Transfer Credit FAQs

All official transcripts should be mailed to:
Emmanuel College
Office of the Registrar
400 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115

Hard copy transcripts are considered official if they are in a sealed unopened envelope, on the institution's official transcript paper bearing the signature of the Registrar.  Electronic transcripts are official if received as an encrypted document through an official electronic transcript exchange service requiring a log in, from such services as Parchment, Scrip-Safe, and the National Student Clearinghouse. PDF transcripts are not considered official, nor can we accept encrypted transcripts or the download information, forwarded from another email address, if Emmanuel College is not the original recipient of the file. Electronic transcripts can be sent to the Office of the Registrar at regmail [at] emmanuel.edu.

Undergraduate courses that are 3 semester credits, will transfer to Emmanuel as 4 credits without additional credits needing to be completed. The course may fulfill both the equivalent content and will fulfill the 4 credits needed. However, credits below 3 credits will not transfer to Emmanuel as 4 credits.

Emmanuel has a generous transfer credit policy; however, there are restrictions. Students should refer to the Transfer Credit Policy to review course eligibility for transfer. Students must also meet the residency requirement for their program.

Accepted Transfer Applicants: Students applying to Emmanuel as a transfer student, will have their previous coursework evaluated once the student has been formally accepted to the College. Students can expect to receive their transfer evaluation within two weeks of acceptance so long as transcripts have been received by the college. Delay in sending all transfer work may also delay the receipt of a transfer evaluation or financial aid packages.
 

Incoming Freshmen with Transfer Credit: New freshmen with previous college work either through dual enrollment or other college credit, will have their credit reviewed after they have deposited and declared their intention to matriculate at Emmanuel. Coursework will be reviewed upon receipt of an official transcript.
 

Graduate and Professional Program Applicants with Transfer Work: Students applying to Emmanuel within our Graduate and Professional Programs, can expect to receive a transfer evaluation within a week of submitting official transcripts to Emmanuel/the student's Enrollment Counselor.
 

Matriculated Student Study Off Campus Undergraduate and Graduate:  Current students seeking approval to take a course off campus typically receive an email with their off campus evaluation for approval within 3-5 days of submission, depending on the time of year. Forms submitted in March, April or May should expect an email with evaluation one to two weeks after submission. Students should submit their forms for review at least a week prior to the off-campus course starting.  If courses require additional departmental evaluation, the turnaround time may be extended.  Requests will be reviewed in the order they are received. Review will not be expedited for off-campus courses that will serve as pre-requisites for future course registration at Emmanuel.
 

Study Abroad Students: Study abroad students should expect to receive course approvals two weeks after submission. Certain approvals may take longer due to departmental review.  Additionally, forms for students going abroad in the upcoming semester will be reviewed prior to students going abroad for more than one semester in the future and submitting forms early.  Students should review the Study Abroad Course Approval Database as a starting point to help inform courses that will be approved for transfer.
 

Students should refer to the Transfer Credit Policy to help determine eligibility for course transfer. Additionally, students may refer to the Transfer Course Eligibility Search or the Study Abroad Course Approval Database as a starting point for courses that will transfer. The absence of a course on either of these databases does not mean the course is not accepted for credit; merely that the course has not yet been reviewed. 

Courses that are listed as NO*CREDIT have been reviewed and are not permitted for transfer credit. Certain courses may also have been previously reviewed for free elective or general requirement credit and not specific major work and can be reviewed further for specific course/requirement equivalency.

Study Abroad Transfer Course Search

Course Approval Database

If you don't see your transfer credit posted and have requested an official transcript to be sent to Emmanuel, please contact the Office of the Registrar at (617) 735-9960 or regmail [at] emmanuel.edu and we'll double check the receipt of your transcript. We process transcripts within 1-2 business days of receipt. Each institution has their own timeframe for sending requested transcripts; however, if you requested a transcript from a U.S. institution, we should have your transcript within two weeks.    If you studied abroad, official transcripts are not typically received for 2-3 months after your program is completed. If students fail to submit a study abroad course approval form for any courses a student ends up registering for abroad, it may extend the time to process and post the transfer credit to the Emmanuel transcript.

If your course is listed with a course number that is not one of Emmanuel's course offerings, you may see a "bucket course" designation.  This means that the course will receive credit and fulfill a requirement at Emmanuel, but does not have a direct equivalent course that Emmanuel offers. For an explanation of the bucket course designations and the requirements they fulfill, please view the transfer course equivalencies document for non-Emmanuel courses.

No. While Emmanuel will post the credit and does not post the grade for transfer credit on the Emmanuel transcript, students must earn the minimum letter grade for their program (C or 2.0 for undergraduate students and B or 3.0 for graduate students) to transfer credit.  The exception to this is for students who complete courses at Mass College of Art and Design who earn P grades for P/F only courses.

Emmanuel does not transfer credit for experiential experiences such as practica, internships, field-based work, work or life experience.  The exception to this is for study abroad students who complete internships via their program provider where the internship has an academic component (associated seminar and academic assignments associated) and the internship is a required part of the program.  Students may only receive free elective credit in this instance and not major internship credit.

Typically, students cannot complete their last semester off campus. However, on rare occasions, a student may be approved to complete a final course off campus. Official transcripts with a final letter grade for the course approved off campus, must be received prior to the degree conferral date. For May graduation, this is the date all final grades are due by 10:00 a.m. (the Wednesday before Commencement). For December graduation, transcripts should be sent as soon as possible, but should be received by the first week of January and the off-campus course must end prior to December 31.

High school students seeking to transfer college-level coursework should refer to the transfer credit policy for eligible coursework and also the criteria for high school students here. A maximum of 32 credits (8 courses) of dual enrollment credit is permitted (excluding AP or IB exams for which there is no limit, but must be accompanied by the AP course listed on their high school transcript or completed prior to matriculation at Emmanuel) for courses for which a B (3.0) or better is earned and is posted on an official college transcript. Students may reference the Transfer Eligibility Course Search to review if their course has previously been reviewed for transfer credit. View the Search here. Students will receive an official review after depositing and declaring their intention to enroll at Emmanuel.

Mass Art does not participate in cross-registration over the summer. Thus, any course registrations at Mass Art would be as a non-matriculating student and the courses would come back to Emmanuel as transfer credit and an official transcript will be needed to post credit to the Emmanuel record.

There isn't a limit that is universal to all students.  Students should refer to the Study Off Campus Policy for their specific student population and program for the total number of courses that a student may transfer into Emmanuel.

Yes. It's important to complete and submit either the Study Off Campus Approval Form or the Study Abroad Course Approval Form regardless of whether the courses you intend to take are already approved.  You may be looking for a more specific approval, or the course may have changed since the last time it was reviewed. This is critically important for study abroad as well to review the total number of course credits and contact hours to ensure you are enrolling in the proper amount of credit abroad. Additionally, signing the form is the student acknowledgment of the transfer credit policy and process. 

Students may only receive credit for a course, or its equivalent, once. If a student wishes to repeat a course to increase their GPA or to earn the minimum required grade for a specific requirement, this is permissible, but the student will only receive credit for the higher graded course. Students should refer to the Credit Deficiency Removal section for the full policy and associated form. Students who complete courses that may viewed as equivalent, for instance at two different institutions, will only receive credit for one of the courses. With the exception of the Emmanuel in Leeds program, the transfer grade will not be posted to the Emmanuel transcript.

If a student is completing a course off campus to "replace" a course completed at Emmanuel, only the credit not the grade is posted to the Emmanuel transcript. However, because students can only receive credit for a course once, the credit from the original lower graded course will be removed, thus the grade associated with the course will no longer factor into the GPA.  Although the lower grade will no longer factor into the GPA, it will always remain on the transcript as it is a part of the student's academic record.


 

The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) is essentially half of US credits. Two ECTS credits is equivalent to one US semester credit. Thus, you may end up taking more classes abroad than you would at Emmanuel. While there are individual institutional exceptions, typically students must take 30 ECTS to transfer 16 credits back at Emmanuel. Because Emmanuel accepts courses that are 3 semester credits as 4 credits at Emmanuel, a 6 ECTS course is equivalent to 3 semester credits and will be accepted at Emmanuel as 4 credits. Similarly, a 7.5 or 8 ECTS course will transfer to Emmanuel as 4 credits. However, a 5 ECTS credit course is equivalent to 2.5 US semester credits. We will not round up a 2.5 credit course as 4 credits. Typically, if a student is completing courses at an institution under the ECTS credit system, where the student may register for courses with different ECTS amounts, we will indicate that the student must complete 30 ECTS to transfer 16 credits to Emmanuel and the credit to course distribution will be determined upon receipt of the final official transcript.