F.A.Q. for Transfer Credit and Advanced Standing
Q. If admitted as a transfer student to Penn, how will I go about obtaining transfer credit?
A. Currently there are two methods for seeking transfer credit at Penn. It depends on which school you have been admitted to:
The College of Arts and Sciences: Please contact the advising center in Claudia Cohen Hall 120 to meet your advisor and they will assist you with utilizing their on-line system to obtain any acceptable transferable credit you have earned.
School of Nursing, the Wharton School and the School of Engineering: Please visit your home school advising center to obtain transfer credit forms that you will need in order to seek credit from academic departments. Your advisor will review the process with you during orientation.
Q. How does this process work? What do I need to bring to the evaluators?
A. Most evaluators can evaluate your credits using a course syllabus. Other items you may need could include lab work and/or writing samples, etc.
Q. How will these classes work toward graduation requirements?
A. The best person to ask about this is your advisor. Your advisors are located in their individual college offices.
Q. What if I have other specific questions regarding the use of my transfer credit?
A. Again, the best person to ask is your advisor. The advisors are located in their individual college offices.
Q. How do I know which of my courses are going to transfer from my previous institution?
A. When applying to Penn you are required to select one of the four undergraduate schools you seek to attend. You may choose either the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Nursing or the Wharton School of Business. There is a University policy at Penn stating that we do not "pre-evaluate" transfer credit prior to acceptance. In order to obtain some idea of courses that may transfer, please visit the Penn course catalog web site and view Penn course descriptions within various academic departments. The link to the course catalog is: www.upenn.edu/registrar/register. Try to match up course descriptions for those courses that you have already taken at your institution(s) with current Penn courses.
Q. What if I have previous college-level course work and/or high school exams such as the AP's that were completed during high school?
A. Penn views all of these types of credit as "advanced standing" academic work prior to your college experiences.
AP Scores should be sent by ETS directly to the Office of Transfer Credit. Penn's ETS code number is 2926.
IB Higher Level Exam Results should be sent by the IBO organization directly to the Office of Transfer Credit.
College Transcripts should be sent by the Registrar's Office at your previous institution directly to the Office of Transfer Credit. Please note that the faculty at Penn have established specific criteria for college course completed during high school. A letter from the Registrar is required and must verify the following items in order for the credit to be deemed acceptable:
- The course must be taught on the college campus by a member of the regular faculty.
- It must be open to enrollment by and graded in direct competition with regularly matriculated undergraduates at the college.
- It must be part of the normal curriculum published in the collegeÕs catalogue and cannot be a distance learning course of any type.
