Episode 70: Earning and Applying Transfer Credits

Episode 70

• Episode 70 Transcript

  [INTRODUCTION]

  [00:00:07] BT: Whether you're looking to graduate early, get a taste of college level learning or simply challenge yourself with an advanced class, taking an AP, IB or dual enrollment course could take some work off your plate once you get to college.

  [00:00:19] BHA: Courses like these often earn students transfer credits, which can be applied to your college transcript and count towards certain required university courses — all before you’ve even arrived. I'm Becca Haupt Aldredge from Bucknell University, and on this episode of College Admissions Insider, we're covering everything you need to know about transfer credits.

  [00:00:37] BT: I'm Brooke Thames also from Bucknell. Today, we'll further define what transfer credits are, how you get them and the process of submitting them to the school of your choice. 

  [EPISODE]

  [00:00:47] BHA: Our guest is Sarah Paris, transfer records coordinator at Bucknell. Welcome to the podcast, Sarah. Can we start by hearing a little bit more about your work at Bucknell and what it is that you do?

  [00:00:58] SP: Sure. I've worked in the registrar's office at Bucknell for the past 13 years, but my focus for the past six years has been on transfer credit. In particular, over the last few years in producing more of a process where students can find out more ahead of time how their transfer credits will benefit them, if they come in to Bucknell as a transfer student or as a first-year student. So, that is my primary focus, along with a few other things like, little things like grades, whatever. But yes, transfer credit is the main focus.

  [00:01:22] BT: Jumping right into our conversation, what is a transfer credit? How do students earn them?

  [00:01:28] SP: Sure. Transfer credit is given for other test scores or college coursework completed at another institution. It does need to be an accredited higher education institution, and the coursework there does need to have been completed for credit and receive a passing grade to be eligible.

  That said, it doesn't necessarily mean that every course that's taken for credit with a passing grade will transfer it, and it has to be reviewed for its academic rigor, content and merit to determine that. But again, credit can also be given for test scores, for qualifying scores for AP exams, IB exams, A levels and CLEP exams — although CLEP exams are not very common for students prior to entering college.

  [00:02:08] BHA: So in your experience, how common is it for students to come into college with transfer credits?

  [00:02:13] SP: We receive transfer credit of some kind for probably approximately half of every incoming first year class. And it varies greatly from just one course — they picked up a college composition course or something somewhere along the way — to students who have really taken advantage of some opportunities out there and already obtained an associate's degree worth over 60 semester hours at another institution. Either through dual enrollment — mostly through dual enrollment — but sometimes actually completing the coursework at that institution.

  But even those who have an associate's degree, if it's earned prior to their high school diploma being awarded, they enter Bucknell as a first-year student rather than as a transfer student, even though they've already completed approximately two years’ worth of college coursework. But there are plenty of students who don't have transfer credit of any kind, and that is totally fine as well.

  [00:03:02] BT: Like everything in college admissions, there's criteria for transferring credits earned in high school to college. For AP and IB, there's a standard score that equals a certain amount of credits, right? Or is it different for every college?

  [00:03:15] SP: It's definitely different for every college. Bucknell has rules in place that have been determined by the faculty to determine which subjects will earn credit in those test areas and what credit they'll receive. Some give direct equivalence to Bucknell courses, and others just give some general elective credit. It can still be used to satisfy some requirements, but overall, just general elective credit. That doesn't mean that you won't be responsible for taking your particular course.

  For AP in general at Bucknell, the score required is four or five. That's fairly standard at most institutions. We do have a few exams for which it three will earn you credit. But there's just a small handful. There are some other institutions that will award more for a three. But in general, it's four or five.

  IB is a little bit complicated. I’ll try to break that down as simply as possible. Basically, for IB, if a score is received of a five or above for an exam taken at the higher level, credit can be awarded. If they earned the diploma from international baccalaureate and received a score of five or higher on all exams, then they get credit for all of them, whether they were taking the higher level or the standard level. However, one score on any of the six exams required for the diploma that's below a five and it reverts back to the original policy of only a five or higher on a higher-level exam. So, it's a little bit complicated there. 

  But nobody expects anybody to remember that except for me. It's the only one. For A levels, students are required to have a score of C or higher on those exams, and it varies a good bit by department what kind of credit they'll get there. 

  But in general, those are the grades that Bucknell requires for those three main areas of test credit, but that could be completely different at another institution.

  [00:05:01] BHA: Because there's so many different pathways that high school students can take when earning credits prior to enrolling in college, we're really grateful that someone like you, Sarah, is on our campus to help us keep it straight and to ultimately help support students throughout the process. What about dual enrollment credits? Is that the same thing?

  [00:05:19] SP: It's different in that, obviously, the credit given is for coursework completed, and dual enrollment can mean many different things, actually. It can mean that a student has taken a course still in their high school setting with their high school teacher, who has been certified by, usually, a local institution to teach the course at a higher level and following the standards of that institution. So then they can take that class in high school, in that setting, and then still earn credits that appear on a college transcript and can be used to potentially provide transfer credit. Or sometimes they actually travel to the college campus and take the courses there while they're still in high school. Those are the two main ways that can happen. 

  Ultimately, dual enrollment credit is based on actual attendance in a class, participation in a class, grading of a class, versus taking a class and then taking that exam at the end and earning a score on the exam. Overall, all of them based on the cumulative efforts of the class, based on the yearlong effort for dual enrollment versus that one exam score at the end for AP IB.

  One important thing to note that we do hear a good bit of questioning on is that some schools will offer the same course both as AP or dual enrollment. They're taking an AP psych course and they have their choice of, they can take that AP exam, they can receive the college credit for it, or sometimes they'll offer to let them do both. But you can't, at least at Bucknell, and I would assume most places as well, you can't have credit for it both ways. If you're taking AP Psych and you get a qualifying score, it's going to be Psych 100. If you get it through dual enrollment credit somewhere else as Intro to Psych, it's going to be Psych 100. So, you're only going to get credit for it one time, whichever way you choose to do that. There's definitely a difference there. 

  For dual enrollment credit, we talked minimum scores for a test credit. For dual enrollment, the grade required is just a passing grade, just have to pass the course and receive the credit for it, for it to be considered for transfer credit. 

  An upside, however, to AP, in particular is that you definitely know ahead of time how the course is going to transfer, what credit you're going to receive. We have that information out there that's very solid. Transfer credit is a bit more, it has a bit more wiggle room to it, and the potential for change in how and if it will transfer.

  [00:07:39] BT: You mentioned earlier this process of evaluating the academic rigor and content of a course for transfer credit. Is dual enrollment, where that comes in? And is that something that you do?

  [00:07:50] SP: Yes, that is where that comes in. In the case of IB and AP, that's already been done. The faculty have already reviewed that. For dual enrollment credit, we do have a database of previously approved courses that we pull from initially to see if and how that course is transferred for previous students. And as long as nothing has changed about that course, we can use that previous equivalency.

  However, if it hasn't, then I usually take an initial look at the course, and I can award some very general basic credit with no more than general basic requirements. At least they definitely have credit for it. If it appears that it should have credit, then I contact the student to let them know what credits they would be getting and afford them the opportunity to submit the course to the appropriate faculty member to review the course further to see if it can come in as a direct equivalent or can satisfy a greater requirement, that sort of thing. It's a bit of a two-step process for courses that haven't been approved yet.

  [00:08:48] BT: Yes. It sounds like the transfer credit process on multiple fronts isn't as simple as getting a certain score or getting a certain grade, and then that just being pushed through. There's a lot of different nuances there. It's really good for our listeners to know.

  So far, we have a pretty good lay of the land as far as what transfer credits are and how students can get them and even how schools might evaluate them differently. So, let's talk about students who might have a whole bunch of credits that they want to bring to college. Are they allowed to submit as many as they have, assuming they meet school’s criteria?

  [00:09:16] SP: They can submit them. However, there is a limit to the number of transfer credits that a first-year student can bring in with them for all coursework and all tests work completed prior to enrolling at Bucknell. That limit is eight Bucknell credits, which doesn't sound like a whole lot to students who are used to a semester hour system. Since one Bucknell credit is equivalent four semester hours, if you want to think of it that way, it’s the equivalent of 32 semester hours. So eight Bucknell credits is also essentially two semesters worth of coursework. But that is the limit from all sources for any coursework completed prior to enrolling at Bucknell.

  If a student comes in, as I mentioned before, like say, with an associate's degree that they've already earned and have 60 plus hours of coursework completed, we would go through and evaluate all those courses, find out how they would transfer, and then based on the information the student has provided about what they intend to major in, what they intend to pursue, we'll make our best guess as to what transfer credit will be the most beneficial to them. Let them know what we're transferring and what we're not and why we've made this decision. But they have the flexibility always of making changes to which credits would transfer versus which ones we remove, but the limit is eight.

  They are afforded the opportunity, of course, to take further transfer credit, during their time as a student here, like during summer breaks or study abroad, or anything like that. But it's just that limit of eight on what they can bring in with them.

  [00:10:42] BHA: Speaking for a listener who might have more credits than that, can you help us understand why there's a cap in place, and what that means for a school like Bucknell?

  [00:10:51] SP: Eight Bucknell credits is the equivalent of two semesters already. So you're talking about a student coming in who's already potentially has the ability to graduate in three years, because they're coming in with those two semesters completed. There is the expectation that certain number of your credits be completed at Bucknell to earn a Bucknell degree. There is definitely that, and students are required to complete at least 12 of their credits at Bucknell, which is not a huge number out of 32. So, bringing in only those eight to begin with, still allows the opportunity for those summer transfer credits, the study abroad opportunities that exist, things like that, to bring in those additional transfer credits.

  [00:11:28] BT: It sounds like submitting credits is a great way to get a jumpstart on your college career, even knock some semesters off of your whole four years that you would have spent at a college. But is that the only reason a student would want to take advanced classes in high school? Or are there other things that are beneficial?

  [00:11:43] SP: I think it's beneficial in that they get some of that experience of knowing more what to expect of a college course when they actually do get here, or the opportunity to explore some options and know what direction they want to head in or not head in once they get here. It allows for greater academic flexibility, as well. If you come in, and you've already satisfied some of those general education requirements, you don't have to focus so much on satisfying those, as so much as finding the courses that you're just going to enjoy learning, have that academic flexibility, again, the potential to study abroad, things like that, just to take advantage of some other opportunities. So, it is helpful.

  We should also note that bringing in eight credits does not automatically mean that a student will graduate early, even though that's two semesters worth of credits. Depending on what those satisfy, what requirements are satisfied, and what your major is, what your degree program is, that may or may not allow you to graduate that full year early. You may come in and have eight credits worth of courses that are all arts and humanities credits. There's only, at most, for any student, a requirement for four arts and humanities courses. So, if you've satisfied those four, great, but then you have four other credits that would only be elective credit. They're not really propelling you towards that early finish. Because they're just there to do total number of rather than satisfying requirements.

  It's great to have that number. It does gives you still that flexibility to do things. But it does not automatically guarantee that you will make it in three years. It just depends on how satisfies your particular requirements.

  [00:13:18] BHA: You mentioned that AP credits are fairly straightforward, where dual enrollment credits live in this database that you've been working on building, kind of as you've received them and started evaluating courses like Brooke was talking about. So, if there's a student listening, and they're wondering what course or what test score they need, where should they find that information?

  [00:13:38] SP: Find that on…it can be kind of difficult to search for a little bit. But if you search for bucknell.edu and search for transfer credits. The page that comes up should ultimately get you there. Or going to bucknell.edu/registrar, and going under the transfer credit section. That will definitely give you the link to the transfer course equivalency page. That’s the database that I’ve been talking about that is available for the public to use. You can search by school, or you can just kind of scroll through the whole list of schools and see the ones there on the list, the ones that have been approved previously to transfer. Courses not on the list, it doesn't mean that they've been evaluated and rejected. It just means that nobody has tried to transfer them in the past five years.

  We're constantly updating that database. I've added multiples today. Just as I look at the transcripts that come in from students, every approval that comes across our desk gets added to that database. That is a great resource there. 

  There are also links to the Advanced Placement information as to how those courses come in and requirements to satisfy. IB, the International Baccalaureate and A levels, that information is not listed on a website per se. There's too many factors that go into it to be able to accurately portray that in a way that would make sense to the casual viewer trying to make sense of it. So, for those if you have questions, it's always best to contact us.

  [00:14:57] BT: Moving forward to the point where a student has all of their credits that they want to submit, can you give us a timeline of how that process works?

  [00:15:06] SP: Sure. We usually start getting transcripts and things from incoming students well before the end of the spring semester for us. But unfortunately, the end of the spring semester for us is quite busy with grades and graduation, and moving that class year out of Bucknell. So, we wait to start the first-year students until after we've concluded that, so you can expect to start looking at transcripts submitted by incoming first year students at the end of May, beginning of June. As I review them, I do contact the students at their Bucknell email address to let them know what transfer credit they're getting, what further steps they might need to take, that sort of thing. Then if they have more than one transcript and it come in at different times, I'll just keep reaching out to them, keep updating as we go along. So they'll constantly be updated on that. 

  That's really only for transcripts, though. AP doesn't come in until July, usually not till early July. We do not reach out to every student to advise them of what credit they're getting for their AP. There's just far too many to do that. From that point forward, though, if they also have college coursework that I'm reaching out to them about, I’ll include the AP information. So we give them as much information as possible when we do reach out to them. But students can always check in with us to find out what they need to know. Their IB, we also get around July. So, things really start picking up in early July and we work towards that.

  There’s one question that we get a lot from students as they're making their core selections moving into for the fall semester: They want to know how their AP credit is going to impact their courses. “How do I pick course? How do I know if I need to take calculus if I don't have my AP scores in yet?” The answer to that is: You don't know that at the time. So you make your best choices as if you don't have those credits. Then once we received the credits, we will automatically make adjustments as needed. You don't need to worry about it. Once we have it, we will make sure to modify as needed. And students also have the opportunity to meet with their advisor once they're on campus and make changes as needed.

  [00:17:07] BHA: I'd love to close with some general advice for students who might be seeking to earn transfer credits, and those who might be worried about not having any transfer credits to take with them to college. What would you say to those two groups of students?

  [00:17:20] SP: For those who are seeking to obtain the credits, I would say try to stick more towards general education, intro level requirements. Don't try to dig deep into taking courses that are going to potentially be for a very specific major. That can get a little tricky. It can get you off sequence and things. But taking courses that are the baseline courses, or fill the general education requirements like Psych 100, Intro to Psychology, or Intro to Sociology, or taking Calculus. If you want to go ahead and get that out of the way and you know you're going to go into something that's going to require math, fantastic. Or even Statistics. But yet sticking with more of those general education type requirements, it's going to help you more and do more for you than if you tried to dig into the things that are more specific to the major. A lot of times those end up not being as close of a match as you might hope for, and it might get you elective credit within that department versus giving you the direct equivalency. 

  A word of caution too about the transfer equivalency information that's out there, we are, again, constantly updating that. It does not guarantee that a course will still transfer that way when you are actually here. Constant updates. Other schools make changes to their courses. We have to make changes to our equivalencies. It's a good place to start. It's a good information source, but it's not a guarantee.

  [00:18:40] BT: For the students who might not have taken any advanced courses and don't have any credits to take to college?

  [00:18:46] SP: No worries. You have four semesters to get 32 credits, and that's four classes a semester. If you're an engineer, it's 34 credits instead of 32. But still, you have eight semesters to take, basically, four courses each semester, with ample opportunity to take coursework in the summer or take more than four in a semester. If you still want to try and graduate early even without bringing in transfer credit, it is definitely doable. It’s not the end all be all to bring in transfer credit. You can be absolutely fine if you choose to do all of your courses here.

  [00:19:19] BT: Well, I have to say, this has been one of those episodes that I love where we take a subject that seems pretty straightforward, but then unpacking it. It turns out it's so nuanced. Thanks, Sarah, for coming here and giving us all the details about transfer credits.

  [00:19:31] SP: You're very welcome. I hope it’s as helpful to families and students as they're navigating a very complicated process of getting started in their college career. As always, if there are questions, we're happy to answer them. It's hard to answer questions too far out though.

  [00:19:49] BHA: Yes, absolutely. I have to imagine like a high school first-year student reaching out about their transfer credits might be a little too early.

  [00:19:55] SP: A little too early.

  [00:19:55] BHA: But seniors going through the application process, maybe it's a good day to try it out.

  [00:20:00] SP: There you go. Yes, absolutely.

  [00:20:01] BHA: Thanks to everyone out there listening. If you're a fan of the podcast, please take a moment to rate, subscribe, and share this episode with the students and families in your life. 

  [OUTRO]

  [00:20:09] BT: We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. In the meantime, send your questions, comments and episode ideas to podcast@bucknell.edu. We read every note you send.

  [00:20:19] BHA: And finally, you're invited to follow Bucknell on your favorite social media apps. Just look for @ucknellu on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. You can also follow our student run Instagram account which is @iamraybucknell.

  [00:20:34] BT: Until next time, keep reaching for your dreams and your dream school.

  [END]