<p>We just got a very nice email back from a counselor at Carnegie Mellon explain in more detail about their policy on freshmen transfering college credit. It was consistent with what's been posted here, but some of the details have us thinking.</p>
<p>Basically they will accept transfer credit from other schools for non-major courses, which, unless they're familiar with the other school, will require a review of the usual materials (class syllabus, transcript) by a member of the relevant department. This is done the first semester of your freshman year. Transfer credit for major courses is much more rare, typically only for the first course in the major and then only when the Dean is "acquainted" with the transfering school.</p>
<p>The surprise was in how they handle standing. They do not grant standing for transfer hours. That is, you start as a freshman no matter how many hours credit you receive and you work your way up through the academic years. You are considered a senior if you are graduating in the current academic year. That can make registering for important, often crowed upper level courses difficult, since registration starts with upperclassmen and works down. From our look at degree plans, that suggests it's going to be hard to graduate early, though not impossible.</p>
<p>I've sort of read about these things here before, but this is the first time I've really understood the impact. Now I'm going to write another school or two to find out how they do things.</p>
<p>Strick, I can tell you that at CMU, getting into upper level courses is not a problem. I am not going to say that it does not happen that someone gets bumped out for a full class but, in general, the advanced courses, have plenty of room. In fact, as a rule, CMU does not have issues with students getting bumped out of a class, and if it takes kids more than 4 years to get through there, that is not the reason. The biggest complaint I heard about shortage of classes is that the School of Fine Arts is very stingly about sharing its courses, something that has been an issue there for years, and still is. But anyone wanting an engineering or math course does not seem to have a problem. However, you are wise to investigate this situation at the various schools you are considering. I have noticed that "standing" is critical in the state schools, and kids had better be on the ball about registering if they want popular courses at popular times. My friend's D at Uof Ill at UC would sit at her computer for hours in a queau for registration. That was one of the reasons they sent their son to a small LAC, knowing he would never have the awareness, patience and motivation to go through something just to get into his classes. (other reason as well, of course). I know a number of kids who graduated early at CMU, by the way, and they are pretty generous about non major courses and entry level courses taken over the summer. I think when it get to those last two years of courses, they get very specific as they should because they do have some rather specialized and unusual takes on a major. Also I can tell you that at CMU as in other rigorous colleges, and tech schools, taking an important prereq course at community college or a school that does not give it equal depth can really hurt a student when he builds on it. I know many a bright kid who is a casualty of doing this. And some of them from taking the course from Pitt just down the street.</p>
<p>It's good to alert parents and students about issues such as these. Thanks!
I don't know the situation at CMU but some schools do not grant Advanced Standing, no matter how many college courses, APs a student has. So the student will not have credit hours, and will be treated as a freshman when it comes to priority for enrolling in courses. That is different, however, from being allowed to take more advanced courses. Again, colleges differ in how they treat courses taken elsewhere. For this reason, we kept a description of all the courses my S took, and a course syllabus (the issue will be moot since he will be attending the same college).</p>
<p>My hunch, though, is that the crowded courses tend to be the introductory ones, rather than the upper-level ones, so despite the lack of priority, it should not be difficult to get into more advanced courses. Additionally, depending on availability of TFs and type of course, there may not be caps on enrolments. So even if a student has low priority, that student may still get in. The exception would be if there is a cap (for example, for a seminar) where juniors and seniors would be favored over freshmen and sophomores. Of course, LACs do not have TFS and thus need to enforce enrolment caps, and large state universities also need to limit class sizes to a certain extent (this is where I depart from Jamimom's comments about LACs, as my S was shut out of some classes owing to enrolment caps, even as a senior).</p>
<p>I know we've discussed most of this this before, but it wasn't until I read the email that the little light went on for me. I got my graduate degree at a state U and a major advantage of being a teaching assistant was that I worked registration and got to register early. I remember that it's not only being able to get into a class that's important, it's having some choice over which section you're in so you don't have timing conflicts or you don't get stuck with a professor you'd rather not have (an important item from time to time). </p>
<p>I also remember there always seemed to be one course that defined the critical path for a major because it was the prerequisite to half the upper level courses you needed. Not getting into that one when you need to can have a big impact as we've seen in a couple of degree plans we've compared. It can be an issue even at smaller schools when they only offer one or two sections of the upper level courses on a rotating schedule. Timing prerequisites can be tough.</p>
<p>We are worried about being properly prepared for challenging courses, jamimom, you're quite right. Even when a course at another school is equally challenging, it's not quite the same as taking it at your school, and in courses like programming, you can be at a disadvantage if higher level courses expect you to have already worked with particular concepts or programming environments and tools you didn't see. </p>
<p>The good news is that most of the transfer hours we expect to receive are in the core area rather than the major and meet a whole requirement. Not retaking biology is much less risky than skipping a crucial course in your major.</p>