Graduating senior's advisor problem

[Elle.p.enn]

Hi everyone! :)

I'm graduating in May 07, hopefully. I have a problem:

1. I transferred in several pre-requisites to my current school from another state. My advisor assured me that these credits transferred in fine, and that I was set to go.

2. I looked at my transcript more critically, and realized that I have three (!) courses that DID NOT transfer in. These courses are needed before I graduate.

3. I attempted several times to get back in touch with my advisor, to no avail. Except today. I managed to actually speak to her on the phone, informed her of the courses, and that I had submitted "transfer re-evaluation" forms for these courses. She replied that she wasn't sure of where these forms are, but that I "don't need to worry, we will take care of it".

This raises some concerns b/c:

1. I feel like I can't trust her, she already missed the credits once

2. This university I go to is notorious for making students take another semester after they already think they graduated.

Am I making too much of this? Have you been in a similar situation?

Are there any other avenues I can try to resolve this problem?

Thanks in advance for your replies. :balloons:

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

I have never had the misfortune of being in your exact situation, but I've learned one thing: only YOU can and will look out for YOU. Stay on top of this and don't trust anyone to take care of it for you. Keep copies of everything, call the transfer office daily (politely and professionally, of course), and no matter if she cares or not, update your advisor with EMAILS of the progress of the situation, or call her to tell her what's up then follow up with an email referencing the phone call.

The more things in black and white you have, the better off you are.

Take care and good luck.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

just from reading your post i would say that your problem is with the admissions or the records office, not your counselor. the people responsible for getting your transferred classes onto your official record are usually the admissions or the records office, not the counselors. i would try to work this problem out by first going to the admissions department. they're the ones who first had the official copy of your transcript from your other school and should have placed the transferred classes on your record. i would stop dealing with your counselor and start working with them and start tracing the problem from there. you may have to insist that they pull your transcript from the other school and review it again! remember, they are going to be the final word as to what transfers. if the counselor gave you wrong information you might be able to file a grievance with the college since you depended on her assurances. but, find out now before it is time to graduate. the college catalog or someone in the admissions office or whoever processes the applications for graduation will be able to help you. your grievance would be that you depended on the good faith of the statements made by the counselor that your courses would be accepted in transfer. if the admissions office is now saying they were not accepted in transfer you have a legitimate grievance since you were permitted to proceed with coursework based on the counselors approval. some universities allow for exception requests to graduation deficiencies that take this kind of problem into consideration because they errored, but you have to file for it. i wouldn't waste time on this. i'd get on it today. good luck!

there were a number of students who found that they were lacking a couple of credits in english when we got down to the final graduation crunch in my bsn program. they petitioned the department of arts and sciences, which was the school our nursing program was in, and got special exception to let these few credits slide so they could graduate. after all, when you're a senior and you've written a pile of term papers, requiring a basic english class is kind of ridiculous.

[ICRN2008, BSN, RN]

One of my classmates ran into a similar problem, only it happened a few WEEKS before graduation, and in her case a whole SEMESTER of her previous undergraduate degree did not transfer. She got on the phone with everyone she could until it was worked out.

I transfered in a class from another univeristy after filling out a transfer evaluation form. In my case, I scheduled an in-person appointment with my advisor to make sure that the paperwork was in order, and then I turned it in to the appropriate person myself. I don't trust any univeristy to make it a priority to ensure that my records are in order- I consider that to be my responsibility.

At this point, I would schedule an appointment with this advisor to go over your transcript line-by-line. Find out who exactly is responsible for evaluation transcripts and get their phone number or e-mail address. Follow up with them weekly until you have the issue resolved.

In the meantime, I suggest that you find out if your university accepts CLEP exams. If so, you might be able to complete a few of the required courses this way (in the event that they do not transfer). Otherwise, make plans to enroll in these courses for Spring. Broaden your search to include online courses at other universities (as long as you make sure ahead of time that they will transfer).

Worst case scenario you might have to wait until August to graduate, but there are steps that you can take now to attempt to prevent this from happening.

Good luck and I hope that it works out for you.