By Amy Nielsen

Graduate level accreditation can be tricky. The course of study becomes much more focused, leading you to smaller niche schools.

Unfortunately, schools in some niches are hard to come by, so when I found out that my career changing vocational school had an accredited follow-on master’s degree program at an online school that fit in my budget and my schedule, I was ecstatic - until my state yanked the accreditation midway through my principle year.

I have a bachelors that I earned in the dark ages in a career that has absolutely no bearing on my current path. To that end, I set about rectifying the lack of paper trail I have supporting my current career choice. I found an excellent vocational school that wrapped up all of my side steps into one neat career leap to the left.

The initial program I chose is geared toward people who are moving from one career to another. The field I chose is health care related but not part of the health care conglomerate. My focus sits squarely on the line between traditional health care and supportive wellness care.

While my career choice is certainly not one that requires a higher degree, because of the nature of the field, I feel it behooves me to have an accredited degree as our government grapples with what health care will look like in the future.

When I was looking for schools to bridge to my new career, I specifically looked for ones that had either articulation agreements with major universities or ones that were hosted by larger institutions. The program I chose had an agreement with a university I knew well, and was looking forward to continuing on to.

That is until my state decided that the program I was enrolled in and half way through no longer met the state’s requirements for accreditation. This means I could finish my studies, but, I wouldn’t be able to complete the other part of the course - the follow-on master’s program. My state now no longer accepted degrees from solely online learning institutions, unless they had a physical presence in our state or students completed a low residency portion of the program at the institution requesting accreditation.

What the heck is a low residency program? Basically you take all of your classes online, except for a few weekends that you must physically be on campus to meet with professors face to face for in-person classes. Great idea, except that I live in New York and the school I was intending to apply to as my follow on school is in Maryland. Better than California, I suppose. I have a shot at driving to Maryland, this could never work if the school were in California.

Now, I happen to have a lot of friends that I would very much love to see over the next year who happen to live in Maryland not too far from the school with the master’s program I want to complete. Going to Maryland for a few weekends to complete school and hang with dear friends is not an onerous task. It’s the principle of the thing that is killing me.

There was only one problem. This particular master’s school didn’t have a low residency program.

Until Friday. The deadline for applications to the master’s program is Tuesday. It’s Sunday and it’s Fourth of July weekend.

Yes, you read that right. They have so many students who were planning to take this online follow on master’s that the school cobbled together a low residency program to meet the requirements of New York state so that all of us who were planning to do the online one could complete our education in the time we planned.

When I got the email that this program had been created specifically for us, I jumped on the phone to verify that it was in fact happening and that we only had three days to apply. The admissions counselor I spoke to assured me that it was in fact happening. However it was such a new program she couldn’t tell me the dates or subjects for the campus-based sections of the program.

Whateves, they are in Maryland – I can do that.

So, now I am madly applying to graduate school. On July fourth weekend. I am trying to craft an appropriate and compelling essay, and figure out how to get my transcripts from my ancient bachelor’s and my certificates to them in the time allotted, and celebrating with cookouts and fireworks. So far the essay is going great and I filled out the application in three seconds flat thanks to autofill on forms. The cookout is going gang busters and my hot dogs are almost ready.

I needed to have three sets of transcripts sent to arrive by the close of business next Friday. So far I was able to order my undergraduate transcripts and send it wholly online and it has been received. Thanks Outlook for the confirmation email. The other two transcripts might be harder. At my culinary school, the office team is on vacation until Wednesday, and the articulation school has to mail an original to the requesting institution. It is going to be tight to get everything in for the deadline.

So away I go! From not having a follow-on option and scrambling to sort out how I was going to reach my final goal of earning a master’s degree in integrative nutrition, community health education to applying to grad school in three days flat. On a holiday weekend.

Now I just have to figure out how to pay for this. I currently have no school loans. Time to join the ranks of the permanently indebted.