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Transfer credits

Grace Johnson

August 25, 2020 14:09

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Hi there! Please consider allowing us to designate all transfer credits in one lump to fullfill a degree requirement, or to select multiple course groups. Otherwise on a transcript it will have multiple lines of the phrase "transfer credits" with different credit amounts.

We process undergraduate or other seminary transcripts all the time, and they frequently say "TRAN" for the course ID and "Transfer Credits" for the title and then one lump amount. That's it. Obviously they say what institution it's from. But it would be weird if there were multiple rows of random amounts of "Transfer Credits" listed. To the viewer it doesn't make sense, and to the admin it's a ton of work to list out 100 courses from the previous school and which course requirement they fulfill. I'm surprised this isn't a standard option in Populi, as it seems to be very common in how other institutions do it. 

In conclusion (insert wink emoji here), it would be great to have all transfer credits kept in one lump on the transcript but admin can designate which course groups they fulfill on the back end! Thank you!

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12 comments

• 0
  
  Evan Donovan August 25, 2020 14:30

  You can exclude the transfer credits from showing in detail on the official transcripts at all, if you edit the template - that's what we do. But if you need to show them by course group, then, yes, I don't think there's currently a way to do that.

  Regarding listing out 100 courses from the previous school, it seems like that is more about the data entry issue rather than display. So it seems you may have 2 separate requests here. I know that we also find it time-consuming to enter them individually - at the same time, it is what ensures the GPA gets calculated from them accurately.
  
  There is another school where they have created a tool to import transfer credits from a spreadsheet. You may want to look into that on the Populi support forum.

  Edited by Evan Donovan August 25, 2020 14:30
• 1
  
  Grace Johnson August 25, 2020 16:13

  Thank you. I do need to have the transfer credits on transcripts but only listed as one lump sum, for example, "Transfer Credits-55" ...and on the back end, be able to designate 20 to Course Group A, 20 to Course Group B, and 15 to Course Group C, for example.

  When our students choose to get ordained or credentialed through a credentialing organization or denomination, that organization will review the M.Div transcript. If the student finished their M.Div with us but did not start with us, we need to show that we are granting them a degree based on their previous Master's work. So if they only have 10 credits from us but 50 from another seminary, we must show those 50 transfer credits on their transcript, along with the 10 from us that we approved to complete their degree. We see that type of "lump" transfer credit on other institutions' transcripts all the time. I assumed it was a common feature.

• 0
  
  Evan Donovan August 25, 2020 16:17

  You can have a transcript format that groups them by institution name, for example:
  
  Transfer Credits                       Attempted         Earned              GPA
  City Vision University                6.00                  6.00                  4.00
  TOTALS:                                   6.00                  6.00                 4.00

  If that would be adequate for your needs, you could file a support ticket on how to achieve that format.

• 0
  
  Grace Johnson August 25, 2020 18:03

  Hi Evan,

  You're saying that I can currently achieve this? But I need to ask for support on how to do it? There's no article explaining it that you can share or you can't just email me separately how to do it?

• 0
  
  Evan Donovan August 25, 2020 18:13

  The reason I was saying you would have to file a support ticket is because I don't work for Populi. I was just explaining because we do something similar at our school.

  The way to achieve it is technical, involving a modification to your transcript template ODT file. So it's something Populi implements for schools when they ask for it.
  
  This is the relevant article: https://support.populiweb.com/hc/en-us/articles/223790227-Custom-Transcripts
  
  Note that contacting Populi customer support is the 1st step.

  Edited by Evan Donovan August 25, 2020 18:13
• 0
  
  Evan Donovan August 25, 2020 18:15

  The relevant lines of code are something like:
  
  

  [!-- BEGIN transfer_credits --]

  Transfer Credits

  Institution Name

  Attempted

  Earned

  GPA

  [!-- BEGIN institution --]

  {!INSTITUTION_NAME!}

  {!INSTITUTION_AU!}

  {!INSTITUTION_EU!}

  {!INSTITUTION_GPA!}

  [!-- END institution --]

  [!-- END transfer_credits --]

   

  But don't try to copy and paste that into a template on your own, because these templates break very easily - I am just giving you an example that you can point them to for what you want to achieve.

• 0
  
  Grace Johnson August 25, 2020 18:19

  Haha gotcha-thanks Evan. Good to know. I will look into and hope that Populi does as well!

• 1
  
  Adam Sentz August 25, 2020 18:54

  Grace Johnson - I see that you already contacted support about this issue, but I'm not sure it was clear that it would be acceptable to enter the credits as it works now so long as it wasn't multiple lines on the transcript. If you'd like Support to modify your transcript template as Evan Donovan has suggested just let us know in a support request.

• 1
  
  Grace Johnson August 25, 2020 19:24

  Ok sounds good. So in other words, there is not a way for me to do this efficiently from the admin side-I would still need to separate out all 55 credits into separate transfer credit designations so that they fulfill the course group requirements needed for an accurate degree audit. And then if I did that, it would show up on the transcript in multiple lines with the same description I give them: "Transfer Credits." UNLESS I then ask Populi to set up a custom transcript to get these to only appear as one line, without impacting the back end designations to different course groups. Correct?

  So my questions are:
  1) Would I have to make this custom transcript request each time we deal with transfer credits of this nature? Or once you set it up for me, does it always work until I tell you to change it back?

  2) Even though there is a possible workaround for getting the transcript to look how I want it, can you still please consider my feature request for letting there be an easier way administratively to select multiple course groups for one lump amount of transfer credits?

  Thanks.

• 0
  
  Adam Sentz August 25, 2020 19:42

  Grace Johnson - You only need to make as many entries as course group requirements you want to fulfill. So if you want to do two groups with 20 credits and one with 15 you only need three entries not 55. So you'd have three lines by default, but you could make it one line the way Evan suggested.

  Once your custom transcript layout is setup how you want it will stay that way until you want it changed. You can also have more than one custom layout if needed.

  We can certainly consider your request.

• 1
  
  Grace Johnson August 25, 2020 19:55

  Yes, I was trying to say what you said, that there would be three separate entries, not 55. But I would rather have 1 entry instead of 3. So I want all 55 in one entry, with an open field next to each course group where I can simply type in how many transfer credits I want designated to each course group. It simply saves having to repeat the same information for multiple different entries when the only changing factor is the credits per course group. Hope that makes sense.

  Thank you for considering my request.

• 1
  
  Kim Huizinga March 01, 2022 21:30

  This is exactly what would be very helpful for our school as well.  1 entry for Transfer Credits that we could distribute over 2 or more course groups.  Why is there only the option to apply it all to one course group?  Could we apply it to the degree generally instead of course groups?  That would also be helpful.  Thank you for considering this change.