It's frustrating when such a convenient alternative can be so complicated — it's even worse when students can't transfer their hard-earned credits..
Depending on the program, it's up to your school to accept or deny the credits you earn online.
These steps will help ensure your credits aren't rejected by your school:
- Research Your Options: The most important factor should be the quality of education — one of the best indicators is if the institution is fully accredited by one of the six major accreditation boards.
- Meet With Academic Advisor: Even if an online institution is fully accredited, your school might not choose to accept them for other reasons. Your academic advisor is the best person to answer questions about what online institutions your school accepts credits from.
- Contact Online Provider: Wherever you are hoping to take online college courses, reach out to their admissions and ask if their credits will transfer to your institution. Checking with both the online institution and your school removes any doubt of transferability.
Here are some kinds of credits to avoid when transferring:
- Unaccredited Credits: It's not a contradiction, schools that are not accredited by any of the major six agencies have "unaccredited credits." Credits like this are usually not acceptable at an accredited school and it's best to avoid unaccredited institutions completely.
- Decade Old Credits: After ten years, credits will have expired. Since courses are constantly being changed by professors, credits older than ten years are disregarded and usually must be taken again.
- Required for Major Credits: General education credits are much easier to transfer than specific credits required for your major. If you are looking to get some courses out of the way, general education courses are the ones to take.
In order to transfer those future credits, you have to make sure it works with your college, your academic journey, and your life goals. Just look before you leap.
Looking for Reliable, Transferrable Courses?
Portage Learning is an online institution accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and offers courses on everything from humanities to biology. Every course is created and taught by a real professor and transferable to 2,500+ institutions. Check out Portage's online courses here!
