Just a few credits needed with minimal effort

College Majors Music Major
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<p>I had a music education degree 99% done. I only needed two classes to graduate. Unfortunately I had a pretty major life emergency and could not continue with the program. In the meantime I got a business degree online and am starting to make some money so I can get back into it. The problem is, there has been an administrative turnover since I went to the school and the school isn't taking it's own credits! I couldn't believe it when they told me that just two years of being away meant I would be responsible for 4 years of new work. </p>

<p>I need to find a college that will essentially take almost all the credits I've accumulated and has extremely easy performance/entrance requirements (I'm fairly rusty on the horn but was ready for my final performance when I left). I need to be able to go into the college, fill out whatever requirements are left, and leave, all without much fuss. Location does not matter as my job is all online- I could literally travel the world if I found the perfect school. I don't care about the quality of the school - I just want the damned degree. Can any of you help this older student in need of answers?</p>

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<p>If you already have a business degree, why do you want to go back and finish the music one?</p>

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<p>That doesn’t make sense to me, either. A legitimate university would not operate in that manner. Have you spoken with anyone at your local state university?</p>

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<p>They’re pretty much the worst state university out there, and the administration lets them do whatever they want. Many, MANY students have complained, but the provosts have their hands tied, or so they say. It’s really shady business. </p>

<p>I want to finish my music ed because 1) it’s almost done (my undergrad degree is officially “general education”) and 2) it’s what I’ve always truly wanted to do. I just did a quick MBA just to get back on my feet and get some funds coming in.</p>

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<p>Transfer of credits is very much an individual thing: that is, it depends on where the credits came from, when they were earned, what courses they were earned in, and on the accepting institution. While School A might be very accepting of many other schools’ credits, it may be unable to accept credits from certain schools merely because the courses do not fit with any of School A’s courses. Thus, it will be difficult for anyone to give much helpful advice here concerning schools that would accept most of your credits. </p>

<p>I think that your best option is to negotiate with your original school. Does it have a student ombudsperson or an office/agency which helps students negotiate? Have you asked any of your former instructors to whom you were close if they can assist you? If such a thing happened in my city, it would be worth a front page newspaper story that could potentially go national–a huge injustice; our local university would never risk the incredible negative exposure that such a story would bring.</p>

<p>While schools frequently do change program requirements and students that take one or two years leave often find they must complete additional courses to graduate under the new requirements, I have never ever heard of a school insisting that someone with 3.6 years of courses start at the very beginning. </p>

<p>[Side note: you must make sure you are dead accurate with your facts when you tell an incredible story; otherwise you risk people dismissing the true elements of the story. Two courses short would mean that you were probably about 95% or 96% complete rather than 99% (unless your institution requires 200 courses for graduation–normally about 40 to 45 3-credit courses are required).]</p>

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<p>…this is why i’m asking for personal experience to find schools that are generally lenient on transfer requirements, not for a full on debate about whether I should get back into a school that I’ve already implied was impossible to go back to.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>Weird stuff does happen. Many many years ago my dad was awarded a PhD from a small private college in Florida. He taught college for a good number of years after recieving his PhD.</p>

<p>Many years after that the college was merged in with the state university system, and discarded all records of pre-merge students. So essentially, my dad a a PhD diploma, but there was no way to get any references or or transcripts sent directly to an employer from the college (which was important since we was appling for teaching jobs at colleges). He did have copies of all that, but some employers wouldn’t accept anything unless it was sent by the issuing institution.</p>

<p>Anyhow, what I was wondering is if there was any issue getting a transcript from the college. Like, are all your credits showing up on the transcript? If they are, and if it is a regionally accredited college, it wouldn’t seem like there would be a big issue with informally providing a copy of that transcript to admissions representatives at other colleges (without officially applying) and asking them if there were any potential issues.</p>

<p>I’m suspecting though that this issue may be an accreditation issue or issue with a “for profit” institution. I don’t have any problems with for profit institutions personally, but I know that a lot of colleges do.</p>

<p>Your biggest issue may be that most colleges have a minimim time in residency to recieve a degree. Like it may be the last 30 or 45 hours of work has to be completed at their facility. So you need to keep it in mind that you may still have a full year or more even if most of the credits are accepted for transfer.</p>

<p>I doubt that many posters on CC are going to know much about finding an “easy to transfer to college”. Maybe you should be looking for a college that has just recently been accredited for music and is hungry for students. Or any college that is starving for students. There are lots of colleges with accredited music degrees that will take just about anyone, assuming you got the bucks to get in. But as to whether or not they will transfer your previous credit, I have no idea.</p>

<p>You could try Limestone College in Gaffney SC. It’s a very small college, but does have an accredited music department. Since it is a private college, they may be more lenient with transfering credits.</p>

<p>Or possibly Coastal Carolina University (the one located in SC, not the jr. college in NC), they only offer a BA in music, but they do have a 1.5 year MAT program where if you graduate with the BA in music and then do the MAT program you can get a public school teaching license. Their music program has only been accredited for a couple of years and I am sure that they are hungry for new music students.</p>

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<p>I can see a school losing transcripts or some such s one poster said, but this story is one of the weird ones I have heard of. I know people who have finished degrees years after they had stopped going, and they generally received full credit for the courses they had taken…so something is strange here. The only thing I could think of might be if for example the students grades weren’t great, if they didn’t feel the students grades warranted being counted…or unless it was something like Auburn university, where they found out that more then a few football players were doing an independent study program in the sociology department with the chair and basically their whole transcript was fake (apparently, same thing with general ed courses outside the major)…</p>

<p>If they are really doing this, claiming you have to start over, I would contact your local representative in the state legislature, assuming you are a resident of the state of said university or the state ombudsmens office. If this is a state university, they are subsidized by the state, and take it from me, the administration will not like it if state senators or representatives or whatever they call them on behalf of a student, especially in these days of budget cuitbacks and the like. It could take as little as a phone call for them to change their stance, if in fact this story is everything as presented, if there aren’t other mitigating circumstances. Or as someone else suggested, if you don’t get any relief from the school’s ombudsment, try calling a local or state newspaper, they usually have people who specialize in these kind of stories, and the university will not be happy to be made out to be bad guys if the details of this are complete.</p>

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<p>If this is a state university, have you looked at another campus or location of the school?
I am not picking on the OP, but as a teacher I’m worried about his some of his comments and what they denote. By his own admission, he is “rusty” on his major performance instrument so it’s safe to assume that there would be a big problem with the other instruments on which a music teacher is required to offer instruction. We also don’t know which courses are missing in the degree sequence- those could be crucial and not easily fulfilled by going to any old school. Has all the student teaching been completed satisfactorily? How long has he been away from the program and were all of the required state tests taken with passing grades (there are limitations on how long those tests are valid)? Add in the fact that the OP says that his credits came from " pretty much the worst state university out there" and although this person may be the nicest, most committed person going, it’s not a recipe for a well prepared teacher.</p>