Transfer students

What makes a transfer student?

Populi's processes are designed around the IPEDS definitions that differentiate between transfer students and first-time students:

• Entering students (undergraduate): Students at the undergraduate level, both full-time and part-time, enrolled at the institution for the first time during the IPEDS enrollment reporting period (e.g., fall term or preceding summer session for Fall Enrollment survey component). This includes all degree/certificate-seeking first-time students, degree/certificate-seeking transfer-in students, and non-degree/non-certificate-seeking students new to the institution (not including high school students).
• Transfer-in student: A degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate student entering the IPEDS reporting institution for the first time but known to have previously enrolled at a different postsecondary institution (not as a high school student). The student may transfer with or without credit. For systems of coordinated institutions (multi-campus system), students are to be identified as transfer-in students upon entering an institution from another institution within the same coordinated system.
• First-time student (undergraduate): A student who has no prior postsecondary experience (except as noted below) attending any institution for the first time at the undergraduate level. This includes students enrolled in academic or occupational programs. It also includes students enrolled in the fall term who attended college for the first time in the prior summer session, and students who entered with advanced standing (college credits or recognized postsecondary credential earned before graduation from high school).
• Transfer of credit: The policies and procedures used to determine the extent to which educational experiences or courses undertaken by a student while attending another institution may be counted for credit at the current institution.

The transfer status of individual students is assigned at the program level. For example, a student transfers in halfway through his Bachelor's degree, graduates, then goes on to pursue a Master's at your school. His Undergraduate program would show him as a transfer student; his Graduate program would not. Accordingly, reports including him as an Undergraduate would count him as a transfer, and as a Graduate would not.

Based on the items discussed immediately below, Populi automatically checks (or un-checks) the Is Transfer Student setting on a student's program. You can manually over-ride the automated selection at any time by checking/un-checking this setting when you edit the student's program.

The following items affect whether a particular student is considered a transfer student:

• On a given college's organization profile, the Transfer Student Status Default setting determines whether students with transfer courses from that school are considered transfer students. The three options are:
  • ...Automatically: This option relies on automated logic for determining a student's transfer status. The factors include:
  • A. First-time students are not considered transfers. First-time status is determined by the Prev. Ed. Level setting for a program: anything H.S. Diploma or lower will mark the student as First-time in the database.
  • B. Were transfer courses approved in or before the student's entrance term? If yes, then he's considered a transfer student. If not, Populi declines to mark him as a transfer.
  • Not considered...: You could approve 389 transfer courses for this student, but if the setting is flipped to Not considered, he will not be considered a transfer student.
  • Considered...: You guessed it: students with transfer courses from this school will always be considered transfer students.
  • The latter two options can be over-ridden on a case-by-case basis by checking/unchecking the Is Transfer Student box when you edit the student program.
• Of course, a student needs to have transfer courses listed on Profile > Admissions > Other Education that have been accepted (which this article details).
• When you enter transfer courses, you have to map them to an academic program. When the lead becomes a student, the transfer courses will apply to the mapped program(s).

Transfer courses

Transfer courses let you "translate" coursework from another school into your own programs and degree course requirements. You can add them both to leads and students. Here's a quick overview of how they work:

1. You go to the Lead or Student's Profile > Admissions > Other Education view.
2. You add a transfer institution (that is, the school or organization from which the student wishes to transfer coursework).
3. Within each institution, you list any degrees earned there together with transfer courses, describing how they fit into your own academic programs.
4. At this point, they are considered pending. You can find them both on the profile and in Academics > Reporting > Transfer Credits.
5. When you come to a decision, you approve or reject the transfer courses.
6. If approved, transfer credits are automatically included in the student's transcript and degree audit as appropriate.
7. They also figure into the student's cumulative GPA, transfer GPA, and cumulative credits/hours.

You can also use transfer courses to indicate that a student has taken an AP high school course or has "tested out" of one of your courses. This article describes how to do that (but read this article first).

Adding transfer courses

To add transfer credits, start by going to the Profile > Admissions > Other Education view.

1. Add an institution

1. Click add next to Other Institutions.
2. Start typing the institution name. The field will search existing college organizations as you type. If the right school comes up, select it. If not, simply finish typing the institution name.
   • If you end up adding a new institution, it will create a new "College" organization.
3. Optionally, enter a Field of Study and a timeframe. For example, the student might have studied Liberal Arts from August 2022 to May 2023. Leave the to field blank to indicate that the timeframe goes up to the present.
4. Select which user roles may view information about this person's transfer courses from this institution.
5. Check to show the field of study from this institution on the student's transcript (if the transcript is set up to show information from this transfer institution).
6. When you're done, click Save.

You can add as many institutions as you need by following the above steps.

After you've added an institution, click its name to start adding information about the student's course of study there—degrees and courses.

2. Add a degree (optional)

If you wish, you can list any degrees the student earned at the other institution. For the most part, this will be used by schools demonstrating a basis for admissions to a graduate-level program.

1. Click Add degree.
2. Enter the degree's details. All of these fields are optional, save for the degree level and name.
3. When you're done, click Save.

3. Add transfer credits

This process lets you add one, single transfer course. To add additional courses, just repeat these steps as often as you need to.

Start by clicking Add transfer credit. Add the information required to describe how the transfer course fits in to your own academic programs and requirements.

Course # and name

Enter the course number and name from the transferring institution (you'll pick your school's course in a few steps).

Programs

If you do not select a program, this transfer course will not appear on the student's transcript!

1. Choose a program and click Add. (You can add more than one program if necessary.)
2. For each program, select the letter grade from the applicant's transcript or leave it blank (--). This grade is used to calculate the student's transfer GPA (according to the program's grade scale).
3. After you select a grade, select a retake setting (in case the student retakes the course to which you're mapping this transfer course).
   • Automatic treats this course according to the retake policy established in Academic > Settings.
   • Yes or No lets you manually over-ride your standard retake policy regarding the transfer course.
   • Generally speaking, when you first approve a transfer course you'll set this to Automatic; later, if you need to change how it works as a retake, you would come back and change it to Yes or No.

Credits, Hours, Clinical Hours

Enter the number of units that this course is worth at your school—NOT what it was worth at the transfer school! You can enter something for all of these fields, or leave some blank.

Degree, GPA, Standing

Check off all that apply.

• Does this course fulfill program requirements?
• Do passing or failing grades affect the student's GPA?
• Does it affect the student's standing at your school?

Applies To

Does this transfer course apply to one of your courses or course groups?

• If a course, start typing your course name or abbreviation and select it from the results.
• If a course group, select the course group from the drop-down.

Description

The description is optional (but can be very useful).

Status

Update this as you approve or reject the course. You can also change the status using the function in the Transfer Credits report.

Updating transfer credits

To update a transfer course...

1. Click next to the course you'd like to edit.
2. Change any of the fields you need to update.
3. Update the status when you've decided to approve or reject the course.
   • When you approve a course, you'll have checkbox options for whether to show this course on the student's transcript for this program and whether to denote the student as a transfer student for that program.
   • The effective date refers to the date after which this course would be considered a retake. In the vast majority of cases, you will not need to enter anything in this field, so feel free to ignore it!
4. Click Save when you're finished.

Remember that changes to transfer courses will affect the student's degree audits and transcripts!

Transfer credits report

Academics > Reporting > Transfer credits lets you find all transfer courses entered at your school.

• Click the student's name to go to her Profile > Admissions > Transfer Credits view.
• Use the filter to sift the report down to show particular kinds of courses.
• The graded term filter lets you find transfer credits that were entered during a particular academic term. This comes in handy when...
  • You enter a transfer course during a term with a grade scale defined for that particular term.
  • You want to find transfer courses you entered during the Summer 2021 term.
• Click Change Statuses to update the status of each course in the report en masse.
• Export students creates a spreadsheet of the report.
• Likewise, Email students lets you email the students on the report.