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My wife moved from India in 2021. She has a green card and a master's degree in physics. When she got here she decided to study radiation therapy at a nearby community college. She got her foreign transcript evaluated through a website and gave those to the community college.

There was no issue, but now the community college is making her retake a physics fundamental course and lab as prerequisites to get into the radiation therapy program. The community college says this is due to some new rule (new prerequisites).

Is there anything she can do to not take these prerequisites? Is this even normal? She has even published some things related to physics.

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    Pretty sure the most she can do is argue with the college. Don't think there is any way to force them to accept credits or be reasonable.
    – Esther
    Sep 6, 2022 at 20:10
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    A number of years ago I was a faculty member at a university that shall remain nameless and my wife, who was then an RN nurse, was looking into the possibility of taking courses for either a BS nursing degree (her nursing degree was from a community college) or, if her background allowed (she also had, from the early 1980s, a double major in English and Computer Science), courses for a Master's in nursing. She called someone on the phone one day and this led to her getting an appointment to talk to someone in the College of Nursing. (continued)
    – Dave L Renfro
    Sep 6, 2022 at 20:53
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    At the appointed time she showed up with all the things she was asked to bring -- her nursing license, all her college transcripts, her high school transcript, etc. Sometime during the conversation the person my wife was talking to said that college algebra was required for admission and she couldn't find college algebra anywhere on my wife's transcripts. Never mind that my wife had A's in Calculus 1, Calculus 2, Linear Algebra, and Discrete Mathematics (she might have had a B in Calculus 2). In fact, as my wife told the story to me later that evening, (continued)
    – Dave L Renfro
    Sep 6, 2022 at 20:54
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    the person she talked to was looking over her transcripts, saw linear algebra, and said something about how she needs college algebra not linear algebra, and that she would have to take college algebra and get at least a C before she could be considered for admission. Now I'm sure there were placement tests the math department could use that they (the nursing people) would accept, if even this much was needed (i.e. get the math department -- someone besides me, if that would have been a problem -- to vouch (continued)
    – Dave L Renfro
    Sep 6, 2022 at 20:54
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    that her background clearly satisfied the requirement), but my wife was so shocked that she didn't pursue it at that time, and later became so disillusioned from this incident that she decided to take some graduate English courses instead (what she was more interested in, anyway). Incidentally, about 25 years later she finally did get her BSN degree, and at a significantly more competitive and highly ranked university. And she didn’t have to take college algebra, as the people there recognized that her calculus and linear algebra courses clearly met the college algebra requirement.
    – Dave L Renfro
    Sep 6, 2022 at 20:55

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Ask them what "due to some new rule" means specifically -- in particular, ask them for the rule.

You can always ask them to waive the rule, or to exempt your wife from the rule. Whether they can and will do so depends on what the rule actually says, but that is not something we can help you here.

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Getting credits transferred is always iffy, especially from a foreign school, and the requirements might be coming from the accreditor or whatever bureaucratic entity supervises the CC. So there's probably nothing you can do that you haven't already tried to get the course waived completely.

But you could ask whether she can take the final to place out of the course. Alternatively, the CC might be more amenable to an exception making the course a co-requisite rather than a pre-requisite if she can make the case that she's ready for the radiology program.

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  • might be more amenable to an exception making the course a co-requisite --- This is a possibility that might be worth pursuing.
    – Dave L Renfro
    Sep 9, 2022 at 18:07
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The options are:

  • Meet the community college's requirements for transfer credit. We do not know what those are.
  • Study radiation therapy somewhere with better rules.
  • Choose not to get that degree.
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