Private Schools & Transfer Credit

Unlike public schools, most private schools do not have articulation agreements with community colleges. This means there’s virtually no way for you to know - with certainty - whether the classes you take in community college, or at another 4-year university, will transfer over to your new school. Let’s dive in to why this is, and what you should do if private schools are on your transfer list.

What is an "articulation agreement" and why don’t private schools have them?

Put simply, an articulation agreement is an agreement between two schools that clearly identifies which classes from one school will transfer over to another, and what kind of class/credit they will transfer over as. In other words, this helps you figure out if taking “Chem II” at your school will be accepted by your transfer school. What’s essentially happening here is that the transfer school (also known as the receiving school) is comparing the classes offered at your current school to the classes that are offered at the receiving school. They are determining which of your college’s classes are equal to classes that they offer, and what credit hours those courses will be equal to. An articulation agreement makes this super easy because all you need to do is find those agreements and then take those classes.

So why don’t most private schools have these agreements?

Although some schools, notably USC, do have articulation agreements, quite a few well-known institutions do not. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say that this is mainly because the majority of these schools have very low transfer rates and aren't really targeting transfer students, so they haven't gone through the process of setting up articulation agreements with other schools. Whatever the reason may be, the reality is that there is basically no way for you to predict what Stanford or Harvard might accept from your transcript - but it also doesn’t really matter.

Unlike public schools, you don’t need to be working on completing a specific set of classes in order to transfer to a private school. This is partially why private schools are also great targets for students looking to transfer during their first year of college - there typically isn’t a minimum number of classes one needs to have taken, nor are there specific classes you have to have completed in order to transfer.

So what classes should you take? (and I can hear you asking, is there really no way we can know what will transfer over?)

Okay, here's what I would advise...

If you’re in community college:

• Take the classes that you will need to transfer to a public school

  Why? It’s logical as those public schools will most likely be your target schools and

• the private schools you apply to will most likely take a good chunk, if not all of those classes, too.

If you’re at a four-year university:

• Just focus on the classes that you need for your major (if you have declared a major) and allow yourself to take some general classes, too. More on this below.

While we can’t look at a transcript and confirm with 100% certainty which classes will transfer over to a private school, we can make some good guesses based on a few factors:

1. It’s an introductory class:

Every university, even liberal arts schools, tend to teach introductory courses. These are like your “Introduction to International Relations” or “General Chemistry I” courses. Since privates schools are likely to have an equivalent to these courses, it’s fair to say that they will probably accept those credits.

2. The class is about a general subject:

Other very common courses that aren’t introductory are also very likely  to be accepted. You can think of courses such as “Public Speaking” or “Statistics”, anything that isn't too niche or specific.

Even though we can make educated guesses based on how common these courses are, there is still no guarantee that the courses will transfer. Here’s a breakdown of how the process works:

1. Student applies to a private school and send over their transcript(s).
2. Student receives admission offer from private school (yay!).
3. A few weeks after the deadline to accept the offer, if the student accepts, they are sent their transcript with a list of accepted courses and the accepted number of credit hours.

What’s going on between steps 2 and 3? The Office of the Registrar is actually going through each transcript to see what classes the university has equivalents of and if those classes can transfer over because of those equivalences. These decisions are made based on what courses the university has to offer, as well as whether those are courses they are willing to accept via transfer. Sometimes, a department will require that courses be taken at the University, and even if you've already taken a very similar course, it still won't be accepted. Common examples are language classes, or perhaps a core writing/English course.

Overall, you can best prepare yourself to transfer to a private school by simply following what is required of your state’s public schools for transfer students. Often times, working towards an associates degree for transfer is a great way to check that box as well. If you’re already at a 4-year looking to do a 4-year to 4-year transfer, its likely that what you need for your first year or two in your current college will suffice for your transfer school. Be open to retaking a course and recognize that not everything will necessarily transfer over. That’s ok! Most students can still finish in the time they had originally allotted for their undergraduate degree.

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