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I started working on an AS degree in 2014. I took the required math class and failed it twice. I then passed all my other classes, but was told I would have to take the math AGAIN.

So the entire summer I studied, but I was told I could not take only one class for financial aid reasons. I was given a waiver to take the class alone, but after registering, I was then told I needed to re-apply as a new student. I debated this with many of the folks in financial aid and tried to explain I had a waiver to take the class. I had no choice so I reapplied.

I was then told my degree audit went from 95 percent done to 80 percent and that I had to retake classes I have already taken and passed. Fast forward, the school ignores me now. And now they have applied the Satisfactory Academia Progress (SAP) Rule to my account.

I’ve already talked to the entire financial aid department, every mathematics professor at the college, and the ones who run the entire school. I absolutely don’t know what to do anymore.

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    I have added paragraph breaks which I hope will improve readability. Please explain/define "SAP RULE".
    – Patricia Shanahan
    Jan 2, 2020 at 20:13
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    Could you transfer to a bachelor's degree college without completing the degree from the community college, but carrying across credits for work done?
    – Patricia Shanahan
    Jan 2, 2020 at 20:19
  • Thank you for that. Well in my degree audit, it says that I have been to the school too long. What happened was the school was making me take courses that I didn’t even need to take for my degree, but they told me they had to be taken. I wasted at least two semesters taking these classes and they don’t even apply now. Of course taking the math added to that. Even though I was given the waiver, financial aide didn’t even care. I provided the proof of the waiver and they still said I had to reapply.
    – Ayy
    Jan 2, 2020 at 21:59
  • That is what I wanna know. If I could take the credits I do have and transfer them to complete my degree. I will tell you this school makes it hard to get away from them. I asked about any clep exams or any tests that would allow me to get the credit and get the degree and they flat out said absolutely NOT.
    – Ayy
    Jan 2, 2020 at 22:02
  • I applied some further clean up to your question; feel free to edit if I botched anything. This question will be a little hard to answer without knowing your school's policies and the specifics (e.g., I can't figure out why you would need to re-apply for admission), but some aspects of it are universal (e.g., cutting through incompetent bureaucrats)
    – cag51 ♦
    Jan 2, 2020 at 22:04

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In addition to continuing to work with your current school, I suggest contacting transfer counselors at potential bachelor's degree schools in your area.

Even if you cannot complete the degree you are currently working on, it may, depending on regulations, be possible for you to enter a bachelor's degree program carrying a significant number of your current credits.

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That is what I wanna know. If I could take the credits I do have and transfer them to complete my degree.

Most schools have an in residence requirement: you have to take a certain number of credits at that school to get a degree there. This prevents people from earning a degree at one school and then transferring the credits to hundreds of other schools to get hundreds of degrees.

To choose one example at random, Santa Barbara City College requires 15 credits in residence.

This means two things for you:

  • Transferring your credits to another school for an AS degree probably won't work; you'd have to do several classes there to meet their "in residence requirement." (Though as Patricia points out, you could possibly skip the AS altogether and transfer your credits directly to a BS program.)
  • This may explain why your degree audit changed after you were "readmitted" at your current school. Being re-admitted reset the clock on your in-residence requirement.

Assuming your goal is to get the AS, your situation could be one of two things.

Scenario #1 is that the rules were incorrectly applied to you. For example (and this is my guess) the advice to re-enroll as a new student was just bad advice. And now that you have done so, your situation is so complicated that the "front line" people don't know what to do (and don't care to find out). So, they're just hoping that you give up and go away.

If this is the case, the solution is to bypass the front-line people and go to someone higher up who has the knowledge and authority to fix this for you. This may be a dean. At some schools, it's hard for AS students to get a meeting with a dean. In the worst case, you could have to hire a lawyer to force them to pay attention to you.

Scenario #2 is that the rules were correctly applied. For example, some schools require you to graduate within 5 years. If your school has a time limit and you went over, then the policies were applied correctly and you don't have a leg to stand on. In this case, you would have to repeat the classes.

Of course, it's impossible for me to say which scenario you are in, not knowing your school's policies or your full situation. But it's something you should be able to find out by going through your school's policies carefully.

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This needs to be worked out locally. Perhaps there is an office at the college that will intercede on your behalf - Student Support Office, or similar.

There may be laws that support your case, but then, you would likely need a lawyer.

But perhaps an appeal to someone higher up in the administration will help.

For what it's worth, it seems that you are being misused and that a number of rules are coming together to disadvantage you. Good luck.

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  • I went to the higher ups to get the waiver to take the class alone. It was hell, but they gave it, only to have financial aide disregard it. Once I reapplied it set me back. They made me think all I had to do was reapply and take the class and be done. It added more classes that I have taken and then they threw the SAP RULE to stop the aide.
    – Ayy
    Jan 2, 2020 at 22:06

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