DSST in Twin Cities

[BGSU_Alum_86]

Just as an FYI to those researching DSST Test Centers: I do not believe the Prometric Test Centers are able to deliver the DSST exam program - at least I have never heard that they offer them and I worked for Prometric (the corporation), plus at a Prometric Test Center within the past 10 years.

[bricabrac]

That seems strange, I thought DSST was a Prometric product? But whatever. Here are a bunch more that specifically list the DSST exams:

Finish College Fast - Schools In Minnesota Where You Can Take the DANTES / DSST Test and Schools in Minnesota that award credit for DANTES / DSST

[adavis84]

Thanks for all the help, bricabrac. That list appears to be directly from the DSST website judging from the way it's formatted. It has one or two more entries in it than the current DSST site list (one of which I know to be a now defunct institution, so I assume it may just be a bit older).

Sounds like the moral of this story is that there are not any DSST test centers in Minneapolis or first ring suburbs. I'll just have to arrange to take a day/half-day to make this happen.

Thanks to everyone for the input!

ETA: A call to the prometric center in Bloomington referred me back to the website (where they are not listed as a DSST center).

[BGSU_Alum_86]

Just one more comment from my time in working at a Prometric corporate office for the DSST program -- I cannot tell you how many times we received complaints from people calling to tell us that the listing of DSST test centers on our website was not accurate; they had called many of the locations listed only to be told that they no longer delivered the DSST exams. Our standard answer: our listing is only as good as the information received from the schools on the list in the first place.

For some reason, schools find it very easy to make the decision to no longer offer the DSST exams, but they do not contact the program to tell them to remove the school from the list, nor do they call to find out what they need to do to have their institution removed from the program altogether. I would actually ask the testing candidates to please let any institution know that they needed to contact us if they were telling folks they were no longer open. I don't know if this was actually done, but if I felt the candidate was interested in helping us (and helping future candidates) I would pass the suggestion along.

[dfrecore]

Just one more comment from my time in working at a Prometric corporate office for the DSST program -- I cannot tell you how many times we received complaints from people calling to tell us that the listing of DSST test centers on our website was not accurate; they had called many of the locations listed only to be told that they no longer delivered the DSST exams. Our standard answer: our listing is only as good as the information received from the schools on the list in the first place.

For some reason, schools find it very easy to make the decision to no longer offer the DSST exams, but they do not contact the program to tell them to remove the school from the list, nor do they call to find out what they need to do to have their institution removed from the program altogether. I would actually ask the testing candidates to please let any institution know that they needed to contact us if they were telling folks they were no longer open. I don't know if this was actually done, but if I felt the candidate was interested in helping us (and helping future candidates) I would pass the suggestion along.

Well, while the schools do have some responsibility to contact Prometric, I would think that Prometric would have a policy of contacting schools regularly (once a year?) to make sure they were still offering the tests! If they received complaints that many times, obviously they had problems and weren't doing a good job making sure their own lists were accurate.

Before I would publish things on MY website, I would make sure it's accurate, and do whatever it took to make sure that the information there continued to be up-to-date.

[BGSU_Alum_86]

I can understand and sympathize. At the same time, the contract that the test centers sign does include a provision that it is up to the institution to notify DSST of any changes (location, test proctors, whether they plan to discontinue the program, etc.). If the program was one that required an annual recertification of the test proctors, that would probably cause many institutions to stay on top of this, but DSST does not have this requirement.

[dfrecore]

I can understand and sympathize. At the same time, the contract that the test centers sign does include a provision that it is up to the institution to notify DSST of any changes (location, test proctors, whether they plan to discontinue the program, etc.). If the program was one that required an annual recertification of the test proctors, that would probably cause many institutions to stay on top of this, but DSST does not have this requirement.

Again, I'm going to look towards Prometric for this. It is THEIR program. If they need to make a requirement to make schools more compliant and stay on top of things, then they should! They are admitting they have a problem, but then don't do anything to solve the problem. That doesn't make a lot of sense.