Will This Class Transfer?

“Will this class transfer?”

That’s a tricky question. It depends on so many variables.

• To which school? Different schools have different requirements. That’s especially true in states without strong state systems and/or with many private colleges.
• In which major? A math class that might suffice as a gen ed fulfillment for an English major may not count in an engineering program.
• How many credits? I’ve seen cases in which a class that carries four credits at one school, but three at another, creates issues.
• How many major courses did you take? I’ve seen various programs at four-year schools limit the number of courses or credits they’ll take in the major. For example, a receiving political science department might take the English comp courses without complaint, but allow only up to four poli sci classes. They might list a dozen or more courses they’d be willing to take, but not all at once; any given student can only transfer in up to four. So your fifth poli sci class might be on the list, but would get denied anyway. The charitable interpretation is that they want to preserve a reasonably clean sample for outcomes assessment purposes. The less charitable interpretation is protectionism.
• What was the grade? Some will take C-minus, some won’t. Some will take a D, but only in the context of a completed degree; if the student transfers without a degree in hand, the receiving school rejects any D grade. This creates an issue of equitable treatment compared to its native students, but that’s a much larger discussion.
• Is the course remedial or ESL? Those almost never transfer.
• Was the course taught online? Some of the snootier private schools will reject courses taught online, if they know about it. Online classes don’t have asterisks on transcripts, though, so they rely on student self-reporting. That’s all I’ll say about that.
• Was the course taught in a high school? Some places will reject those, even if they were taught by college faculty who made the trip. Why what’s on the other side of a classroom’s walls matters so much isn’t clear to me, but it happens.
• How long ago did you take the course? Some places put expiration dates on old credits, especially in STEM fields. The idea -- which isn’t entirely silly -- is that someone who took, say, anatomy and physiology 20 years ago may not be fully up to speed on it now.
• Does it fit the major? Switching majors can cause loss of credits, both within a college and between colleges. At DeVry I once had to explain to a frustrated student why he couldn’t substitute credits in poetry from his previous college for physics there. I told him that anyone in an electronics engineering technology major needed some basic knowledge of electricity, credits or not. Years later, I still stand by that.
• By “transfer,” do you mean “count”? “Free elective” status is where credits go to die. The school can claim to “take” the credits; they just don’t happen to count for anything.
• Did the curriculum at the receiving school change recently? An articulation agreement that worked before the most recent change might not work now.

I don’t mean any of these as excuses. Working at a community college, I like to see work transfer as seamlessly, consistently and thoroughly as it can.

For students, the two best pieces of advice I can offer are to pick the destination school as early as you can and to finish the associate degree before transferring. The former will help you pick the particular courses that school wants, and the latter greatly improves the chances of everything coming over as a bloc. Go without a degree, and they’re likelier to cherry-pick.

Wise and worldly readers, what would you advise community college students looking to transfer?