Free Winter term for Sophia members, Strayer U

[jch]

Victory at last! After six months, this epic transfer credit battle has finally reached a conclusion. These nine Strayer University challenge exam credits are now on my TESU transcript and academic evaluations:

• CIS-170 Information Technology in Criminal Justice came in as AOJ-288 Intro to Computers Law Enforcement 3cr (AAS CJ elective)
  
• CIS-210 Systems Analysis and Development came in as CIS-221 Systems Analysis and Design 3cr (Works for BSBA-CIS Systems requirement)
  
• CRJ-105 Crime and Criminal Behavior came in as AOJ-103 Criminology 3cr (Works for AAS CJ Criminology)
  

Unfortunately, I was not able to transfer in one exam, CIS-109 Intro to Management Infomation Systems. This was the one that did not appear on my Strayer unofficial transcript. After changing my declared major, all of the others were listed. It appears that there isn't a workaround for Strayer challenge exam credits not recorded on the transcript. This particular credit isn't a big deal, as I don't actually need it and it's also available via Saylor (soon) or DSST.  

Strayer has a few unusual transcription practices, which can significantly impair the transferability of credits earned at Strayer. Specifically: 

• At most other institutions, the transcript reflects a complete academic record of the student. Even if credits are duplicate, repeated, unused, or irrelevant, they are still included. That transcript is then used to build an academic evaluation for the current degree plan. Strayer instead seems to operate in a 'backward' fashion, where credits are evaluated against the degree plan first, before being added to the transcript. Anything that is not used in the current degree plan is not listed.  
  
• For accounting convenience, Strayer treats challenge exam credits as transfer credits. Other institutions will not accept these credits because they are not listed under the Strayer portion of the transcript. Other schools have created a better solution in their systems to reflect the status and limitations of challenge exam credits.  
  

To successfully transfer Strayer challenge exam credits, both hurdles must be overcome. 



Here are the rough steps to earn credits via Strayer challenge exams and transfer them to TESU: 

1. Be accepted as a Strayer University student. Active enrollment does not appear to be required. As long as a student record has been established, taking and receiving credit for challenge exams should be possible. 
   
2. Take and pass challenge exams via ProctorU
   
3. Wait for the registrar to process exam results. This normally takes about a week. Once done, challenge exam credits should be included in the transfer credit report on iCampus. 
   
4. Check your unofficial transcript, and fix it if required. If an exam didn't apply to the currently selected degree plan, it won't appear on the transcript. Work with the registrar to change your major to something else where the credit will fit, possibly an undeclared major. 
   
5. Send an official transcript to TESU via parchment and wait for TESU to receive and evaluate it. 
   
6. Appeal your academic evaluation at TESU. Send an email to registrar@TESU.edu with the subject "Appeal of Academic Evaluation". State that you are a former Strayer University student and earned credits at Strayer via their credit by examination program. These credits are listed under the test credits section on your Strayer transcript. Kindly ask what documentation is required for these credits to transfer and where it should be sent. Include your student ID number and full name. 
   
7. Someone at TESU should respond to you with information regarding a transcript addendum letter. It should identify and confirm that your challenge exam credits were completed and awarded credit through Strayer. This document should be completed and signed by the Strayer University Registrar and mailed (or emailed) to TESU by Strayer. I worked with Michael at TESU on this, who was great. 
   
8. Contact the Strayer registrar via registrar@strayer.edu and state that you are a former Strayer student and transferred to another institution. However, because of how Strayer transcripts challenge exam credits, you could not transfer those credits. Ask for Strayer to write and send a transcript addendum letter per the instructions from the TESU registrar. In your email, identify the numbers, names, and dates of all challenge exam credits earned. Attach your proctorU receipts for each challenge exam, with the course number as the filename. Also, include your Strayer student ID - you can find this on your unofficial transcript. I worked with Steve at Strayer on this issue. 
   
9. Strayer should get back to you with a draft letter PDF. Verify that all of the info is correct, and then reply to your TESU email thread from step 7 asking for approval of the draft. Once approved by TESU, send Strayer a confirmation that it's ready for mailing. 
   
10. Wait 2-3 weeks (if the letter went by mail). If nothing shows up in webadvisor, reply to the TESU email thread asking if the letter has been received. In my case, TESU never received the letter after a month. They offered to receive it via email instead. Once I provided that email address to Strayer, everything went through on the same day. 
    
11. Rejoice. 
    

Throughout this process, the Strayer registrar was sometimes unresponsive. If they don't reply or follow through on something, just keep bumping them every week or two. 
TESU's email system may send you an automated response stating that tickets opened over thirty days ago cannot be reopened. Just ignore this, all of my emails went through just fine.  

All in all, I do not recommend attempting to earn transferrable credits via Strayer challenge exams. I invested more time and effort into transferring them than I did actually taking the exams. Manual workarounds are required by both Strayer and TESU to make transfers happen. If you've already ventured down this road, I hope that these instructions will help you receive credit for your past achievements.  

I may yet attempt CIS-375 Human Computer Interaction, because I need more UL CIS credits. However, I am tempted to just say good riddance and put Strayer behind me.