Do transfer schools work with you to try to give you as many credits as possible?

Transfer Students
1

My son went to a state college out of state because of a large scholarship even though he was accepted to in state colleges. He wanted to be away from home. Now he is homesick. When I look at sites like transferology, it looks like my son would lose or only get elective credit for 30 of the 60 credits he will have earned by May. However if I look at individual courses, I might find similar courses that count for gen ed or major that were not on the computer match list. Also my son finished all his gen ed credits at his current college. Do any colleges let students get credit for finishing gen ed even if the classes arent the same? My son has already started taking major courses. If he transfers, he might still be junior status but with a lot of elective credits that would mean 3 more years of school. I dont think he would want to take a whole semester or year of gen eds when he was getting into his major. If he had to retake gen eds but could take a couple each semester (or summer) while still earning courses in his major that would not be as bad. No issue with grades as his are 3.5+ and he would be making a lateral move as far as academic strength of university.

He had a good year freshman year even tho homesick, but this year he’s had some health and roommate issues. We as his parents think he should stick it out as he likes his major and has great aid. However, he is far from home and has had to handle some difficult issues on his own since we couldnt be there.

2

The receiving college would individually evaluate the courses for subject credit. He should save the course materials in case he needs to show that the course is equivalent. However, colleges usually do this only after the student matriculates, so there is risk here.

General education may be easier to cover if the receiving school has requirements like “3 social science courses”. In such a case, a course not considered equivalent to a course at the receiving college may still be considered to be a “social science course” to help fulfill be the general education requirement.

In some subjects, the lower level courses are fairly standardized, while they are not in others. So that may affect whether he can get subject credit for transfer courses in his major.

3

If he wants/needs to petition for credit, he should bring the textbooks, course syllabi, and any graded work that he has.

Some places do provide estimated transfer credit evaluations when they send an acceptance letter.

4

Many universities don’t find other universities’ courses equivalent to their own and will try to maximize the number of credits students take on their campus (for instance UMichigan is one of the worst offenders since not only do they transfer few classes, they also count credit attempted elsewhere as credit, locking students into upper level status tuition costs and forced graduation timelines.)