As a technique used to reel in applicants, some graduate schools offer students their first master’s course free of charge. The admissions representative may promise the credit hours are transferable in case the student decides not to continue in the program. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Not so fast.
Graduate school recruiters may lead you to believe transferring graduate credits is easy. You may hear terms like “fully transferrable” when describing earned credit hours. But what they don’t tell you are the potential rules for accepting transfer credits imposed by many respected graduate programs.
This post will explore some of the realities regarding transferring graduate credits:
- Graduate programs are specialized based on the mission of the university, faculty teaching and research foci, needs of the community, and enrollment. It is quite common that coursework completed at a previous institution will not “fit” in a graduate program at a subsequent school.
Pro Tip: Save syllabi, reading lists, and assignment details from each graduate-level class you take. Before attempting to transfer credits to a new program, carefully read the course descriptions at the new institution. Using the documentation from your previous courses match them with the descriptions for the new program. It is common for program directors to ask for syllabi, assignments, reading lists, etc. from the courses you wish to transfer to ensure the knowledge gained will be useful in the new program.
2. Most master’s programs will only accept a maximum of six to nine transfer hours that actually “fit” (i.e., 2 or 3 courses). When you consider the majority of master’s degree programs are comprised of 10 three-credit-hour courses it doesn’t make sense for a graduate school to accept more than a third of the required coursework from a different institution.
3. Credit hours awarded by a nationally accredited university may not be accepted by a regionally accredited university. Transcripts from regionally accredited institutions are much more likely to be accepted. If you are considering enrolling in a nationally accredited university you must understand the difference before starting classes.
4. Transferring credit hours from an unaccredited program to an accredited program could also prove problematic. Universities may be accredited (institutional) as well as individual graduate programs (programmatic). Example: a student starts an unaccredited MBA program. After completing five courses the student decides to transfer to an accredited MBA program. It’s quite possible that even if the new program accepts transfer credits it will only allow one or two classes as electives. The guidelines imposed by the accrediting organization may preclude accepting transfer credits from non-accredited schools and/or programs.
The bottom line is to choose wisely when enrolling in a graduate program. It would be terrible to realize you’ve made a mistake and wasted semesters of work and thousands of dollars for earned credit hours that will not transfer.
Be diligent and contact respected nonprofit institutions for information about their programs. Don’t fall for the slick marketing tactics used by unaccredited or nationally accredited for-profit schools.
After all, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
