The Pennsylvania State World Campus on Site FAQ

I am a polytechnic diploma holder. Will I be able to transfer my academic credits towards the Letters, Arts and Sciences degree at Penn State?  Yes, you will be able to. You must have achieved a grade of C or better in order for a transfer to be considered. Credits transferred, however, do not carry over a letter grade. Depending on your area of study, it is expected that most of your polytechnic coursework will apply to elective credits. Do I incur a fee if I request for a course taken in Singapore or elsewhere to be evaluated by Penn State for credit transfer eligibility? There is no charge to assess a course for transferability. However, for a student to have a course officially appear on a PSU transcript as a transferred course, the student will have to apply for admission to the University and pay the $50 admission/ application fee. Do higher-level courses (level 300- 400) require prerequisites before you can take them?   If there are prerequisites, they are available through PSU Distance Education. Some of the courses currently being offered do not have prerequisites. I am an O-level holder. Will I be able to enroll myself for a course? Typically, the minimum requirements for admission into the Bachelor Degree Programme in Letters, Arts and Sciences are 5 "O" passes in English, Math, Natural Science, Humanities or Social or Behavioral, and another academic discipline. However, if you are taking a course on a free-standing basis, you may enroll at your own will.(see next question). What if I have less than 5 O-level passes? Are there exceptions to the rule? The Certificate Programmes are open to anyone. You may therefore wish to enroll for Certificate courses as a non-student where there are no academic restrictions, apart from an acceptable level of competency in the English language If you are able to prove yourself by obtaining good grades for these Certificate courses and have fulfilled 18 credits of coursework at Penn State, you may then be considered for admission into a Degree programme if you choose to. Even if you so choose not to enrol in a Degree programme, you would still earn a well-recognised Certificate issued by Penn State University. If I have a C or P6 in English language at  O-level,  do I need to take the TOEFL?  0-level students do not need to take the TOEFL exam. If you apply to be admitted into the Bachelor’s Degree Programme, you may be required to sit for a English  placement test. I am an O-level holder. Will I be able to enroll myself in a higher-level course like a 300-400 level course? Yes, so long as there are no prerequisites. Is there a sequential order to some of the courses? Typically courses become more specific in content and demanding in terms of time as their course number increases from 000 to 100 to 200 to 300 to 400. Do O-level students have to fulfill academic deficiencies even before the start of the programme? Are there any? E.g. a certain level of proficiency in, let's say, Mathematics?  Not necessarily. O-level students starting without any prior college-level work will have to take our proficiency or placement exams at PBS before registering for a Mathematics or English course. Their performance will indicate a level of competency. Based on their test results, We offer appropriate courses if academic deficiencies are identified. To graduate with the degree in Letters, Arts and Sciences Bachelor Degree, what is the minimum Grade Point Average on a 4-point scale, A being 4, B being 3, C being 2, and D being 1? A GPA of 2.0 or a "C" average To graduate summa cum laude, or cum laude, what are the required GPA on a 4-point scale? To graduate with a summa cum laude is equivalent to graduating in the top 5% of the graduating class, while graduating with cum laude is equivalent to graduating in the top 15%. You must obtain a GPA of 3.82 and 3.92 in courses in the College of Liberal Arts. A student must have earned 60 credits from PSU to qualify and have a 3.5 overall grade point average or above. From my understanding, for coursework done elsewhere achieved e.g. at A-level or polytechnic diploma, that are credit-transferred to Penn State, the grades are not transferable for consideration to the final GPA achieved at Penn State. Please confirm if it is true. This is true.  Next, relating to the preceding question for coursework completed at A-level or polytechnic diploma, is there a minimum grade required in order to obtain a credit transfer? Yes, the equivalent of a "C", on a 4-point scale, or better for transfer. If a student gets an A grade for a course, while another student barely passed with a D, does the A student get more credits than the D student?  No, transferability is standard on a per course basis.  However, the more A-level passes (with a minimum C-grade per subject), a student has, the more transfer credits he or she receives. Credits for a failed course is not transferable. True / False True. How are credits transfers calculated? The Office of Admissions establishes transferability by converting course taken elsewhere to the PSU scale The scale used is - 1 semester credit hour is equal to 1 classroom/week for 15 weeks. As a recourse, if I decide to challenge a course by taking the end of the course assessment without undergoing the course, if that possible? What are the fees involved? Students may take Acctg 211,  DSM 101 and 250, Fin 100, 108, 204, 301, Mgmt 100, 321, 331, 341, and Music 008.  The cost is US$35/credit of US$105 for a 3-credit course.   When is the last day I can drop out of a course without incurring a black-mark on my transcript? A student must drop a course in the first 3 weeks in order to receive a "W" (Withdrawal) on the transcript.  How many courses would I be able to take as a Pass /Fail? Pass/Fail is an opportunity for students to expand their educational experience beyond their major and the general education courses.  Pass/Fail may NOT be used for General Education, Bachelor of Arts, and Major requirements.  It may be considered for elective courses.  A student must earn a "C" or better to earn a Pass.   Is there a maximum number of credits, as stipulated by university requirements, I can take at any one time? 15 - 18 credits is considered a full load for students in residence. In distance education, we tend to limit course loads to 9 - 10 credits at one time.  This is a guideline however and reflects that we work with primarily adult learners.  If a student wants to take a "full load", we will permit that provided the student understands the responsibility to complete all courses in the time allotted. Should I decide to do summer school in residence, would this be possible? Yes, this would be arranged through our Office of International programmes and will require some preliminary paperwork to be completed.  The Distance Education Department will provide the appropriate contact information and recommend the student initiate the process one year prior to actually attending in residence. Is there a limit to the number of years I can take to graduate?  What if I decide to take a term or two off and not enroll for a course?  Would I incur a fee just to say in virtual residence? Or to put from another angle, do I have to maintain a certain number of credits to be considered a continuing Penn State student upon my initial registration as one? There is no limit to the time to graduation in this programme. To be considered an active student in the degree programme, a student may go one year without taking a course.  At the end of that year, the student is placed in "inactive" status.  "Active" status may be re-established by sending a letter to the World Campus indicating they want to resume studying.  There is no fee.  If a student is "inactive" for 3 years, the University will drop them and they will need to re-apply and pay the $50 application fee. For General Education courses: If I am one credit short of a required subject group e.g. 5 credits for a required 6-credit under GQ or Quantification courses, can I opt for a 1-credit independent study on my own? What are the fees incurred? Unfortunately not, we would probably petition the college to review your academic transcript if this were the case.   For core courses: If I am one credit short of the core course requirements, can I also do the same i.e. opt for a 1-credit independent study on my own? Unfortunately not, we would probably petition the college to review your academic transcript if this were the case.   If a local course here is more comprehensive than the one offered in Penn State, can I expect to get more credits transferred? Probably not, as I noted, transfer is done on a course- by- course not credit basis. If I take a course locally without taking an exam, can I still be considered for credit transfer?  How does that count? Local courses must be offered by an accredited or recognized institution of higher education for PSU to consider them for transfer.  If the institution that offers the course is accredited, such as NUS, the course content would then be reviewed for applicability to the degree.  If the course may be completed without a final exam and the student earns a passing grade, it would be counted as any other course for transfer.  Can a student obtain 3 certificates (e.g. Business Management, Human Resource, Marketing Management) as long as they fulfill the requirements in the Certificates?  E.g. by doing an extra two subjects, they would have fulfilled all the subject requirements for the three certificates. Yes. Since the selected electives found under the Certificate courses are found in the compulsory modules under the BA category, can they transfer credits upon completion of lets say Psych 002 to BA?  In other words by a person taking the Psych 002 under the Certificate Programme, he/she would also be fulfilling one of the core courses at the same time... or does the person have to take another course as a filler to meet the number of credit requirements for the core course category? Yes, courses may fulfill a certificate requirement and a degree requirement at the same time. However, they cannot be counted twice for credits. Credits still has to be earned through coursework.

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