Evaluations come late

As fall transfer students start registering for their second semester at SF State, they might be missing an important planning tool -- their Advance Standing Evaluation.

The ASE is sent to transfer students by the Office of Enrollment, and documents their general education courses completed at other institutions.

Department academic advisers, the Advising Center and campus sources say this semester has been one of the worst for getting ASEs delivered in time for students to make enrollment decisions for spring. Without an ASE, students might not know what GE units transferred to SF State. This can hold up progress toward graduation, sources said.

Of the 26,825 students enrolled in the university, more than 60 percent transferred from other colleges, according to Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services Ed Apodaca.

ASEs for students who enrolled in fall 1995 are on target to go out by the end of the semester, said Admissions Officer Patricia Wade. According to Wade, 3,902 fall transfer students should receive an ASE, but said she cannot say how many of those have gone out by this time -- or remain to be sent.

A source, who asked not to be identified, said most of the 10 staff members working on distributing ASEs will not be done evaluating them by next week, the last of the semester.

"Some started out with 300 evaluations to do and have only done about 100 of them so far," the source said.

In the past, ASEs were sent out before a semester started, but many times students never enrolled and Apodaca said it became a waste of time to complete them early. In addition, budget cuts three years ago prevented the office from getting its usual jump start, he said.

Romona Knowles, chair of the GE-advising coordinators, said the Advising Center set up one-hour workshops to help students without ASEs plan next semester.

"This is the first semester we've done this because of the lateness of the ASEs getting out," she said. "It's a problem that students don't have these things."

Approximately 150 transfer students have been advised by Allen Abraham, professor of kinesiology, this semester. He said many of them came in without their ASE.

"It could put them (students) back a few classes," he said. "We try to get them through and hopefully they'll have the ASE by next semester."

Jamie Eng, chair of the department of business analysis & computing systems,

agrees that the ASE does not come out early enough to help transfer students plan their courses during their first semester here.

"The biggest problem is figuring out where in the English sequence a student falls, because if she or he gets behind in the sequence it can set back graduation by a semester or more," she said.

According to campus advisers, student services and Knowles, students are often told to work on their Segment III requirement or their major while waiting for the ASE to arrive. Segment III is a nine-unit upper-division GE requirement at SF State.

Wade said there were twice as many evaluators three years ago. The staff was cut from 22 to 10 as a result of a 33 percent budget cut placed on the department, she said.

In addition to the small evaluation staff, enrollment is going up, Apodaca said.

He said evaluators have to juggle admitting students, data-processing transcripts in order to update the status of touch-tone priority registration, processing undergraduate graduation applications and, finally, hand-typing ASE forms for distribution.

"I still think every semester we've been getting better and better," he said.

Although there are no plans to hire additional personnel, he said, Apodaca recently allocated $200,000 for computer upgrades in the Enrollment, and Admissions and Records offices in order to streamline duties.

The ASE may be a great advising tool, but Apodaca and Wade insist that students can register without it. Community college GE certifications, campus bulletins and SF State transfer-student orientations can all be used in place of the ASE to plan enrollment, they said.

"Students can use copies of transcripts," Apodaca said. "They should be able to receive good advice with just a transcript."

Students who enrolled at SF State as freshmen with 1991 or later bulletin rights, can use DARS, a service on the SFSU View Kiosk, in order to access a list reflecting their GE progress. The system is implemented at 111 other campuses nationwide and will eventually be available for all students, Wade said.

"In order for all students to use DARS, our main-feeder campuses, California community colleges, CSUs and all public and private institutions have to be encoded," she said."It's an exhaustive process, but we're making progress."

Instead of transfer students waiting for ASEs to arrive in their mailboxes, Wade suggested another alternative.

"Day in and day out, students can be more proactive for themselves," she said. "There is a lot of information out there for them to empower themselves with."

Nevertheless, some professors prefer working with the forms. Bill Perttula, professor of marketing, hopes transfer students show up with their ASE in hand.

"I can't make a good decision on how to advise them if I don't have their ASE," he said.

[ Golden Gater Online December 14, 1995 ]

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