A Peek Behind the Curtain: An examination of credit evaluation and academic advising for transfer students at U.S. undergraduate serving institutions

CREATED BY AACRAO

Registration & Records
Research
Transfer

AACRAO has a longstanding practice of providing guidance and research in support of the transfer student experience.

AACRAO has a longstanding practice of providing guidance and research in support of the transfer student experience. To that end, we have been engaged in a series of research partnerships and standalone research over the last two years on how, and under what conditions, students are awarded credit in transfer or not.

These projects include the Recognition of Prior Learning Initiative with the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), the ongoing American Council on Education (ACE) National Task Force on Transfer of Credit, a study with ITHAKA S+R on the policies and practices which result in official transcripts being withheld from students, and an AACRAO excess credits at graduation study in partnership with the University of Arizona. The impetus for this report and related survey came primarily from two of these projects: the ACE taskforce and the AACRAO Research Excess Credit Accumulation: An Examination of Contributing Factors for First-Time Bachelor’s Degree Earners project.

Unless otherwise noted in a specific report, the AACRAO member institution size, type and control categories are based on the following definitions and sources:

The enrollment value used to delineate the institution's size category is defined as full-time enrollment plus 1/3 of part-time enrollment and is based on the enrollment reported by the institution to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).