Ways to Pursue PLA

There are many different ways to authenticate knowledge.

Exams

There are many exams that may yield college credit, based on your score.  Follow this link to see a complete list of standardized exams currently accepted by the college. These are a few of exams most used by students:

Non-Collegiate Training/Professional Learning Experiences

There are different organizations that evaluate and attach credit to training.

Organizations that Evaluate Training

The American Council on Education (ACE) and the National College Credit Recommendation Service (National CCRS; formerly PONSI) are two organizations that evaluate non-collegiate training.

Military Training

Many areas of military training and occupations have been evaluated for college-level credit through the American Council on Education (ACE). Empire State College accepts credit recommendations for any military training or occupation that has been evaluated by ACE.

 

Colleges that Evaluate Training

Empire State College and other regionally-accredited colleges have evaluated certain professional learning experiences for a number of areas. Professional learning experiences may include college-level training programs, credentials, and licenses from government agencies, the military, and the private sector. Empire State College, Thomas Edison State University, Charter Oak State College, Granite State College, and the Community College of Vermont all conduct evaluations of these professional learning experiences using the same standards, and they have agreements to accept each others’ evaluations. Check Current Empire State College Professional Learning Evaluations to see if your training has been evaluated.

If you have gained knowledge from a professional training experience that has been evaluated, simply contact the organization to verify and provide appropriate documentation of that training in order to gain credit.

Individualized Prior Learning Assessment through Empire State College (iPLA)

iPLA involves identifying your knowledge, explaining what you know and have learned, and using that explanation as an introduction to an expert evaluator, with whom you will have an evaluative conversation.

You may want to read more about iPLA on the ESC web pages on Advanced Standing through Prior Learning Assessment.  Also read the ESC publication, Individualized Prior Learning Assessment: A Guide for Students, for fuller information on the iPLA process.

Empire State College’s iPLA Process

Here’s a brief description of the process of individualized prior learning assessment:

  1. You and your mentor agree on your individualized prior learning requests (titles, credit amounts, appropriateness within your evolving degree).
  2. You write a request for each title.  You may answer the questions in a PLA guide, which may replace an essay or help you create an essay, if ESC has a guide in your specific field, or you may use the General Guide.  You may also create a request in another appropriate format agreed-upon with your mentor. Consult with your mentor about the best way to proceed.
  3. When you and your mentor agree that the request is ready, submit it using the PLA Planner. Your mentor must click the “approve” button before your application moves forward.
  4. You will be charged an individualized prior learning assessment fee for individualized PLA requests.
  5. Your request will be matched with an evaluator who has at least a master’s degree in the field. You will be notified when an evaluator is identified; you and the evaluator connect to schedule a time for a phone discussion.
  6. The evaluator may ask for additional information, depending on the topic of evaluation (e.g., evaluators of Business Communications may ask to see sample reports, proposals, or speeches; evaluators of Accounting may ask you to work on a sample problem; evaluators of foreign languages may ask you to do a translation; evaluators of dance or music performance may ask to see a performance video).
  7. The evaluator determines credit/no credit, amount of credit, and level of credit, and submits a report to the Assessment Office. You are notified and sent a copy of the report.
  8. Recommended credit is available for you to use in your degree plan. Recommended credit does not become actual credit until an assessment committee approves your degree plan and rationale essay.  Assessment committees are the final part of the “checks and balances” system, to ensure that your recommended PLA credit makes sense in your degree plan and does not overlap with any other credit.