I’m helping a student who is considering transferring. He’s a freshman at a top 30 university. He’s unsure about transferring so is going back to school for fall but wants to start thinking more about his transfer options in case fall proves to be difficult and wants to apply to transfer. In his case, he would likely take spring 2023 off, apply to a wide range of schools including a few top 20 universities he was accepted to originally.
My question is this - he really cannot transfer to a school where the majority of his credits won’t transfer. He and I are finding it difficult to find any info online about how credits transfer. There is a website out there that tries to do that but the schools he’s interested in aren’t the schools that offer up info on that site. I’ve thought about having him call the schools and asking for a transcript review but I asked my friends whose kids have had successful transfers and they said they didn’t know which classes would transfer until after acceptance.
What is the likelihood that most (all?) credits will transfer from one competitive school to another? I’m thinking intro ones like Intro to Microecon would have a high transfer rate but what about classes that aren’t intro classes? Could we expect most to transfer even if they won’t count them towards a major and would at least keep him on track to graduate in eight semesters? Has anyone ever tried to get this info ahead of applying? I’m just concerned he will apply to colleges, get acceptances and then be in the hole for another $40k because he has to attend his new college for an extra semester.
I don’t want to divulge his school but I will say that I know kids who went from Middlebury to Vandy and from Richmond to Northwestern and has all credits transfer. Maybe at this level of school we shouldn’t be too concerned? These are the types of schools he’s looking at.
i can’t help with top schools like that.
but here’s what our daughter had to do when she transferred colleges after 3 semesters: and the “transferology” sites didn’t have her classes listed -
she had to send the syllabus from each class to the college and have it personally vetted. Several classes in her major didn’t transfer, but the general classes did (physics, speech, english, etc). Her classes in her major (architecture) were very specific, - so they went through her actual college/professors rather than the school registrar’s office.
my point: have this kid save syllabi from this semester and next semester!
thanks. I did hear that about the syllabi. I would imagine he could get those from his professors now even if he didn’t save them. I’ll give him that info.
This student probably will need the college course description as well as the syllabus…so the new colleges can see if what they offer is comparable.
ETA…the student also needs to know whether the transferred credits will be able to apply to their degree program.
“ Could we expect most to transfer even if they won’t count them towards a major and would at least keep him on track to graduate in eight semesters?”
If the student will still be required to take a lot more courses because they won’t apply towards a major, they might not graduate in four years. This needs to be clarified.
Majors haven’t been decided yet but the student has taken intro courses for both possible majors and one or two additional courses in each major as well. I don’t think he would be in jeopardy of not finishing a major since I think a major in this case could easily be completed in four semesters even from scratch. This student would likely be going to this second school for five semesters.
I guess my biggest question is around timing. It seems that the transfer students I’ve talked to did not know if/how their credits will transfer until they were accepted. I’m trying to find out if anyone has had any luck getting a sort of pre-read. Short of that, I’m wondering what sort of courses easily transfer for credit in general and if, at this level of university, if most will transfer as at least a credit towards graduation if not for fulfilling part of a major.
It’s just not a social fit. The location isn’t ideal but not a deal breaker. Loves the academics but would really prefer a better fit on the social side. He has done a good job of putting himself out there but isn’t having as much success as hoped. Soph year could be different with new roommate, etc., so wants to give it a chance. I do know that lots of kids don’t have ideal freshman year and soph year could be better.
i see how this is complicated - as you dont know which schools will accept him again or not - and it’d be hard to send all those syllabi and course descriptions to each of the schools ahead of time. nice of you to help this kid; hopefully someone who has had transfers between top schools has more info. we do know a kid who transferred from lawrence to NWern - after one year - and he was not behind. BUT his major wasnt a sequential path. That would make a big difference.
Thanks. Yes. The student had a few AP 4/5s and was given some credit for those at school number 1. I’ll have him check the other schools. They might be able to make up for two credits and keep him on track if two classes don’t transfer at all.
If the student takes spring 2023 off then they would have completed three semesters leaving five to finish and would plan on taking that fifth semester in fall 2025.
I will have him reach out to transfer contacts but I have yet to find anyone here or in person who got good info on if classes will transfer before the student was accepted. This would be good info to know as he could try to choose courses for this upcoming fall that have a bigger likelihood of transferring. I’m actually pretty surprised that people don’t do this. What if every school they applied to and accepted by left them a semester short? Seems like a waste to apply to any school that would do that.
When my ds20 applied to transfer for sophomore year, he was fortunate that the transfer office at his new school was able to tell him which classes would transfer prior to acceptance. For those courses they said wouldn’t transfer, we sent syllabi and course catalog descriptions from college 1 and went as far as to suggest which courses in their catalog seemed to be a match. In the end, he got credit for everything, so it was worth the due diligence.
If this student takes the time to create an electronic file with all of his syllabi and course descriptions together in advance, it would make the whole thing more efficient. I believe that admissions officers that are assigned to handle transfer students are used to these questions. It’s worth him contacting the transfer admissions rep at each of his prospective schools to ask if he were to send all the info over to them in an electronic portfolio, could he also potentially find out which classes will transfer beforehand if not right along with his admissions decision.
Note that subject credit is often the more difficult issue with transfer credit. I.e. a college may accept a history course from the prior college for transfer credit, but count it only as a “general elective” or “history elective” because it does not match any history course at that college. So while it may count toward credits to graduate, or even requirements where any history course is allowed, it may not count for requirements like “history of [some place or topic]” that require specific courses.
In general you are more likely to find subject credit listings that can be consulted before applying or matriculating in the following situations:
Community colleges to same-state public universities.
College combinations where transfer is relatively frequent (e.g. several southern California colleges to USC).
AP and IB credit, which will be re-evaluated by the new college based on its own AP and IB credit listings (generally not based on what the former college accepted it as).
If a target college does not have existing transfer credit listings from the current college, here are things to consider:
Ask the target college if evaluation of transfer credit can be done before matriculation.
Check the majors at the target college to see if they can be completed in the remaining number of semesters even if none of the courses completed at the current college are accepted for subject credit. Do the same check for general education requirements that appear to be unlikely to be fulfilled by transfer credit.
One other potential issue is the college’s duplicate credit policy. If a transfer course covers somewhat similar material as a course at the new college, but not enough that it is considered equivalent for subject credit, the student may have to (re)take it at the new college. But if the new college considers it a partial duplication, some of the credit toward credits needed for graduation may be lost. This may also apply to taking a college course that duplicates AP or IB credit.
Thanks. That’s helpful. I think that, even if all of his classes counted for credit towards graduation but not towards any requirement for the major, that would be ok. Only exception being if the new college has very specific distribution requirements special to that school and he would need to take those as well as classes in the major. That is definitely something he could research and ask.
that’s kind of what he’s hoping but, from the few people I’ve asked here so far, they couldn’t get that info until after they were accepted. I think it might make sense for him to start a short doc with his classes listed and then attach the syllabi and then make some calls to see if he could convince colleges to evaluate his transcript/syllabi. I was just hoping to find someone here who has been successful doing that.
Is he only planning on applying where he is sure his courses will transfer? If he is willing to take some risk here…he could get that info (presumably) more readily once accepted to multiple places…and then make a matriculation decision.
