?? I hope that is not the case, since the two science courses are literally all he had left to complete..or so we thought. lol

I hope what they were trying to say is that since new students are now required to take SOS-110, that would be the course that would naturally fill that slot. However, the way they worded it, it sounded like the equivalency for "Study.com | Library Science 101: Information Literacy" would be SOS-110 and so they won't transfer the course at all any more. That would be similar to what happened with the BSBA capstone where they stopped accepting transfer credit for it. The difference is significant since the first way, he should still be able to use the SDC course for that slot if he's on an older catalog, but the second way, they could argue that it's not a catalog change, but a transfer policy change which would have the result of forcing everyone who hasn't already transferred in a course for Info Literacy to take SOS-110. Since he's already taken the SDC course, he should send in the transcript ASAP and get that detail nailed down.

I've got to say that TESU is really being obnoxious about all this. They could have simply announced all these changes to coincide with the regular catalog change in July, and nobody would have been inconvenienced. This way a bunch of people are being thrown into turmoil wondering whether their degree just got more expensive and/or delayed.

[gamebradie]

TESU pre-planned Information Literacy from SDC to my evaluation. It counts as an elective because of SOS-110.

[dfrecore]

...
Additionally, I have no idea why the adviser mentioned the SOS course at all, so I have no idea what the adviser was trying to communicate there. The only thing I could think was that maybe he means to say that Information Literacy can only be met via the SOS course?? I hope that is not the case, since the two science courses are literally all he had left to complete..or so we thought. lol

I've got to say that TESU is really being obnoxious about all this. They could have simply announced all these changes to coincide with the regular catalog change in July, and nobody would have been inconvenienced. This way a bunch of people are being thrown into turmoil wondering whether their degree just got more expensive and/or delayed.

I agree.  I don't know why they are doing this after posting that the TES-100 course is available until June 30, and that students need to take it by then to have it count.  Just silly.  They should stick to what they first posted, as well as what's in the catalog, and then make changes on July 1 where it wouldn't even be commented on except to say that "this changed happened."

Why do stupid crap to get people all saying how ridiculous you're being FOR NO REASON!  No TESU, not all press is good press.

[sanantone]

Years ago, I remember the then TESC saying that they would no longer pre-plan Penn Foster courses because they're ACE credits. They were only pre-planning CLEP, DSST, and courses from regionally accredited schools.