Courses are open to all those who meet departmental and course prerequisites and Texas Success Initiative Program (TSIP) requirements.

Texas residents and students seeking credit at any Texas public institution must comply with Texas Success Initiative requirements. If you are exempt from the testing requirements, contact the Texas Success Initiative Program Office for a list of acceptable documents to include with your enrollment application.

No. Correspondence students are not officially admitted to Texas State, and enrollment in a Texas State correspondence course does not constitute official admission to Texas State.

A number of our courses are available online. Additional online courses are currently in production. Check Course Offerings for more information. Most of our print-based courses allow e-mail assignment submission as an option.

Yes. Texas State correspondence students may receive up to three hours of free online tutoring in biology, mathematics, writing, and grammar from SMARTHINKING. Limited tutoring is also available for Spanish.

Yes. Although correspondence courses do not qualify for most types of financial aid, some assistance may be available for those who qualify. More information can be found at the Financial Assistance page of this site.

Texas State University-San Marcos is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Therefore, credit earned at Texas State is accepted by most institutions of higher education. However, you should consult your school before enrolling in a correspondence course to ensure that, upon successful completion of the course, credit earned will transfer and apply to your degree.

For print-based courses, yes, you must purchase the study guide. For online courses, all course content is in the course site on TRACS. The course study guide or TRACS site contains essential course information and the assignments you must complete. In addition to the course study guide or online access, some courses also require you to purchase the study guide published by the textbook publisher, which contains supplementary material and sometimes practice exercises. The foundation for your course, however, is either the course study guide, published by our office and available only through Ed Map, or the online course site on TRACS.

Most instructors communicate with their students via e-mail, and some also by phone. Check the "About the Author/Instructor" section of your course TRACS site or study guide to find out how to contact your instructor.

All assignments can be found on the course TRACS site or in the course study guide.

Instructors may take up to 10 working days to grade assignments and exams once they receive them from our office. Instructors often will return graded assignments more rapidly, but at certain times during the year, such as holidays and at the end of the semester, you can expect that the turn-around time on assignments may take longer. Remember, the 10-day period does not include mail time for assignments and exams that you send to our office or that we return to you after they have been graded.

Generally speaking, you may submit no more than two assignments per week. Some instructors, however, may allow you to submit more assignments per week or require you to submit only one assignment per week. To find out if your instructor has different requirements, consult the information under the "Assignments" heading in the "Introduction" or "Syllabus" of your course TRACS site or study guide. If the instructor doesn't specify anything there, then you may submit no more than two assignments per week. It's important to note, though, that it is of great benefit to you to submit one assignment at a time and to wait to receive graded assignments, so that you can read comments from the instructor before submitting subsequent assignments.

Many print-based courses allow e-mail assignment submission. E-mail speeds the grading process by eliminating mail time. Submission by fax is also usually available for an additional fee. Check the "Assignments" section in the "Introduction" of your study guide to find out if e-mail or fax submission is available for your course. For print-based courses in which e-mail submission is not possible, you can submit assignments via express mail or courier service.

If you submit a signed Permission to Release Grades form, you may call our office, and our staff will tell you your grade over the phone. In the interest of maintaining student confidentiality, unless you provide us with this statement, we cannot give grades over the phone.

Proctors are generally located in other university correspondence or independent study offices and in university or private testing centers. Librarians and military educational service offices may also act as exam proctors. If you live in Texas, you may want to consult the list of Testing Sites in Texas. If you live out-of-state, review the instructions for finding an exam proctor, which appear in the "About the Exam" section of your study guide for how to locate a proctor and obtain approval of the proctor from the Office of Distance and Extended Learning.

For an additional charge, we can express mail your exam to your exam proctor. You will have to consult with your proctor, however, to learn if the proctor can express mail the completed exam back to our office.

One three-month extension is allowed. When you receive your extension, it is effective from the original expiration date of your course. Therefore, if your course expired two months ago, you may obtain an enrollment extension, but it will retroactively apply to the two months your course was inactive, and you will have only one month left before your course expires for the final time. No enrollment may extend beyond 12 months after your original enrollment date.

If the course you are trying to complete is still open, you may re-enroll in it. Your instructor will determine whether you may resubmit all of your assignments from your initial enrollment or will need to rewrite them (in the case of essays required for English courses, for example). If the course has been revised since you first enrolled in it, different course materials and assignments will be required. If the course has closed since you first enrolled in it, you will not be able to re-enroll in it.

No, it does not. You must officially be enrolled in a university or college to obtain a student loan deferment on the basis of current enrollment at a university or college. For more information about the rules for student loan deferment, contact the financial aid office at your university.

Since you are technically not admitted to Texas State when enrolled in a correspondence course, and your enrollment is not term-based, your course is not considered when determining either the number of hours you're enrolled in each semester. Nor does your course affect your status as a full-time or part-time student, except in the semester in which you complete the course, when it is counted in your total semester load.

No. When you complete your course by taking the exam, or for courses that don't require an exam, by submitting the final assignment, your final grade is reported to the Texas State registrar. If you do not complete your course, no report is sent to the registrar.

If you wish to drop a course, you may submit a Request to Drop a Course.

At Texas State, students may apply up to 18 hours of credit from correspondence study courses to a Texas State degree.

Refer to the Office Location page for driving directions to our office and for information on where to park on the Texas State campus.

Yes. Once the Texas State registrar receives your correspondence course grade, that grade replaces any previous grade earned for the course.

Yes. At Texas State, a correspondence course counts toward your GPA. Policies vary among different universities, so if you are not a Texas State student, be sure to find out from your university what the policy is regarding this at your school.