"Non-Transcriptable" certificates

[marianne202]

I will do my best to explain. I'm a community college teacher and one of the program I teach is a certificate program. I currently teach in a curriculum certificate program. The credits do show up on the transcript and college credit is awarded but it isn't transferable credit, meaning it can't transfer into a bachelor's degree. The same courses can be transferred into our AAS degrees, which are traditionally non-transferable. Now, I used to teach in the continuing education division in a certificate program. These courses were not awarded college credit, but showed up on the students continuing education transcript. Of course none of these were transferable for college credit to our degree programs or another school or degree program.

Usually the standards of course content and grading isn't as stringent for Con Ed classes. For curriculum certificates students are not usually required to take placement tests and meet minimum educational requirements by taking general education courses. Since this means the content can vary widely from one institution to another they don't usually transfer. I have known some schools to award credit by exam credit for courses only after talking with the instructor to find out the level of the course content and comparing the students grades. But this is usually only done on a case by case basis only after the student requests it.

This being said doesn't mean that employers don't give credit for taking certificate programs. They still have great value for a lot of students and employers but are usually not considered degree level course work. I hope this helps.