Thomas Edison Sucks

[annegirl]

mr mikes1, If at all possible could you please consider helping others here by sharing the name of your contact? Someone sent me something pm but when I saw the header to this thread I asked and she said it's OK to post. She said that she's not sure but it's possible one of the reasons I've had 2 bad advisers is that the informed helpful caring ones do the BS advising. Could be. idk

I've been wondering this myself. I enrolled expecting everything to be drawn out and horrible. I have to say, things have been going great for me so far. Advisors are helpful, tickets are answered on time, the one phone call I made to TESC was quick and *very* helpful. Perhaps there are less students in the BSHS area so they get quicker attention?

Brian: I am so sorry to hear about your troubles. Like others have said, maybe another phone call to a different person could change stuff around for you? Some people are so inept they can't spell their own name, let alone get important information correct.

[Riverking]

Excelsior lost me at the word Excelsior. That left it between TESC and Charter Oak.

TESC has the FEMA courses and a History major so that is why I am going with them. No one has heard of Excelsior or Thomas Edison State College here in Tennessee, but the State College means a lot on the resume over some weird name college.

[Lindagerr]

I am an AA graduate of TESC and the people I have talked to there, both on the phone and by E-mail have been very friendly and helpful.

I took my last CLEP on June 12, 2008; applied for graduation on June 13, 2008 and received my confirmation of graduation ~July 5, 2008. I was in the Sept 2008 graduation class and attended the Oct 2008 graduation ceremony. I talked with many of the AA graduates and they were intending to continue for their BA at TESC.

Any time something has taken longer then 3 business days to get an answer I call or e-mail Dr Gary Kneel and I have gotten my issues settled. I have been told over the phone things can not be done, and had them done within the week.

I have seen lots of complaints from EC and Charter Oaks students too. I don't know the number of students for each school, but I think it would be interesting to see the complaint ratio for all 3.

By the way I went with TESC because it is a state school and I live in NJ. TESC has been in business for a long time and here in NJ the reputation has just been getting better. I wonder why EC had to change it's name from Regents to Excelsior?

[NJMedic]

The graduation issue is not just you - Iam in the same boat of waiting months for them to input the grades .. I mean how hard is it to hit the letter 'a' 8 times ?

Ironically, although i already have all the forms in for graduation in june hopefully - I just recieved the annual tuition bill for the next year (begins for me in april) - so this totally feels like a system to milk the student for extra months of tuition.

[Jason86]

The really strong point of TESC for me personally is that once I did my due diligence and mapped out a plan I realized for my situation it's the fastest possible way to a degree. I can finish in a matter of months. I'd never dissuade anyone from choosing TESC. But in the same regard, if a newbie asked me I wouldn't pretend that the school doesn't have some customer service problems they should fix.

My problem was with 2 BA advises who didn't know their stuff. It was very frustrating getting any kind of help. Now I know to avoid them. Who knows maybe the the BS advises seem more helpful because they aren't overwhelmed. Or maybe they're more informed, It was just an theory as to why I seem to have gotten 2 remarkably bad ones. I looked at a list of all advisers for all programs and noticed that AAS students get some of the BS advisers. Just saying they could clean up their act a little.

But for the posters with graduation pending while waiting for credits to show up on transcripts from tests taken in back in December. That's not a reasonable standard of service. I think if it were some tactic for money it seems like it would be too easy for students to call them out on it.

[a mom]

When I asked then about the start/end of the yearly tuition,they said that it's based on when the degree requirements are completed not on when they finish the paperwork. I probably should get it in writing though. What kind of annoys me is that you can't apply for graduation until they have all your transcripts. My son will finish his classes around 12/12 and may not be able to get everything there by Jan 1. It definitely makes a difference on which college we look and list as his primary--the one who got last year's transcript out the fastest!

[thatbrian]

I chose TE because it seemed the fastest way way to get my BA. But, as in most of life, the fastest/easiest way is not always the best way. Their GPA policy might be the biggest reason that I would steer people away. But, incompetent advisors (not all of them; I had 1 good one) is a close second.

I have been testing like a madman for the past 11 weeks (11 exams) in order to meet the April 1st deadline because I was (originally) told that if I got my transcripts to TE by the cutoff date, I would have my diploma by June. Now I'm told that they have to actually enter the data into the system by the cutoff date. Well, since they haven't even entered stuff from December, who knows if they will enter the exam I complete on March 21 (my last exam), by June 30th?! Then I'm looking at Jan 2010!

It might take longer to receive my diploma than it did to complete the requirements!hilarious

The really strong point of TESC for me personally is that once I did my due diligence and mapped out a plan I realized for my situation it's the fastest possible way to a degree. I can finish in a matter of months. I'd never dissuade anyone from choosing TESC. But in the same regard, if a newbie asked me I wouldn't pretend that the school doesn't have some customer service problems they should fix.

My problem was with 2 BA advises who didn't know their stuff. It was very frustrating getting any kind of help. Now I know to avoid them. Who knows maybe the the BS advises seem more helpful because they aren't overwhelmed. Or maybe they're more informed, It was just an theory as to why I seem to have gotten 2 remarkably bad ones. I looked at a list of all advisers for all programs and noticed that AAS students get some of the BS advisers. Just saying they could clean up their act a little.

But for the posters with graduation pending while waiting for credits to show up on transcripts from tests taken in back in December. That's not a reasonable standard of service. I think if it were some tactic for money it seems like it would be too easy for students to call them out on it.

[alissaroot]

. I wonder why EC had to change it's name from Regents to Excelsior?

I don't want to derail this thread, but I just wanted to answer this question really fast. They had to change the name because they used to be part of the University of the State of New York, the Regents was a subset. That's not the right word, i forget what it's called. Anyway, when they went out on their own and became a separate institution from USNY, they could no longer use that name, so they had to change it.

Lawrie Miller, taken from a forum post, 02/04/2001 "Regents separated from USNY and became a distinct autonomous entity on 9th April 1998. The last USNY degrees were conferred on April 24th 1998. Thereafter, until Jan 2001, all degrees were conferred by Regents College. Degrees are now conferred by Excelsior College. The original plan was for Regents to separate on Jan 1st 1998, but that transition was held up for "legal reasons"." TESC or Charter Oak? - Distance Learning Discussion Forums

From Wiki:

"Excelsior College was founded in 1971 by the Board of Regents of The University of the State of New York as The Regents External Degree Program, a publicly-funded external-degree-granting unit of the New York State Education Department. In 1984, the unit was renamed Regents College. In 1998, Regents College severed its relationship with the Board of Regents to become a private college. The school adopted the name Excelsior College in 2001 (Excelsior is Latin for "ever upward" and is also the motto of the State of New York). Today, Excelsior College has 30,000 students enrolled in a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate degree programs."

Also, to paraphrase something Dr. John Bear said, if you are going to select a school based solely on it's name, you had better hope that school doesn't later accept a large donation from the Stinkyphart family in exchange for naming privileges.

Now, back to your regular TESC debate, sorry for interrupting your thread!

[jeffs34]

My experience with TESC was pretty good. They are not super fast, but it isn't so bad. You just need to be persistent and realistic. The GPA policy does bother me, but I think saying my degree is from TESC (a small NJ state school) sounds much better than the other 2 or UOP for that matter.

[PeteDude]

Sorry to hear about your troubles Brian.

What do people think about Charter Oak's customer service?

I ended up ultimately going with EC for my associate's, but for the time I was working with Charter Oak they were pretty good. Usually only a day or two for E-mail responses on questions. Sometimes they'd get bogged down and it would be a week or two, but other times the next day!

From everything I've seen and read, it sounds like Charter Oak makes a sincere effort to keep up. Maybe not as quickly as EC, but COSC is a state-run institution and as such will be subject to some lags.