Credit Transfer Overview
Semester or Year Away Credit Transfer
THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL SEMESTER OR YEAR AWAY IS PLANNING IN ADVANCE.
Every student should take a few minutes to watch this very helpful overview of academic planning for study away, with specific "how-to" guidance showing you exactly how to get courses approved via Summit, and how to be best prepared for your study away:
Academic planning for your off-campus study experience should start early, with a conversation with your academic advisor about what major, minor, and all-College requirements you hope to fulfill with courses taken while off-campus, if any. Each student is different in what they hope to accomplish academically, linguistically, and personally while abroad. Every department (majors, minors) varies in their policies regarding accepting courses from off-campus study towards the degree requirements, and you should ask early on about your department(s) policies.
You may be able to register for off-campus study courses well before your program begins, or you may be expected to finalize registration upon arrival at your program or university abroad. In all cases, careful academic planning is essential: knowing how the potential credits will transfer (through entering them in Summit), being aware of any departmental specificities within CC, and having a plan for what you will take while off-campus, should your first choices not be available.
All students should accurately and fully complete the Course Approval Form process through the SUMMIT Internal Application required by Colorado College, and make sure to update the form should your course enrollment abroad change from what you initially entered. This clarifies what credits you can expect to receive, which all-College and departmental requirements specific courses meet, and notify you of any courses that would not be transferable back to CC.
CREDIT ABROAD & CC UNITS
- One unit of credit on the block plan is equivalent to 4 U.S. semester credits, or roughly 7.5 ECTS credits (subject to rounding). Therefore, in order to receive a full semester of credit at Colorado College, you would enroll in the equivalent of 16 semester hours, or 30 ECTS.
- At minimum, you are required to enroll in whatever the minimum credit/course load is for your program: at minimum this will be the equivalent of 3 CC units/12 semester credits per semester, but sometimes more than this, depending on your program and their minimum requirements. No exceptions are made for you to drop below the minimum enrollment that your program specifies. You should work with your academic advisor to develop a plan for what kinds of courses (and how many units above the minimum required, if any) you need to take while studying off-campus to stay on-track towards graduation.
- The maximum transfer credit allowed back to CC per semester is 5.75 CC units. This amount is based on the maximum potential of credit earned on campus, including cases that were given overload permission.
- If you will be receiving a transcript directly from a foreign university, or if your program does not award credit based on semester hours, a credit equivalency determination will be made in Summit by the Registrar's Office. If you are uncertain about how many classes to take, you should obtain this credit equivalency information from the Registrar at Colorado College by submitting your course approval requests through Summit, and consult with your academic advisor. Your program should also have this credit equivalency information available on their website.
REQUIREMENT TO STUDY THE LOCAL LANGUAGE
- If you are studying in a country where English is not the native language, you are required by CC to take one course while abroad to study the local language (i.e., Danish, Czech, Thai, Swahili, Hungarian, etc.).
- Students approved for a disability-related foreign language course substitution through CC Accessibility Resources may take a culture class instead of a local language course. Courses used for the substitution must be approved in advance by the offices of Accessibility Resources and Global Education.
TRANSFERABLE CREDIT & COURSE SUBJECTS
- Credit is given only for academic work that is liberal arts in nature. For example, credit can be transferred for economics, but not necessarily for tourism studies. Likewise, applied music and art courses are accepted under conditions similar to those at CC. Credit will not be awarded for courses that are very similar to, or largely duplicate, courses you've already taken at CC.
- Internship credit will only be transferable to CC if there is a credit-bearing course component to the internship that appears on your final transcript from your program. Credit for internships is general studies credit. Departmental credit for an internship is only awarded with the approval of the respective department at CC.
- It is always a good idea to save and bring back as much of your work (at minimum: course syllabi, papers, exams) as possible in case there are any questions regarding credit transfer or equivalency upon your return.
- Make sure to ask your program to send an official transcript directly to the CC Registrar's Office upon completion of your program. For CC-approved partner programs, Colorado College will accept the grade report directly from the program (therefore, you do not have to go through the "School of Record" option if one exists, for CC-approved partner programs).
COURSES ATTEMPTED WHILE ABROAD/AWAY
- All courses attempted on a CC-approved study away program will be recorded on your CC transcript as transfer work regardless of earned credit. This includes courses attempted where credit was earned (student received a C- or better) and courses attempted where credit was not earned (D or F equivalent). Transfer work does not get calculated into a student’s GPA (see section on "Grade Transfer Policies" below).
Please see the CC IRB's website for information on your obligations and procedures to follow if you plan to receive credit that you wish to transfer back towards your CC degree while engaging in research abroad with human subjects.
CC FACULTY-LED & ACM/GLCA WASEDA PROGRAMS:
Grades earned on all Colorado College faculty-led programs and the ACM/GLCA Waseda program will appear on a student's transcript and be factored into the student's cumulative grade point average. If you are enrolled in CC courses while abroad (for example, on a CC semester program), you have the option of taking courses on a "pass/fail" basis. If you would like to change your grade track after arriving on-site with a CC program abroad, you should email registrar@coloradocollege.edu. Be sure to include the name of your program in your email. Just as if you were on-campus, you will have only until the fourth class session to change your grade track for CC programs.
ALL OTHER APPROVED PARTNER PROGRAMS OR CC EXCHANGES:
Although grades from exchange programs and approved partner programs will not appear on your CC transcript, keep in mind that if you plan to apply for graduate schools after CC, most require an official transcript from every institution where you took courses during your undergraduate studies. In that case, the admissions committee would consider your grades from your off-campus study experience(s), as well as your Colorado College GPA and course information on your transcript.
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