Transfer Credit Policies

Transfer courses are courses accepted for credit at St. Thomas and taken at another postsecondary institution that is accredited by an organization recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Exchange courses, as described below, are not transfer courses.

Students who are seeking admission to the University of St. Thomas must have official transcripts of all previous college work sent to the Office of Admissions for evaluation by the University Registrar.

Students who have matriculated at St Thomas must forward transcripts from any other institution attended to the Office of Admissions for evaluation by the University Registrar.

All paper transcripts should be mailed directly from the institution of study to the following address:

University of St. Thomas
Admissions, Mail #5017
2115 Summit Ave
St. Paul, MN 55105-1078

All links and passwords to electronic PDF transcript downloads should be emailed directly from the institution of study to the following email address: admissions@stthomas.edu.

The University Registrar along with the Faculty Director of Transfer Courses, using official transcripts provided by the student's previous schools, will assist the faculty to determine which courses may be used to fulfill St. Thomas degree requirements. Students may be asked to provide additional materials supporting the use of transfer courses. The university may require transcripts from foreign schools to be submitted to an evaluation service for processing before considering them. A fee may be charged for this service.

The information about transfer courses that is provided in the “Transfer Credit Tool” applies to transfer courses taken both prior to matriculation as well as after matriculation. If a student who has matriculated at St. Thomas and thereafter wishes to enroll in a course that is not on the Transfer Credit Tool the determination of whether a post-matriculation transfer course fulfills the criteria for a core requirement or for a major or minor field requirement must be determined by the appropriate academic unit; this should be determined prior to the student enrolling in the course. Though academic units are encouraged to use course descriptions for making transfer course determinations, an academic unit may require students to submit the syllabus for any potential transfer course they hope to apply to a major, minor, or core requirement.

In some cases, if a transfer student is bringing in a significant amount of transfer courses, and if the course-by-course evaluation leaves many potentially relevant courses applying only as electives, the student’s transcript may be holistically evaluated by the Faculty Director of Transfer Courses working with faculty and deans to determine whether a group of courses could work together to meet the spirit of a particular requirement (core, major, minor, certificate).

Courses taken by undergraduate, degree-seeking St. Thomas students at Augsburg University, Hamline University, Macalester College and St. Catherine University through ACTC cross-registration are called exchange courses. These courses may be substituted for courses at the University of St. Thomas, subject to the following conditions:

1. The course is not one specified by a specific course number in the list of core curriculum requirements; and
2. The student has the written permission of the department chair of the major or minor if the course is in the major or minor concentration and taken to satisfy a particular requirement for that major or minor; and
3. The student consults the University Registrar before registering for more than one course at Augsburg, Hamline, Macalester or St. Catherine University during one semester. This one course limit does not apply to students pursuing a major or minor at these schools.

For exchange courses in the fall and spring semesters, St. Thomas students register at St. Thomas. Grades for these courses are automatically recorded on the St. Thomas transcript.

For courses during the summer sessions, students register at the college offering the courses and have a transcript of the completed work sent to St. Thomas. These summer courses are considered transfer courses.

Exchange courses may be used to fulfill the senior residency requirement.

Grades for exchange courses are included in the computation of the St. Thomas GPA.

Courses taken at Augsburg, Hamline, Macalester and St. Catherine by a student before he or she matriculates at St. Thomas or while the student is not an active student at St. Thomas are treated as transfer courses.

Students who first become degree-seeking at St. Thomas beginning with the fall 2013 semester and for all subsequent semesters may count a maximum of 8 additional transfer credits taken after the date of matriculation at St. Thomas toward core requirements, with no more than 4 of those credits counting toward any one core requirement area (for instance, Language and Culture or Literature and Writing). This limit applies only to post-matriculation transfer credits and therefore does not apply to courses taken through a UST study abroad program or through the ACTC.

St. Thomas will accept only transfer courses in which the student has received a minimum grade of C- (1.7 value) or higher.

When a transfer student matriculates at St. Thomas, all transfer courses accepted for credit at St. Thomas will be posted to the student's academic history for the first term of enrollment at St. Thomas. When any St. Thomas student transfers credits to St. Thomas after the student's first term of enrollment, the transfer courses will be posted to academic history for the term in which it was taken at the transfer institution.

St. Thomas will convert all transfer credits taken from quarter system academic institutions to semester credit using the following conversion scale (dividing the number of quarter credits by 1.5).

Thirty-two of the final 36 credits that a student takes for the degree must be taken through the University of St. Thomas. Credits earned at ACTC colleges and through affiliated programs are considered exchange credits and count toward the residency requirement.

The First-Year Experience (FYE) requirement described below applies specifically to transfer students, defined as students who have taken college credit after high school graduation in a traditional fall or spring term. The FYE requirement that applies to First-Time First Year students, defined as students who have not taken college credit after high school graduation in a traditional fall or spring term, is described in the Core Curriculum's First-Year Experience.

The FYE requirement for transfer students is the following:

• Transfer students with 27 or fewer credits (the credit classification for a freshmen student) will complete the full FYE requirement including the learning community requirement and the 1-credit FYEX-100 course.
• Transfer students with 28 or more credits will be exempt from the FYE requirement but will complete the 0-credit FYEX 001, which will be Canvas modules that introduce students to our mission, values, convictions, and important resources on campus. Registration holds will be used to ensure these students complete this in a timely manner.

The transfer block agreements address how the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum and associate degrees (specified below) relate to the core curriculum of the St. Thomas undergraduate baccalaureate degrees. In situations where additional evaluation is needed (e.g., the course is a major or allied requirement and is not on the Transfer Credit Tool), the relevant academic unit will make this determination.

The Minnesota Transfer Curriculum is (MnTC) is a set of general education curricular requirements in all two- and four-year public colleges and universities in Minnesota, including schools within the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (30 two-year colleges and seven state universities) as well as those within the University of Minnesota system.

All transfer students who complete the MnTC will be deemed to have completed the St. Thomas undergraduate core curriculum requirements after satisfying these additional requirements:

• Complete two additional courses, one designated by the Philosophy department and one designated by the Theology department.
• Complete a transfer-student-specific alternative (FYEX 001) to the first year experience requirement.
• Complete the core curriculum's Signature Work requirement.

All transfer students who complete an Associate of Arts (AA) degree from an accredited institution in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and North Dakota will be deemed to have completed the St. Thomas undergraduate core curriculum requirements after satisfying these additional requirements:

• Complete two additional courses, one designated by the Philosophy department and one designated by the Theology department.
• Complete the core curriculum's Signature Work requirement.
• Complete a transfer-student-specific alternative (FYEX 001) to the first-year experience requirement.

All transfer students who complete an Associate of Science (AS) degree from Minnesota and also complete the 40-credit Minnesota Transfer Curriculum will be deemed to have completed the St. Thomas undergraduate core curriculum requirements after satisfying these additional requirements:

• Complete two additional courses, one designated by the Philosophy department and one designated by the Theology department.
• Complete the core curriculum's Signature Work requirement.
• Complete a transfer-student-specific alternative (FYEX 001) to the first-year experience requirement.