Generation Hope Scholarships for Parenting Students (Moms & Dads)

 Generation Hope's application is currently open (through April 1).  Also, we are encouraging your support in spreading the word to any eligible students. Generation Hope provides scholarships of $1,200/year along with one-on-one mentoring, mental health support, case management, free tutoring, and more to young parents (both moms and dads) who are going to college in the DC metro area. We are currently supporting 12 Montgomery College students and would love to serve more. 

Generation Hope's team is actively recruiting new students to join their next class of Scholars. The application and more information about eligibility requirements can be found here through April 1.  I have also attached a flyer. The flyer is also available in Spanish.  

To assist with completing the application, an application clinic is scheduled to, provide one-on-one support with the application, on March 12th as well as a special event for fathers on March 24th. 

If you have any questions about the program or eligibility, you may contact Caroline Griswold Short, Director of Programming:  caroline@generationhope.org, 202-642-5649.

Advising About COMM 108 & COMM 112

We just received the message below from UM’s Smith School Director Luke Glasgow.  He has contacted us several times over the years about this issue – UM College Park will only accept 3 credits from only ONE course if a student takes both COMM 108 and COMM 112.   

Unfortunately, many students choose COMM 108 as a GEIR and then also take COMM 112 as either a Humanities for Gen Ed or as an Elective for Business or other UM majors (including Communication Studies).  In fact, UM will only accept ONE course from COMM 108, COMM 112, or COMM 121 Public Speaking, as all three are considered to by UM to be the equivalent of COMM 107, their Oral Communications Gen Ed course.

Beyond UM, there are 5 other MD schools that also consider both COMM 108 and COMM 112 to be the same course upon transfer (UMBC, UMB School of Nursing, U of Baltimore, Hood College and McDaniel College – see the ARTSYS chart at the bottom of this message).

The MC Gen Ed Program Course List shows an “or” for the GEIR listing of COMM 108 or 112 on Page 1, and also shows “COMM 108 or 112” in the Humanities Distribution area on Page 2. Technically, if a student is not planning to transfer, then picking both COMM 108 for a GEIR or GEEL and COMM 112 for a Humanities is fine for graduation in many of our degrees.  But for the student headed to UM, as well to UMBC, UMB School of Nursing, or 3 other MD schools, taking both courses becomes a transfer problem as these institutions will only accept 3 credits if both are taken.

Telling students who have taken both that they must take another course in order to transfer to UM / UMBC / UMB SON with 60 credits is painful, especially if they are graduating and Financial Aid won’t cover the cost of taking an additional 3 credits over the summer or winter prior to transfer.

Any ideas you might have about how to more clearly advise students that only one COMM from 108 or 112 should be taken if transferring to UM / UMBC or UMB School of Nursing would be appreciated.   Providing a note that students should check the transferability of courses may seem like we’re covering the issue, but the reality is that students look to us, their counselors / program advisors / instructors, to guide them and we often are the very people who assure students that if a course is on the MC Gen Ed List, then it will transfer without question to a MD public institution.

This is NOT a suggestion to remove COMM 112 Business and Professional Communication as a General Education Program course, because for some majors, especially in AAS career degrees, this course is valuable.  Rather, the question is, how do we effectively let students know that if they are transferring to a four-year university, then they should probably take only one course from COMM 108 or 112?  A footnote on the Gen Ed List is one idea, but it still doesn’t cover the student who might choose a second COMM from 108 or 112 as an Elective.

Ideas?

Anne Schleicher, Counselor (Part-time)
Montgomery College Online Advising Services

ALEKS for CHEM 131 Preparation information

Each ALEKS ‘course’ is only valid for 18 months, so I have to create a new version every year.  However, the 2021 version is still active until May 30, 2022 so students who have that information can still enroll in that course and complete the module.  But starting today (March 1, 2022), the newest version is now available, so please feel free to distribute the attached document to any interested students.

Thank you for sharing this ALEKS information with students and for encouraging them to complete the module in preparation for CHEM 131.  We have found that students who complete ALEKS perform much better in CHEM 131 than those who do not. Even students who place directly into CHEM 131 due to our alternate MATH criteria benefit greatly from completing ALEKS.  As a result, we are constantly encouraging all students to take advantage of this low-cost resource.  Thank you for helping us spread the word about ALEKS!

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and please feel free to share this information within the Counseling Department. 

Thank you!

Virginia

Virginia L. Miller, Ph.D.

Professor | Department of Chemistry

Montgomery College 

51 Mannakee Street | Rockville, MD 20850

240-567-7621 | Virginia.Miller@montgomerycollege.edu

TEAS for Allied Health versus TEAS for Nursing

While it is still the rule to take TEAS for Nursing, if students mistakenly take Allied Health, it can be addressed!

This is great news below.

 Over the years, students have mistakenly taken TEAS for Allied Health ( seems logical for every program except Nursing ).

However, stated in writing and verbally at info sessions for ALL health science programs:  

For the four programs that require it, TEAS for Nursing has to be taken.

Yesterday ( finally ) we officially have the info below.  No longer are students embattled with ORR, have to re-take the correct one, or worse.

The establishment of TEAS came from Nursing, which is why it is under their purview.

From: Sprague, Melissa A

Sent: Monday, February 28, 2022 10:49 AM

Well, it turns out that I have Director status with ATI and they helped me to access the student's TEAS results. The ATI rep also told me that the Nursing and the Allied Health TEAS are exactly the same. The only difference is that the Nursing TEAS enables analytics that compares the student's score to other nursing applicants. If a student takes the Allied Health TEAS, we can click a little button that allows that same comparison.

Interestingly, we do not look at those comparisons anyway. So, our students should be able to take the Allied Health one if they aren't interested in Nursing. However, that is another discussion to be had at a later date. 

Melissa A. Sprague, MSN, RN

Chair of Health Sciences

Course Equivalency Spreadsheet

Please share the following message with your department.

I am writing to remind you of an existing resource and share a new one – both are supposed to help with advising regarding transfer credit evaluation.

The first resource that has been around since 2015 is markings, post-it notes, and most importantly, course equivalency worksheets of reviewed transcripts that are available in Perceptive Content (formerly ImageNow). This resource provides answers to the following questions frequently asked by students:

 Has my transcript been received and/or reviewed?

1. What courses did I receive credit for?
2. Why is there a delay of my received transcript evaluation?
3. Who is my transcript evaluator should I want to ask them directly about my transcript evaluation?

 

The information above is also accessible in Banner, but access varies and navigation to those Banner tables may be discouraging to some. Therefore, we transcript evaluators take the extra mile to make markings, post-it notes, and equivalency worksheets available in one place for you. If you have not taken advantage of this resource, I encourage you to do so.

The new resource I would like to share with you is the Course Equivalency Spreadsheet. We used to have a web-based course equivalency database through Transfer Evaluation System (TES) of CollegeSource, but it has not been updated for a while and has been taken down. The new Course Equivalency Spreadsheet is exported from Banner monthly and contains approved course equivalencies from incoming transcripts. New equivalencies are added on a continuous basis as transcripts come in. To access the spreadsheet, please click HERE. To view equivalencies of one particular institution, filter the INSTITUTION column. Please note one course may be repeated several times because it is attributed to different categories.    

If you have any questions about these resources, please let me know.

Regards,

Thomas Phuoc Dang, M.Ed.

Transfer Credit Evaluation Manager

Montgomery College

Office of Records and Registration

 Phone: 240-567-5107

E-mail: pdang19@montgomerycollege.edu

Website: https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/credit-for-prior-learning/index.html

Gen Ed Course or Not?

Question:   

The current general education program lists do not list SOC 204 Sociology of the Family ( student took in 2014 ).

As SOCY courses currently listed of 100, 105, 208, 240 and 243 are categorized as GPC’s, may we assume such? Or is there a way to check.

Answer (from Anne Schleicher): 

The fastest way to check whether a course fills a Gen Ed requirement is to run a Degree Evaluation for the student in Banner (Faculty and Advisor Menu).  If the course was a GPC Global Perspectives or * Multicultural in the semester it was taken, then it should fill in that spot at the top of the Degree Evaluation automatically.

And you’re right, the course had to be on the Gen Ed list in the year that it was taken, so just looking at a current list Gen Ed is not always the way to determine that.  Sometimes students will tell you “I’m sure I took a class for that requirement! (whatever Gen Ed category it was).”

The other way to look is to crack open the vaults.  You can look at Gen Ed Program Lists from many years past to see whether a course was Gen Ed at the time it was taken, these Gen Ed printable pages for students pages go back to 2015, just search for General Education on the MC Main Page to find this list again

https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/general-education-program/index.html

But in this case, because the year was 2014, you need to dive deeper into an archived Catalog and within that Catalog, search for “General Education Program”.  https://catalog.montgomerycollege.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=15&poid=3587 The Designators changed in the year 2015 from 2-letters to 4-letters, so looking for the course title is the best way to find the class, and you can see that the course is on the list as a GPC (designated with a * for Multicultural instead of GPC).

Nursing - Transfer Credits and Previous Bachelor's Degrees

Hello Everyone,

Met with two pre-Nursing students this week who both have previous college credits.

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Student 1 - has a Bachelor of Arts in a humanities field with no biological sciences.  This student believed (or misunderstood) after talking with MC C & A that applying to MC’s Nursing AS for an RN is the best option.  Strong student with a 3.5 overall GPA.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) School of Nursing has a separate entry path for holders of any type of US bachelor’s degrees – students only need to complete 7 courses maximum total, not the full list of 59 credits for first-degree seeking BSN students.  UMB can advise a student whether there is a need to finish an AS degree and become an RN with MC first.  For most students with a US Bachelors and at least a 3.0 overall GPA, completing an RN with MC first may not be necessary.   A student may think that getting an RN first is less time-consuming, but in the state of Maryland (as of 2020), nurses who want to work in a hospital setting need a BSN – this is why MC has developed several BSN Completion Transfer Agreements to help a student move quickly into a BSN after earning an RN with us.  For the student with a previous bachelor’s, it could take less time to add CHEM 131 to the BIOL prereq’s and go directly to a 2-year BSN completion program. 

MC’s Transfer Advising Page for UMB Nursing Page mentions the 7 classes needed for Bachelor’s holders.  See the fine print on the top of this page - Nursing – MC to UM School of Nursing Traditional Transfer with MC-UMB Dual Enrollment Program - this page also advises students to consult with UMB SON directly.  Find this page on the MC Transfer Resources for Counselors & Advisors page.  www.montgomerycollege.edu/counseling-and-advising/transferresourcesforcounselors.html 

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Student 2 – has many credits from two different previous colleges.  Wants to apply to directly to UMB School of Nursing BSN.  Also has an AP Psychology exam score of 3 (this is showing in the student’s Perceptive Content file along with previous two transcripts).  Student could have been referred first or concurrently to UMB School of Nursing for a review of her previous college credits to develop an accurate list of  prerequisites to be taken at the community college.  UMB would also have told her that a score of 4 is needed for every AP exam regardless of how her previous school accepted it, so taking a General Psych is probably needed.  For this student, some previous low grades may also be an issue, so UMB Nursing admissions advisors are in the better position to advise about the chance of admission directly to their BSN or whether going for the MC/UMB Dual Admission Program would be more appropriate.

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Are you supposed to remember all of this?  Fortunately, no.  Just know that if a student is asking about Nursing and has some college credits earned elsewhere or has a Bachelor’s degree in any field, have the student contact UMB SON first for advising.  UMB SON offers a link to live chat weekdays on their page. www.nursing.umaryland.edu/academics/undergrad/bachelor-of-science-nursing/ 

Ditto for other BSN schools – students should start with the transfer destination for advisement if they have credits earned at other colleges.

If students have no sciences or math completed among their previous college credits, then it would be safe to help them get started in those courses at MC while they are actively having their previous college credits reviewed by UMB School of Nursing.

Anne

Anne Schleicher, Counselor (Part-time)
Montgomery College Online Advising Services