How does a college verify transfer student details?

[spaghetti3451]

If a student transfers credits from one university to a second university, does the new university contact the old university and finalise the credit evaluation process? Or they award credits simply based on the transcript received from the old university?

To clarify, I'm asking if some kind of agreement happens between the two universities where the old university officially recognises the student as having transferred to the new university and then the old university puts that information on the student's transcript?

 

[jtbell]

The process probably varies somewhat at different universities. Where I work, the registrar's office receives a transcript from the old university, then asks the chair of each department to evaluate the courses in his area, using the official course descriptions from the old university's catalog. The chair tells the registrar whether to:

• Give credit for a specific one of our courses
• Give "major elective" credit that can count towards a major in his department
• Give "general elective" credit that can count towards the total number of credit hours for graduation
• Give no credit

 

[UltrafastPED]

Sometimes the universities have agreements for specific undergraduate courses; these are reviewed every few years. This is most common for public universities and community colleges within the same state.

If they exist you should be able to find these exchange agreements online; then you can evaluate your own transcript.

 

[spaghetti3451]

The process probably varies somewhat at different universities. Where I work, the registrar's office receives a transcript from the old university, then asks the chair of each department to evaluate the courses in his area, using the official course descriptions from the old university's catalog. The chair tells the registrar whether to:

• Give credit for a specific one of our courses
• Give "major elective" credit that can count towards a major in his department
• Give "general elective" credit that can count towards the total number of credit hours for graduation
• Give no credit

So, you mean that at no point in the credit evaluation process does your university inform the old university that its student has transferred to your university?

 

[UltrafastPED]

So, you mean that at no point in the credit evaluation process does your university inform the old university that its student has transferred to your university?

Why should they? The only value would be for some sort of statistical study; it has no operational value that I can see.

 

[spaghetti3451]

So, what do you, as a student, tell your previous university? That you have transferred to a new university? Or that you would like to withdraw?

 

[jtbell]

You have to tell them to send a transcript to the new university. They may also want you to notify them officially that you're not planning to come back, so they don't try to track you down when you fail to register for the next semester. There might be something on their website about this.

And the procedure might depend on whether this is a "generic" transfer or a transfer under a specific agreement between the two universities (e.g. from a CC to a 4-year university in the same state's system).