TECEP Enrollment Question

[Lee586]

Just curious, if you pay $50 application fee and $52 for a TECEP, and you transfer in a bunch of credits for evaluation, would those credits be on your "Official" Transcript if you ordered one? Or do you actually need to pass the TECEP for those evaluated credits to show up on an Official Transcript? I've heard both sides of the coin...

[animuscerebri]

I'll answer point by point:

a) The application fee of $50 is independent from paying the TECEP fee. This is just to get applicant status and "getting the ball rolling."

b) When you register for a TECEP and if this TECEP-exam is just 1 cred, then you pay the $52. If you take a 3 creds TECEP, you pay $156.

c) You don't need to register for a TECEP to transfer in your first credits right from the get go. It depends on your situation and how many different cred sources you intend to use.

- c1) With applicant status, you get 2 free evaluations included. Therefore, it makes sense to think about which source of credits you wanna transfer in first, and, second, it is beneficial to have most of the creds you wanna transfer in already all on one transcript from that particular source. For instance, if you wanna transfer in a lot of Sophia courses, it makes sense to finish off all the creds from Sophia and transfer them in. Bear in mind that I recommend this approach if you intend to roam around in the applicant status realm for some time until you decide how to continue.

- c2) If you already know that you will have > 2 sources of credits, such as from foreign schools, CC, etc., and you have those creds very soon, I'd register right away for TECEP, because then you can streamline the flow of incoming creds more quickly. As I said, you first get 2 evaluations included with applicant status, but if you have 5 different cred sources, it's obvious that you will run out of the 2 free included transfers.

- c3) There are few outliers who have accumulated a huge amount of ACE credits from various sources, and they easily surpass the 120 cred degree limit. In those particular cases, I always recommend to transfer in all their credits right away, and I recommend it for two reasons: first, due to the fact that you will highly likely have similar or overlapping courses via the official ACE recommendations, it is pretty important to make TESU decide which classes can meet the degree requirements and which ones become "Other Courses" material (meaning that which ones become de facto useless). Second, if you have a huge amount of creds to be evaluated, you also need to take into account the time the evaluators need to go through both that mountain of credits and their corresponding ACE recommendations and potential conflicts (duplicates, similar but where do we slot it, etc.). Usually, a standard TESU evaluation takes about 5 business days, but I also waited 2 weeks and more. In my case, I recently just sent in one course and it took 5 days. Hence, if you have about 100-200 credits, I think you wanna start right now so that you know for sure what can I actually use to meet degree requirements. Don't forget you don't always get all the creds that ACE awarded. TESU has the final say what they accept. That's why, in these outlier cases, start right now sending in this bulk of creds.

d) I'm not sure whether I understood you correctly. That's why, I'd recommend being more specific in terms of your transcript question, but I take an educated guess: you don't actually have to take the TECEP exam if you don't wanna take it. If you only wanna register to be able to transfer in more creds, you won't face any penalty for not taking the TECEP. It will get marked as NT (not taken) and it won't affect your GPA and it won't appear on a transcript.

IMPORTANT: However, don't forget that not taking the TECEP exam is not the same as officially "dropping the TECEP exam". If you drop a TECEP by you clicking on the "Drop" button in your MyProgress Dashboard regarding your TECEP, you will get a W on your transcript permanently. That's why, if you register and don't wanna take it, just let the term pass without officially dropping the TECEP. See TESU's official policies regarding taking TECEPs, https://www.tesu.edu/admissions/methods-...licies.php

e) There is no interdependency between "taking a TECEP exam" with "getting transferred in creds evaluated". Remember, taking a TECEP exam is not the same as registering for a TECEP.

f) All credits you transfer in will appear on your official transcript. Even those that are not used for your degree requirements.

[davewill]

There was a recent change where they will not issue an official transcript unless you have earned some resident credit. So if you're trying to use TESU just for credit banking, you need to either take some TESU credit, pay for the actual credit banking option, or not need an official transcript.