Pursue Your Education Today
Are you thinking about returning to school but don’t want to start from scratch? View AIUs transfer credit guide to find out how you may be able to get credit with previous college, military, or work experience.*If you are ready to learn more, explore degree programs at AIU today
1.Digest of Education Statistics: 2015. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/ch_3.asp .2.Shaken by Economic Change, Non-Traditional Students are Becoming the New Normal. NPR. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/09/25/495188445/shaken-by-economic-change-non-traditional-students-are-becoming-the-new-normal .3.Overview of Accreditation in the United States. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from: https://www2.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/accreditation.html .
AIU cannot guarantee employment or salary. For important information about the educational debt, earnings and completion rates of students who attended these programs, go to www.aiuniv.edu/disclosures.* Transfer credit is evaluated on an individual basis. Not all credits are eligible to transfer. See the University Catalog for transfer credit policies.1386653 11/18
Can I Turn My College Credits Into A Degree
Yes, it is possible to turn your college credits into a degree.
You may want to start by considering the type of degree youre interested in pursuing and evaluating the likelihood of your completed credits being compatible with that type of program. You may use online transfer evaluation tools to try and get an idea of what credits you may be able to transfer into specific programs or educational areas.
Once youve applied to your program and school of choice, your completed college credits will be assessed by the school. From there, you may find out which credits you are able to transfer over to your new program.
How Long Is A College Semester
Home » How Long Is a College Semester?
How long is a college semester? Learn about the different semester lengths, including your options for taking accelerated classes.
You may be nervous about committing yourself to four months of the same classes. The good news, though, is you have options.
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How Long Do College Credits Last
Generally speaking, college credits do not expire. However, several factorsincluding the age of those creditswill influence whether or not they are eligible for transfer into a particular program.
It is important to remember that every institution has its own transfer credit policies. Whether you wish to convert your associate’s degree into a bachelors degree, transfer from one institution to another, or complete your bachelors degree after taking time off, you should always research the policies of the colleges or universities youre interested in transferring to.
What Is College Credit
College credits are the building blocks of a college degree. For every class you complete, you earn credits. By the time youve successfully made it through the entire program, you will have accumulated enough credits to graduate.
- Associates Degree About 60 credits
- Bachelors Degree Usually 120 credits
- Masters Degree 36 credits is the norm, but some programs go up to 54 credits
These credits can be obtained in various ways. The most common way is by attending lectures and doing typical classroom work, like taking exams or writing papers.
For majors like nursing or physical therapy, you may have to complete clinical hours at a hospital or nursing home to begin to apply the things youve learned to real life. These experiences also contribute to your accumulated college credits.
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How To Retrieve Old College Transcripts
As a community college student, your activities generate a paper trail referred to as your academic record that must be managed by the college. Academic records include everything from the admission application package you submit to the record of your academic standing. These records are managed through a document retention policy specific to each document type created. Guidelines for document retention are published by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers . Student transcripts become part of your academic record in two ways: as part of the application process and as you matriculate through the college. Each of these transcript types is subject to a different document retention policy.
What Is The Maximum Credits You Can Transfer
Theres a good deal of variation in the maximum number of transfer credits a college will accept. This can depend somewhat on what kind of credit system is used at your old and new schools. Private and state colleges typically accept up to a maximum of 60 credits in transfer, or half the total for a bachelor degree if they are on a credit system that requires more or less than 120 total credits for a BA or BS . Online schools tend to be a bit more liberal about credit transfer, because they serve many adult students who are re-starting a college education after a break for work or life commitments. Some of the best-known online schools accept up to 75% of credits for a degree in transfer.
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If You Dont Have Transcripts & Cant Get Them
Suppose you have no records of your CLEP exams and theyre over 20 years old so you cant get them from the College Board either.
Theres one more thing that could work.
If youve ever had those transcripts sent to a college you might be able to retrieve them from that college.
If you were enrolled in that college and sent them your CLEP scores in the past they probably added them to your transcripts.
Request an unofficial copy of your transcripts from that university and see if your CLEP exams are on it.
If they are, have an official copy sent to your new college and youre good to go.
If you were never enrolled in a college but sent your CLEP score to them anyway its very unlikely theyll still have your score on record, but it never hurts to check.
If they do have it, see if theyll send it over to your new college.
Nyu Foreign Language Proficiency Testing
- Through New York Universitys School of Continuing and Professional Studies, students may take a foreign language proficiency exam to earn credit at Bergen Community College.Visit the NYU website at: for more information.
- Students must take the 16-point exam and score 13 out of 16 points.
- Students will receive credit for the first language course .
*Important note: Students who wish to test in Spanish, German or French should consider taking the College Level Examination Program exam, from which a student can earn up to 9 credits in Language.
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Financial Aid To Make Your Degree Cheaper
Of course, on top of transferring credits, you want to look into financial aid to keep the cost of your degree down. This is an area where you need to be careful. Youve probably heard lots about the student debt crisis on the news and it is absolutely real. If youre careful about not borrowing too much to pay for a degree however, you can come out of college with a good result.
Its worth doing everything you can to control the cost of your degree program. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, average total costs of attending a state university for a year was over $17,000. Private colleges averaged a whopping $44,551 per year, while for-profit schools cost an average of $25,431. each year .
The first thing you want to do to get financial aid for your bachelor degree are to ask your school if they offer any scholarships. Many, many online colleges provide some kind of scholarship that can cut anywhere from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars of the price of a degree. Some of these scholarship programs are based on you demonstrating financial need, but others are based on different factors. Some, quite honestly, are based on factors that are a bit vague. Its always worth asking about school scholarships because many schools use them to attract students, and you never know what youll turn up.
How Many Semesters In A Two
What people refer to as two-year colleges are really just community colleges. Because the vast majority of community colleges are on the traditional semester schedule, there are three available semesters at two-year colleges.
If you take classes in both the fall and spring semesters, then youre considered to have taken a full year of college at a two-year school. You may decide to take summer classes, as well, but they arent required.
There may be some benefits to taking optional summer classes though. These include:
- The Potential to Graduate Sooner
- Smaller Classes
- Greater Availability of Popular Classes
- Easier to Find Used Textbooks
- The Ability to Take a Harder Class by Itself
If youre a full-time student at a two-year school, you may earn your associates degree in two years.
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The Risks Of Older Clep Credits
Technically, theres no such thing as CLEP Credits You simply are granted credit by certain institutions for taking CLEP exams.
There are a few instances when you might have trouble getting credit for old CLEP exams:
Those situations can cause problems with transfer and getting credit for older CLEP credits.
For each one there are some troubleshooting solutions you can try, although there are no guarantees.
How Many Credits To Graduate Community College
It depends on what youre studying, but community colleges generally offer 3 types of associates degrees:
- Associate of Arts 60 credits
- Associate of Sciences 60 credits
- Associate of Applied Sciences 60 credits
Some community colleges might add a couple of extra credits for physical education or orientation, but 60 credit hours is the norm to graduate.
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What Affects A College Credits Transferability To Another Program
Five main factors affect whether you can transfer your college credits to another university: time, accreditation, relevance, number of credits, and GPA.
Time: If too much time has passed, you might still have the documentation and validity of a college credit to demonstrate your experience in a certain subject however, some schools might not accept it as a contributing credit to a new program if too much time has passed.
Think about innovative or critical subjects like medicine, science, or technology. A lot can change in 5-10 years, so curriculums are updated constantly. If your experience is outdated, a university might require you to take a more recent course. For these reasons, many institutions have implemented a 5-year rule or 10-year rule for college credits.
Relevance: If your college credits arent relevant to your new prospective course of study, a university might not accept the college credit transfer. General education courses might be more easily transferable for electives, but usually, your college credits should be somewhat related to your new degree program to necessitate a transfer.
Accreditation: Most universities in the US have accreditation status from one or more bodies demonstrating their reputation and credibility. To transfer your credits, youll likely need to have college credits that are accredited. Read more about accreditation here.
Sending Official International Transcripts
International transcripts must be evaluated by an approved foreign credential evaluating company. UVU’s preferred evaluating company is SpanTran. If you have already had your international transcript evaluated by a foreign credential company, please reference the list of approved companies below to see if we can accept them.
In order to receive direct equivalencies, students will need to provide course descriptions/syllabi.
Other approved companies
- IERFEvaluations performed on behalf of another institution cannot be accepted unless the student can obtain a sealed/unopened copy of their IERF report directly from IERF
Questions?
Contact Transfer Credit at 801-863-8216 or by emailing
Average processing time of transcripts is 1-3 weeks
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How Long Is A Semester In University
The length of a term at a four-year university will depend entirely on whether or not the university is on the semester schedule. If so, then the semesters offered at a university are the exact same lengths as those offered by community colleges.
However, if the university youre attending is on a trimester or quarterly system, then the term lengths will be the same as those mentioned above for trimester and quarterly systems. The same is true if youre taking accelerated courses at a university.
Many universities across the world use semesters, but there are some that dont. For instance, Florida Gulf Coast University, the Universities of Toronto and Winnipeg and Leeds College of Music all use trimesters rather than semesters. Stanford, Dartmouth, and Northwestern are all examples of colleges on the quarterly system.
The different college degree levels dont really have an impact on the length of a college semester. For instance, if youre a full-time student at a four-year university, you may earn your bachelors degree in four years.
If The Transcript Isnt Opened
As you may have guessed by now whatever you do, dont open that sucker.
And since I imagine you only have one, be careful to send it to a college youre going to enroll in.
Because its sealed your college will most likely accept it and give you credit for those CLEP exams.
If in the rare case your college refuses to accept a sealed transcript from you and you can no longer get it from the College Board do not take no for an answer.
If your transcript is opened, and they cant make an exception from their regular policy thats understandable .
Because most colleges will accept transcripts directly from a student as long as they are official and sealed a college that typically requires it to be sent from the institution should be willing to work with you if that isnt possible.
So in the case of a sealed unopened transcript dont take no for an answer. Be polite but do what ya gotta do.
Write letters, keep bugging them, dont quit. If you are having trouble please reach out to me and Ill try to help you in any way I can.
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What Is A Credit Hour In College
Each and every class you take in college is measured in credit hours, usually 1 to 4 credit hours per class. The number of credit hours a class is worth is determined by the number of hours you spend in the classroom each week during a semester.
Lets look at an example. A class that meets for 1 hour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is worth 3 credit hours. This is because the class meets for a total of 3 hours each week.
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This can vary a little. Some science courses are worth 3 credits for the classroom time but also have a weekly lab session that youre required to complete, too. So, you get 1 credit for the lab and 3 credits for the class, a total of 4 credits.
You can get credit hours for other things, too, like any clinical or practical experiences you have to do as part of your degree plan. For an education major, this could be student teaching. For a nursing student, clinicals are a good example.
Transferring Coursework From Institutions Outside The Us
Before considering transfer credits from institutions outside the U.S., AACC requires students to have their transcripts reviewed on a course-by-course basis by one of our approved professional transcript evaluation services:
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Example Of Core And Major Courses For Degree
For an example of how the elective and core courses break out on a typical bachelor degree in business, lets look at the basic online B.S. in Business Administration degree offered by Purdue University Global. Purdue, which is regionally accredited, requires 180 credits to finish the degree at a cost of $371. per credit.Like most bachelor programs, this one requires a mix of core courses designed to provide a broad-based education that expands the students horizon and teaches critical thinking, along with major courses that focus more on business career training:
Core Courses:
Managerial Economics or Corporate FinancePolicy ManagementInternship or Capstone in ManagementTotal: 88 Credits
Finally, students are required to take 59 credits of Open Electives courses. These are designed primarily to give you a business degree with a specialty on Finance, Investment, Marketing or another area. If you dont wish to have a specialization, you can pick your 59 credits from many different areas. If you choose a specialty, most of your open electives will focus on that area, but youll also need to do some other elective courses. As an example:Open Electives for New Media/Internet Marketing specialty in BS Business Degree:Social Media MarketingMarketing ManagementTotal: 24 Credits
How To Transfer College Credits To Finish Your Bachelors Degree
The process of transferring college credits in order to finish your bachelors degree can vary from school to school. This is because each school has the final say as to whether they can count your previously completed credits towards your final degree.
To transfer college credits in order to finish your degree, you may follow the steps below.
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Is Financial Aid Available
When pursuing a bachelors degree, there are a number of financial aid options available to qualifying students. Federal and state aid are common options that you may be eligible for in the form of grants and loans.
If youre currently employed, your employer may also offer a program to help you fund your education, especially if your educational pursuit will benefit the company. Another option for financial aid is scholarships. Scholarships may be provided by private or public businesses, and they may also be offered by schools.
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In some cases, scholarships are directed toward particular groups of people or students studying specific areas. For more information, you can visit the U.S. Department of Educations website and fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid .