So you’re transferring to the College of Professional and Continuing Studies and want to know where your previous credits will fit into your new major. We want to know the same thing!
As new students are admitted to our college, each advisor reviews transfer credit when it’s submitted with the application. Each of our majors has an essential baseline template, and from there we comb through course-by-course and school-by-school to piece together a customized graduation plan for you.
What are we looking for in the transfer credits, exactly?
Generally speaking, our first order of business is to address all general education requirements that have already been satisfied with another institution. Secondarily, we review courses to see if any courses can be applied as major electives. Finally, courses that are not gen-eds or major electives are always funneled into the free electives category to count toward your overall completion hours.
How do you know where your credits were used?
We make a notation for any transfer credit course on your graduation plan directly. For example, if you took SOC 1113 at Rose State College, in the “Social Sciences” gen-ed field you may see “ROSE,” “SOC1113 – RSC,” or something similar noted. This tells you (and us) where those credits were applied for you. We make notes when applying transfer credits to major electives in the same manner, though these are often more detailed – because frankly, we have more room!
Bottom line, nearly ALL courses that are transferred in from accredited institutions will be applied to your degree plan in one way or another. There are only three possible exceptions that may affect transfer credit applicability toward your degree requirements.
Exceptions to transfer credit applicability:
- “0-Level” or remedial courses cannot count toward your degree requirements.
- Repeated courses – you can only receive credit for one attempt at each course. So, if you repeated Basket Weaving four times we will only give you credit for one of those attempts, unless the course specifically noted that it was repeatable for credit. If this is the case, we will see this noted from the other institution on their transcript and we will honor that directive.
- P.E. Activity courses – if you’re majoring in Liberal Studies (BALS), we can apply up to 6 credit hours of P.E. Activity courses such as Basketball, Weightlifting, Aerobics, etc. For all of our other undergraduate majors (BAAL, BACS, BALC, BSCJ), we cannot apply any P.E. Activity credits toward your degree.
Once we have evaluated all transfer credits and applied them properly to your graduation plan, we will send your plan, along with enrollment instructions and some general FAQs, to your OU Email for review. It is important to set up your OU account as soon as you receive your admission letter. Instructions are included with that letter and prompt establishment of your account will ensure that you don’t miss a beat (or an enrollment window!). If you have any questions about a specific transfer course after you’ve reviewed your graduation plan, you are always welcome to contact your advisor directly so that he or she can discuss where specific credits were applied toward your degree.
