Transfer tools and websites like Transferology are great when you know how to use them! In this post, I’ll explain how to get the most out of these resources for your HS4CC planning.
Transfer websites allow you to plug in the name of a college course that you take at one college, and view how it should transfer to a different college. This can be a valuable tool in your Homeschooling for College Credit planning process, especially when you’re using dual enrollment classes from a college that differs from where your teen will earn a degree. Understanding how the tools work, and what they lack, will help you use them to the fullest and be an excellent guidance counselor for your teen!
“Transfer” in college lingo means taking a course at one college and then sending it to a second college or credit. Anytime you change institutions, all of your credits are evaluated again- so this is why so many students lose credit when they change colleges. Simply, colleges don’t accept all college credit.
When planned well, a course will successfully work at the new school towards your planned degree. Transfer credit is the keystone principle of outsourcing college credit because you can often find college credit courses for very low cost in high school, and stockpiling that credit can save you a lot of money later when your teen attends college after high school. Every class that counts is money saved. When resourcefully planned, your teen should be able to transfer 100% of their college credit earned in high school into their target college program.
Look at this sample transfer table:
| Earned at ABC College | Used at XYZ University |
|---|---|
| ENG101 English Composition 1 –> | ENG111 Freshman Composition 1 |
| HIS101 United States History 1 —> | HIS111 American History 1 |
| CLEP American Literature—> | does not transfer |
| COL101 Student Success —> | does not transfer |
| AGR121 Agriculture of Tomorrow —> | |
| AGR129 Computer Tech for Ag —> |
A transfer table, transfer equivalency, transfer database, or look-up tool all serve the same purpose: to see how your credits taken at one college will come in at the new college. In the table above, you can see how the student’s courses taken at ABC College are recorded at their new school, XYZ University.
Reading Between the Lines
The table above can teach us a lot of valuable information about how XYZ evaluates college credit, and in turn, we can build our intuition about how to plan moving forward.
- We know that XYZ University accepts credit from ABC College. This is no small point. It means the door is open, and it’s up to us to plan well moving forward.
- We know that XYZ University accepts English Composition 1 and U.S. History 1 from ABC College as nearly identical matches. This tells us that they view the scope and sequence of the courses as “similar-enough” to their own that they will count. To read between the lines, it leads us to predict that the second courses in the sequences should also match and are very likely to be accepted. (English Composition 2, U.S. History 1)
- This college didn’t’ accept the CLEP literature exam, which means they may not accept other CLEPs. We can investigate this with the college directly.
- College Success is not going to transfer, leading me to intentionally not take any other “COL” prefix classes from ABC College.
- Agriculture courses are blank, meaning they haven’t been evaluated. That is not a denial, but it is also not acceptance. This is noteworthy and requires extra investigtaion.
Best Practices
- Transfer tools are “historical.” That means that before a course lands on the chart, someone somewhere has already tried to transfer it, because it was evaluated. If a course isn’t in the database, that means someone hasn’t tried to transfer it yet.
- Evaluation of coures is a BIG JOB and takes tremendous manpower. The genius behind Transferolgy is not only that you and I can look up possible transfer results, but that the “work” from each registrar is documented at scale. It’s as if each college gets to look at each other’s notes instead of keeping this info private.
- Colleges pay to be included. This is not free, so if a college stops paying, the data stops getting added.
- Colleges self-report the courses. This means they have to devote additional manpower to data entry – which they may or may not do.
- Errors can be made. Buyer beware. You’ll have no recourse if either college made an error.
- Policies change. Every summer, colleges publish the a new catalog for the year. Please expect changes, you’ll be less heartbroken when they happen (they will happen.)
- Websites can go YEARS without updates. I once reviewed a college’s CLEP policy that was 15 years old (!) and had exams that were discontinued.
Limits of Transfer Tools
Transfer tools, whether you’re using Transferology or an institution’s own database, are limited by what has happened, they can’t predict what will happen. We can predict behaviors, and use the patterns to guide our future planning.
- A college’s official evaluation of your teen’s credit ALWAYS outranks any online tool, website, catalog, or publication. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t question it (you should), but you won’t have leverage to change their decision based on a policy or tool you found online.
- New classes, new majors, and new degrees are the least likely to appear in a transfer tool. On the other hand, the most popular courses are very likely to appearl. In other words, it’s unlikely that your local Ohio community college’s culinary arts class will appear on a transfer tool website for the University of Alaska. What is very likely is that your local community college’s English 101 class will appear on the transfer tool website for most of the colleges in your state.
When No Information Exists
When no transfer information exists, you’ll really have to make an educated guess. Here are a few things to help you “guess.”
- Named course requirements (your degree calls for College Algebra) should be met by courses of that name.
- General course requirements (your degree calls for a history elective) are easier to fill than named course requirements.
- Prefixes trump course titles. If the prefix is CUL (culinary) and the course title is Nutrition, that’s a culinary course. If the prefix is BIO (biology) and the course title is Nutrition, that’s a biology course.
- General education is usually easier to transfer than non-general education when you’re comparing 100 level against 100 level.
- General Education
- English, Literature, Communication, Math, Natural Science, Physical Science, Foreign Language, Humanities, Art, Music, History, Behavioral Science, Ethics, Cultural Diversity.
- NOT General Education
- Accounting, Allied Health, Aviation, Business, Computer Science, Culinary, Education, Engineering Technology, Finance, Fire Science, Library Science, Management, Marketing, Nursing, PE or Fitness, Real Estate, subjects with “Technology” in the title.
Nuances to be aware of:
- Some colleges put “expiration dates” on hard sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) and technology (computer science, etc.). If you’re still a few years away from enrollment and you expect at least one of your teen’s target colleges has this policy, your best bet is to choose non-science and technology courses now (English, social science, humanities, math) and wait for the 11th grade or later before taking hard sciences or computer courses.
- If your student is taking college classes in high school from the college where they plan to earn a degree, then you’re in the best possible situation because you can get course planning advice directly from the college and eliminate ALL the guesswork!!
