Abacus Educational Services is arranging for fully accredited examinations to be offered in Southern California and will be helping applicants prepare for them here and elsewhere.

Uncollegians, homeschoolers and other varieties of autodidact have learnt that getting an education is free! It is only obtaining an officially sanctioned diploma which costs — and indeed, that cost is immense.

What if it were possible to turn that freely accessible higher education into an internationally recognized degree simply by taking an exam? Well, it is possible up to a point.

Trinity College London (http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/) has for many years been offering credit by examination in over sixty countries through its international examination board, including nine levels of certificate programs for primary and secondary students, and three professional diplomas corresponding to undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate university degrees.  These are fully accredited in Great Britain and widely recognized and accepted around the world.  Typically, local teachers and schools may thus prepare their students to earn internationally recognized distinction through examinations administered by visiting Trinity College Examiners. The examinations are face-to-face and rigorous and the applicants upon whom those professional diplomas are conferred, as Associates, Licentiates and Fellows of Trinity College London, may proudly place ATCL, LTCL or FTCL after their names.

It seems inevitable that institutions like Trinity College London will proliferate and eventually provide generally accessible official recognition to those students who prefer to study outside the loop.  Abacus Educational Services has been offering English Writing, Music Theory and Speech Classes to homeschoolers and uncollegians for over ten years and is now specifically helping students to prepare for the Trinity College Exams.

The advantages of the Trinity College Academic model

• Applicants need only pay a reasonable fee for the examination.
• Preparation for the exam need not take place within any specific institution.
• Exams are open to all, regardless of background and geography, provided that enough applicants are prepared to sit the exam in a specific subject and location to justify a visit by the examiner(s).
• Diplomas are highly rigorous and thus fully accredited in Great Britain and recognized worldwide.
• A Trinity College grade level certificate is a significant and unusual mark of distinction on a college application.

The downside of the Trinity College Exam

• Trinity College is an arts college and their curricula cover largely the performing arts including music and theater. However, they do also have a wide range of programs in English language communications skills.
• Trinity college diplomas, though highly regarded internationally, tend to be evaluated unpredictably bu US institutions as there are no uniform admissions policies in the US.

Our immediate goal:

To help uncollegians and other out-of-loop learners in Southern California and online to prepare for the exam in English Communications, Music Theory and Theater subjects and to host the exams here.  Abacus Educational Services has many resources including online classes and online tutoring to assist applicants prepare to take these examinations with confidence here or elsewhere.  If you may be interested in participating or learning more, please join our contact list.

Longer term goals:

• To encourage programs similar in structure to those of Trinity college but with wider ranging curricula.
• To help establish US recognition of such degrees and of credit by examination in general.
• To encourage life-long study and alternative approaches to education.

Parties interested in participating or learning more, please join our contact list.