Foreign (canadian) bachelor's degree does not waive GE requirements?

[ItsNeverTheLionsYear]

After about a month of waiting, I just got my academic evaluation back from TESU. For background: I completed a bachelor's degree at a Canadian institution (not Canadian, just went there for college) and am pursuing the BACS as a second-degree student. I paid $200 for a WES eval that says in big letters at the top "US EQUIVALENCY SUMMARY: Bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution".

My evaluation does not have the general education requirements waived. I have this text toward the bottom of my evaluation:

Based on University policy, all general education requirements, other than those considered specific degree requirements will be considered satisfied based on the completion of a first bachelor's degree from a regionally-accredited US institution. Your evaluation will show only those general education requirements that must be completed as part of your degree program.

Our records indicate that you earned a Baccalaureate degree in Political Science on February 1, 2020 from a Foreign Institution.

I'm bummed, I'm peeved, I'm frustrated. This will cost me an extra $1500 for the information literacy course, and require adjusting my degree plan yet again, plus signing up for Sophia again to take ethics and oral presentation courses. I just cancelled!

Is this standard? Is it worth emailing an advisor about this?

[rachel83az]

That's strange. I thought that others with foreign degrees have historically always had their gen eds waived. I wonder if this is a new policy or something?

Assuming you do need to take gen eds, don't bother with Public Speaking at Sophia. Take Presentation Skills in the Workplace at Study.com. Yes, it theoretically costs more. But it's faster and easier than the Public Speaking course. Use the time you saved to complete any other gen ed courses that might be missing.

[allvia]

Since you're pursuing the TESU BACS you can get the Info Literacy through the EDX offering for $498 (it only applies for the BACS) - https://www.edx.org/microbachelors/tesu-...n-literacy

[ItsNeverTheLionsYear]

There might've been a policy change. There's also this tidbit on my eval:

Foreign Credits (90 cr. Maximum):

so they might be evaluating foreign credits differently now. Maybe they got sick of all those Finnish transcripts.

The damage isn't so bad, now that I'm looking it over. I'm missing 5 GE courses, plus the cornerstone, but all my other electives are met. This is what I'm missing:

• Written Communication I - I have some dusty AP credits that I'll have to snail-mail a form for. I can probably cover this with AP English Language & Composition.
  
• Written Communication II - Can probably cover this with AP English Literature
  
• Oral Communication - through SDC, on rachelaz's recommendation
  
• Ethical Leadership - Sophia Intro to Ethics
  
• Civic Engagement and Awareness - Can probably cover with APUSH. If not, I'll SDC it, or maybe even CLEP it, just to say I've taken a CLEP. But also, what the hell! I did a whole degree in political science! Including an American Politics class, that appears on my eval right now under unused credits!
  

[rachel83az]

For civic engagement and awareness, you can do Sophia's US Government. You might as well, since you need Ethics anyway. But if you'd rather CLEP to say that you did, that's okay too.

But I'd see if you can dig up a syllabus for the American Politics class and dispute it not being used there. Comparative Politics is known to work, as well as US/American Government, so I'd expect American Politics to also work.

[davewill]

I'd appeal the evaluation. Worst that can happen is that they confirm that the GenEds aren't covered.

[ss20ts]

There might've been a policy change. There's also this tidbit on my eval:

Foreign Credits (90 cr. Maximum):

so they might be evaluating foreign credits differently now. Maybe they got sick of all those Finnish transcripts.

The damage isn't so bad, now that I'm looking it over. I'm missing 5 GE courses, plus the cornerstone, but all my other electives are met. This is what I'm missing:

• Written Communication I - I have some dusty AP credits that I'll have to snail-mail a form for. I can probably cover this with AP English Language & Composition.
  
• Written Communication II - Can probably cover this with AP English Literature
  
• Oral Communication - through SDC, on rachelaz's recommendation
  
• Ethical Leadership - Sophia Intro to Ethics
  
• Civic Engagement and Awareness - Can probably cover with APUSH. If not, I'll SDC it, or maybe even CLEP it, just to say I've taken a CLEP. But also, what the hell! I did a whole degree in political science! Including an American Politics class, that appears on my eval right now under unused credits!
  

90 credits would be more than enough to waive the gen eds though. I'd appeal. Worst they can say is no. Worth a shot.

[ItsNeverTheLionsYear]

I've appealed the evaluation. I'll post here with an update when I hear back.

[dfrecore]

You should do a 2nd appeal, asking for them to re-evaluate the American Politics class to move it to cover the Civic Engagement requirement. Even if they don't count the degree in the way you want, at least you can get that one course done.

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If you're already going to sign up for Sophia, don't bother with SDC just to take 1 course - take everything through Sophia. If you want to do Presentation Skills at SDC, then take everything else you need at SDC. Don't do both if you don't have to.

AP English Language is worth 6cr and will cover English Comp I & II (this duplicates AP English Lit)
APUSH will NOT cover Civic Engagement, it's just considered US History I & II (it's not American Government).

I would get that AP transcript sent though.

Then do the following:

Sophia
Public Speaking
Intro to Ethics
American Government

***OR***

SDC
COM 120: Presentation Skills in the Work Place
SOCSCI 108: Ethics in the Social Sciences

***AND***

Saylor (free course, $5 for exam)
POLSC201: Intro to Western Political Thought OR POLSC221: Intro to Comparative Politics (only because you save $70 at SDC by not taking a 3rd course and you already have a degree in PoliSci so it's probably a very easy pass for you)

[rachel83az]

I think OP needs SDC anyway for the Comp Sci classes in the AOS? If so, it doesn't make sense to spend possibly another $99 or more for Public Speaking (because Public Speaking can take over a month at Sophia) when you can pay $70 to SDC and have it tag along with other courses you were going to take anyway. Presentation Skills takes maybe 3 days, tops. That's if you're slow.