<p>My son has a year of chemistry credit at our local, large, 4th-tier branch campus of State U. We hope that this will be accepted at his large, well-known, third-tier university in the Fall so he can start right in with second-year chemistry courses.</p>
<p>The courses appear to be identicaltwo semesters of your basic intro chemistry. Would it be unusual for the transfer credit not to be accepted?</p>
<p>My brother actually transferred calculus credit from a community college to Ohio State, and this is a much smaller gap in school quality than that. Still, I'm not sure what to expect. Is there any chance that a 3rd-tier school would think so highly of itself as to refuse transfer credit for an intro-level course from a 4th-tier school? Am I worried for nothing?</p>
<p>I would think that his school will accept the credit, but why not contact the school and ask?</p>
<p>Also, some schools have the ability to check right on the website.</p>
<p>Has your son already had the credit sent? If so, then maybe the credits have already been credited.</p>
<p>Some schools have a transfer credit database so that you can just look up the school and course and they will tell you if it transfers, and, if so, what it transfers in as. They may also tell you that it doesn’t transfer or that they’ve never evaluated the course before. If they haven’t evaluated it, then you can request that they do evaluate it.</p>
<p>There’s a very high probability that the courses will transfer (if the grades were C’s or better). And if they don’t transfer as expected, your S can ask the registrar’s office to re-evaluate them for transfer credit.</p>
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This is an insult to people everywhere who attended community colleges. Having spent my first 2 years at one, and then been accepted for transfer at Penn State, Bucknell, SUNY Buffalo, Clarkson, University of Detroit, and University of Pittsburgh, (everywhere I applied), I can assure you that not everyone holds community colleges in such low esteem. And the courses I took at cc were every bit as rigorous as those at the transfer school.</p>
<p>His courses should be accepted as long as they were not remedial in nature, and as long as the grades were C or better.</p>
<p>Gotta agree - CC courses can be every bit as rigorous as 4 year colleges - and typically aren’t taught in vast auditoriums with 800 students surfing the net - with smaller group sessions hosted by grad students… Instead, CC courses feature professors who know where the lab is and actually show up there…</p>
<p>Getting back to the original question, look for an articulation agreement between the two schools. At least here in the west, college make formal agreements where courses are mapped between the two schools. Here is the link for the website for the UCs</p>
<p><a href=“Welcome to ASSIST”>Welcome to ASSIST;
<p>and here is one for Santa Clara from Skyline College</p>
<p><a href=“Skylinecollege.net”>Skylinecollege.net;
<p>seconding xaniamom and scualum: Taking courses at a CC (or a third or fourth tier four year school) is respectable and credit will transfer to most institutions with no trouble as long as the school is accredited. Earning a bachelors degree from a third or fourth tier four year school is respectable too, and those who choose (for whatever reason) to complete their undergraduate degree at Directional State U instead of Flagship State U or Private C have still earned a college degree, and in the end, that’s the name of the game for most people.</p>
<p>I have nothing against community colleges at all and completely agree that the quality of the teaching can be better than that of four-year universities. I should have added the word “perceived” in there somewhere. I have no doubt that people learning calculus at community colleges are learning it well. What I really meant to say was that I expected Ohio State to deny the transfer credit due to the vast difference in perception between community colleges and state flagship universities, but they didn’t.</p>
<p>As for the suggestion to look up articulation agreements…thanks! I had no idea that such things existed, and sure enough, the two colleges I’m concerned with do indeed have one, and it’s on the Web. Pretty cool.</p>
<p>Unfortunately—and weirdly—the agreement includes organic chemistry, but not general chemistry. However, I would think that a visit to the department should clear this up. My son also has a 5 on the AP chemistry exam to go with the college credit, so I would like to think that they’ll at least give him placement, if not outright credit. I’ll cross my fingers.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your replies.</p>
<p>It depends upon the school. It doesn’t matter what “tier” they are or if they are community college credits. Some schools are just pickier about accepting outside credits. Holy Cross is an example. We know a lot of kids who go there, and that seems to be a resounding, recurrent complaint. </p>
<p>I have seen the most selective schools accept cc credit, but nix credit from a like school depending on the circumstances. If you are a math, engineering, physics, comp sci type major, the departments might be very picky about what calculus credits they will accept, and even if they take the credits insist on placement tests before starting their sequences. There are some calculus courses that are just not designed to be foundations for a heavy math major, and it is doing noone any favor to let the kid think he is adequately prepared when he may not be.</p>
<p>My son had taken a local college Calc 3 course. Though the school was not at all hesitant about taking the calc credits from the AP, they wanted to test him before letting him into Linear Algebra and some other advanced math courses. All they did was ask a few questions about Green’s and SToke’s theorems which they told him often are not covered in Calc 3 courses at colleges that do not have heavy tech type majors, and community or local colleges which was where he took the course. Not insulting CCs or local schools, but this is a matter of fact. As it turns out, the local SUNY which is certainly not a school strong in the math disciplines has the absolutely most fabulous calc teacher I have ever encountered. He teaches the courses thoroughly, rigidly and with vigor. Two of my kids have taken his courses, and I am ever impressed. Yes, he covered the theorems and more. My son was more than prepared to step up. And there are kids who may have taken calc at a very selective college that did not give that foundation. It all depends. But the department would look at a calc course at comm college and want to know how heavily loaded the course was, as a responsibility to the student.</p>
<p>Mantori, the dept may want to test your son for placement. My roommate went directly into O-chem as a freshman due to AP credit, but even then she was screened since that course is a very important one for those who have health field aspirations.</p>
<p>Thanks, cpt. I just talked to my son and advised him to do these things: (1) Make sure they have his transcript and an official AP score report. (2) Go to the chemistry department, not the registrar’s office, and talk to the department chair or similar person-in-charge about obtaining transfer credit. (3) Offer to take the placement test if there is any doubt. From the responses here, it seems to me that this should cover all the bases.</p>
<p>“What I really meant to say was that I expected Ohio State to deny the transfer credit due to the vast difference in perception between community colleges and state flagship universities, but they didn’t.”</p>
<p>My understanding is that most state universities like the local CC kids. Umich and Michigan State both accepted all 60 of my transfer credits.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s great! I’m especially surprised about UMich. It’s sounding as though my assumptions may be just plain wrong.</p>
<p>mantori…speaking from experience with the University in question, they were very accomodating with transfer credit. (If the agreement with the school in question does not list the particular class, it just takes longer…sometimes a month or two… for the credit to appear on the transfer equiv. report). PM me if you have any questions. p.s. How is the Flagship experience for your son?</p>
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<p>Actually it is probably easier to transfer credits from community colleges than it would be from 4 year schools because the surrounding colleges probably have articulation agreements in place. In addition, if a person graduates with an associate degree most of the time all of their credits will cleanly transfer to a four year school (some of them may be applied as elective credits), but they will all go. The student transferring from a 4school with 60 credits has a greater chance of losing credits.</p>
<p>seekingknowledge, thanks for asking…the Flagship Program is everything it’s cracked up to be so far! I post periodic updates in this thread:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-mississippi/613730-chinese-language-flagship-program.html?highlight=chinese+flagship[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-mississippi/613730-chinese-language-flagship-program.html?highlight=chinese+flagship</a></p>
<p>sybbie719, I find it interesting that credits from a two-year school may actually transfer more reliably than those from a four-year school, but a little research seems to confirm that it’s true, especially when those schools have a so-called “2+2” arrangement, which seems to be increasingly common. I assume this is partly because college has become so expensive that spending the first two years at a less-expensive community college is really the only good option for many students.</p>
<p>For most CC students at my school, I can’t speak for all schools, the objective is to eventually transfer to a 4 year. So it is in the CC’s best interest to provide programs which will transfer to the local universities. Four year universities have no such incentive-- on the contrary, they don’t want people to transfer and take their money elsewhere.</p>
<p>Many of my courses transferred for equivalent credit, meaning that I have credit for Umich classes I didn’t take at Umich because they consider the course I did take at my CC equivalent. I was able to look at the articulation agreement and select these courses knowing ahead of time that they WOULD transfer and they WOULD meet a certain requirement.</p>
<p>Our flagship has articulation agreements with the CCs in the area, too. It’s an especially important option these days.</p>
<p>It’s interesting you mention Ohio State. My S will be starting at Miami (OH) in a couple weeks. At orientation I remember hearing that its now an Ohio state law that all public universities in the state must give credit for AP scores of 3 and accept passing grades as transfer credit. (And yes D is passing). As an OOS parent, I don’t know all the details, but I heard the schools still have some flexability, so the hours might be given as an elective instead of a prerequisite.</p>
<p>From what I heard the good schools (OSU, MU etc.) are not really happy about it, but I guess too many parents/students were tired of paying money for classes and not getting the credit they deserved.</p>
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<p>I sure hope “etc.” includes BG!!! 
Best of luck to your son at Miami. Awesome place. I was admitted there but ended up taking a National Merit scholarship at BG. If the cost had been the same, Miami would have won hands-down.</p>
<p>Forcing a school to give transfer credit for D’s sounds like a bad idea to me. I can certainly understand why a school like, say, Miami would not want to transfer D’s from, say, Cleveland State.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I guess you could say that if the student’s grades are that bad, they shouldn’t be admitted in the first place. But I think it should be a college’s right to tell an applicant, “We’ll admit you, but we’re not giving you credit for that.”</p>