Credits transfer

[virtua]

Hey guys,

how can I know how many credits I can transfer from the previous US uni I attended?

can I transfer seminar credits?

[Quickmick]

You are not providing much information. From what to what? MSc to PhD? Ms to Ms? Same field? Many unis have their own guidelines. Some won't count MS work, some will let you petition to count some of it (after you attend a semester) and some reduce your PhD requirements by a blanket 30 (or something close). I hope this helps a bit, but again your specifics will determine more.

[fuzzylogician]

It will depend on the particular school that you are admitted to, and no one here will be able to make you any promises no matter how much additional information you provide (though the above poster is correct that you aren't providing enough information in your post). You may be able to transfer anything from none of the credits to all of them; no one here can tell. If you had a school in mind, someone here might know, though in that case I would advise to ask them directly. In this particular case, since you left your previous without graduating, I would say the chances that credits will transfer are lower than they might otherwise be. 

[virtua]

36 minutes ago, Quickmick said:

You are not providing much information. From what to what? MSc to PhD? Ms to Ms? Same field? Many unis have their own guidelines. Some won't count MS work, some will let you petition to count some of it (after you attend a semester) and some reduce your PhD requirements by a blanket 30 (or something close). I hope this helps a bit, but again your specifics will determine more.

PhD to PhD

[virtua]

1 minute ago, fuzzylogician said:

It will depend on the particular school that you are admitted to, and no one here will be able to make you any promises no matter how much additional information you provide (though the above poster is correct that you aren't providing enough information in your post). You may be able to transfer anything from none of the credits to all of them; no one here can tell. If you had a school in mind, someone here might know, though in that case I would advise to ask them directly. In this particular case, since you left your previous without graduating, I would say the chances that credits will transfer are lower than they might otherwise be. 

Why it matters? I didn`t complete my degree, but I completed some courses. What is the point of taking the same course(s) again?

[virtua]

Btw, is there, actually, some kind of deadline or something for transferring credits? If I`m not student anymore at my previous uni, will I still be able to transfer?

[fuzzylogician]

I could spend time explaining this but I won't. It doesn't matter if I think it's right or wrong, it's a matter of a school's policy. They may accept graduate courses taken at another institution or not, it's entirely up to them. I am guessing that schools might be more likely to do so if a student actually graduated than if s/he took some classes and dropped out, but I could be wrong. It's actually very common for students to have to take courses in a PhD program even if they've taken similar ones in a previous degree. I think it's really a waste of time arguing this when you haven't even been accepted to any program at the moment. 

As for the deadline question, again this is too broad. There is no official deadline across all schools in the US, obviously. As a general rule, one might imagine that the longer ago you took the classes, the less likely a school might be to consider them still relevant. But we're talking about courses you took last year, so I don't think this is something to worry about for now. 

Again, all of these questions are moot unless you are actually admitted to a program, and at that point you'll want to ask them, not us. 

[virtua]

6 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:

I could spend time explaining this but I won't. It doesn't matter if I think it's right or wrong, it's a matter of a school's policy. They may accept graduate courses taken at another institution or not, it's entirely up to them. I am guessing that schools might be more likely to do so if a student actually graduated than if s/he took some classes and dropped out, but I could be wrong. It's actually very common for students to have to take courses in a PhD program even if they've taken similar ones in a previous degree. I think it's really a waste of time arguing this when you haven't even been accepted to any program at the moment. 

As for the deadline question, again this is too broad. There is no official deadline across all schools in the US, obviously. As a general rule, one might imagine that the longer ago you took the classes, the less likely a school might be to consider them still relevant. But we're talking about courses you took last year, so I don't think this is something to worry about for now. 

Again, all of these questions are moot unless you are actually admitted to a program, and at that point you'll want to ask them, not us. 

Thanks for reply. I`m not in the US at the moment and it is difficult for me to communicate with unis via email since they respond very late and very short without giving any details.

[TakeruK]

This is something for you to work out after you start your new program, not at this point. The only reason to figure that out now is if you think you will use this information to decide whether or not to accept an offer. And my advice is that it would be a bad idea to make a decision on a PhD program based on whether or not you have to repeat some classes. Classes are a small part of the PhD program---choose a program based on the other more important factors!

The reason you will probably have to repeat classes is when a school issues a PhD to you with their name on it, they want to be 100% certain that you have met their program's expectations. It doesn't matter where you did your other classes, they want you to be certified by them, not someone else. 

At the graduate level, classes with the same title can have a very different focus. These classes are taught at a very specialized level and the course material likely depends on the instructor and their own interests/specialization. For example, I have taken an advanced astronomical instrumentation class three times (senior undergrad, Masters program, PhD program) and it has been different every single time! I learned new things each time. By the way, none of my Masters classes transferred to my PhD program (even though if I had stayed at the same school, those same classes would have counted towards my PhD requirements).

At most schools, if you have taken graduate classes previously, you may be able to excuse yourself from repeating a very similar graduate class if you did well enough the first time. Every school will have a different method of deciding this. Usually though, being excused in this manner doesn't remove this course requirement, instead, you are free to take another class instead.

For example, introductory geology is a required grad course in my program, but if you have a similar course in your undergrad (anyone with any sort of geology related degree would) then you can be excused after a conversation/interview with the instructor and you can then replace this requirement with a different, more advanced, geology elective.

Another example is that in some graduate programs, you are expected to take a series of courses that meet some "breadth" requirements (i.e. something outside your area of research). These programs often excuse students from this requirement if you have a masters degree or enough prior graduate courses. 

Just two examples of how prior grad coursework could affect your new program's coursework. But the most common case, in my opinion, is that nothing changes and you will just have to redo coursework. But as I said above, no two courses are going to be so similar that you won't learn something new/useful out of it.