The Office of the Registrar has streamlined the transfer student admission process and outlined requirements to help prospective students determine which of their credits will transfer.
Transfer students currently make up 16 percent of the University of Indianapolis’ full-time student population, according to Transfer Admissions Coordinator Carrie Powell. She also said that as of the 2014-2015 academic year, 200 full-time transfer students enrolled—63 percent of those from Indiana, 11 percent from other states and 27 percent from other countries. To help students make the decision to transfer and to let them know what credits will transfer, changes were made to the admissions process in the last year, according to Registrar Kristine Dozier.
Originally, potential transfer students’ transcripts would be sent to a major specific advisor on campus, Dozier said. Dozier said that because advisors had a lot of other work to do along with looking at potential transfer students’ transcripts, transcripts are now sent to Powell. Exceptions to this include programs such as nursing or physical therapy programs because of special requirements students must meet in order to transfer in those programs.
Powell said she transfers a student after looking at his or her application. The student then sends his or her official college and high school transcripts, and Powell makes a determination about admission and then sends an email so that the student knows his or her acceptance letter is on the way. Powell then sends the student an acceptance packet, which includes the acceptance letter, scholarship letter and articulation reports and policies. Powell said this helps make the process smoother because the student gets a faster response from the university.
“This is nice because sometimes it can take a long time for institutions to do this,” she said. “So the whole idea is to kind of streamline this process and make it quicker and communicate with students more quickly.”
Dozier said that the new process is a lot simpler than at other institutions.
“I know it’s easier than at some other institutions where students have to wait and wait and wait to find out,” she said. “And we don’t want that to happen. We want students to know.”
There are several requirements that must be met for credits to transfer. Dozier and Powell said that credits must be earned from a regionally accredited college or university. If Powell is unsure of a credit, she consults the “Handbook of Accreditation,” published by the Higher Learning Commission. The student also must receive at least a “C-” in the course.
However, Dozier said that if a student has transfer equivalencies for courses such as English 100 or 101, then he or she must have a “C” or higher.
Also, remedial courses are not transferred. Dozier also explained that credits earned from an examination will not transfer.
“If a student goes to IUPUI, and they take their modern language exam, and IUPUI decides to award them four hours of Spanish 101 because they took that exam … we won’t transfer that,” she said. “But the student has the ability to do the same thing with us. They can take the exam here, [and] they can earn that credit if they take an upper-level class. So the student may not get those credits transferred or that achievement transferred, but we do try to give them the opportunity to do the same thing.”
According to Dozier, grades are not transferred for a number of reasons. One reason is that some institutions do not grade courses the same way as UIndy. Also, she said, UIndy wants to give students who may be on probation or have a low GPA a clean slate, and one way to do this is to not transfer grades.
“I know some students look at that [not transferring grades] negatively,” she said. “But it can also be looked at positively because let’s say you have a ‘C’ average at your prior institution. You’re not bringing that 2.0 with you. You’re just bringing that credit towards your degree. So when you come here, it’s kind of like a fresh start.”
If a student transfers to UIndy and realizes that he or she is taking a course that he or she already has taken, Dozier advises him or her to get a copy of the syllabus and speak with that academic department’s chair about it. If the department chair determines the student does not have to take the course, he or she can call the Registrar’s Office, and the credit will be counted.
Dozier said the important thing is helping students.
“We know students are trying to make a decision,” she said. “Especially in between a first and second semester, they don’t have a whole lot of time to make that decision. We want to make sure that if they want to make a decision, they have what we are trying to offer to them right there on the table for them, so it makes it easier to make that decision.”
For more information, visit registrar.uindy.edu or contact Carrie Powell at 317-788-3352 or by email at powellcl@uindy.edu. The Registrar Office is located on the first floor of Esch Hall.
