Making Sense of Transferable Credits

Transfer students are a special group! These are students that have the courage to change campuses while in the midst of their education. It’s no small task to navigate the application process while juggling classes and that’s nothing compared to the work of understanding how your previous college work fits in at your new university.

Transferology

One of my FAVORITE resources for transfer students is Transferology. It is a fantastic resource! Here, you can see how credits have transferred AND been articulated between two institutions historically and it’s free! While this is no promise the transfer/articulation will hold true for you, it gives you a good guesstimate as to what you might see in your credit articulation moving forward.

If you don't find your institution listed on Transferology, you can compare course descriptions from the course catalog at the new university with the courses you took. If your college is a regionally accredited domestic institution or a nationally accredited institution outside the U.S. and the courses seem to cover the same material, there's a good chance credit will transfer. The question becomes, what it will transfer (articulate) as.

Articulation

This is where things get tricky. As I mentioned before, assuming you’ve studied at an accredited institution, your credit will likely readily transfer from institution A to institution B. What you really care about is how it transfers (articulates). Which course will you be given credit for AND does that course support your progress toward degree.

This represents an expected articulation. It would make sense that this would happen.

• Institution A: You took Biology 101.

• Instution B: You were given credit for Biology 1001.

This is something you might not expect. Institution A offered this really specific and obscure elective class. When Institution B reviewed this course they didn’t find anything comparable on their campus, but they recognize the content would meet an non-specified art elective. So, you get a generic art credit for this class. Elective credits still count towards graduation, they just may not meet a specific requirement on your degree plan.

• Institution A: You took Underwater Basketweaving 202

• Instution B: Your credit was assigned as Art 100

Degree Progress

Once you understand how your courses articulate you can have a conversation with an academic advisor in your future program to understand how you have or have not made degree progress. Based on this conversation, you should have a good idea how much time and what kind of course load you’re looking at to complete your degree on campus.

With all of this information for every school you’re applying to, you can make apples to apples comparison to understand how much time and money you will need to complete your undergraduate degree and graduate.

That’s all for now folks! I hope this helps.

-Veronica