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Transfer Credit

Transfer Credit
Pre-Matriculation Transfer Credit
Post-Matriculation Transfer Credit
Transfer Credit Limits
Semester Hour/Quarter Hour Conversions
Advanced Placement for First-Year Students

Principles and Rules

General Principles

Transfer credit to Trinity College is considered from two categories of institutions:

  • Regionally accredited U.S. institutions of higher education

  • Liberal arts universities of other countries that are recognized by their appropriate national educational authorities

Trinity College evaluates credit for transfer according to the following principles:

  • Course work accepted for transfer must parallel Trinity’s own course offerings and/or be liberal arts in nature.

  • Credit is transferred on a course-by-course basis.

  • Courses must include exposure to the bases in literary, philosophical, interpretive, or scientific understandings.

  • The faculty reserves the right to examine a student on any work presented for transfer before allowing credit.

Pre-Matriculation and Post-Matriculation Credit

There are two categories of transfer credit that Trinity College evaluates:

  • Pre-matriculation credit refers to college-level credit that a student earns prior to enrolling as a student at Trinity College.

  • Post-matriculation credit refers to college-level credit that a student earns at a different institution after matriculating as a student at Trinity College.

General Limits

The general limits for awarding transfer credit are:

  • For students matriculating prior to the fall of 2021, a maximum of 18 course credits taken at other institutions prior to matriculation at Trinity may be transferred to Trinity.

  • For students matriculating in the fall of 2021 or after, a maximum of 17.5 credits (including a maximum of 1.5 co-curricular credits) taken at other institutions prior to matriculation at Trinity may be transferred to Trinity.

Non-Transferable Credit

Trinity College will NOT grant transfer credit for the following coursework:

  • Courses that primarily focus on the acquisition of technical skills related to professional training such as business, management, marketing, advertising, public relations, crafts, public speaking, cooking, interior decorating, fashion design, and professionally oriented courses in law and medicine. Examples of other courses that are not transferable to the College include English as a second language, credit by examination, CLEP (College Level Examination Program) credit, ROTC courses, military courses, and correspondence courses.

  • Courses taken online, via distance education, or through other electronic means unless the course is offered synchronously online during summer and January terms. Courses delivered asynchronously are never accepted for transfer credit.

  • Courses that duplicate content for which the student has already earned credit at Trinity

  • Courses taken to fulfill requirements for either secondary school graduation or graduate or professional degrees

  • Physical education courses for students who matriculated from Fall 2021 and thereafter, and credit for intercollegiate athletics

  • Courses that are only graded on a basis of Pass/Fail, Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory, Credit/No Credit, and the like, unless the grade earned is certified by the host school/program as equivalent to a C- or better

  • Courses for which the student earned less than a C- (70). Work from foreign universities must be assessed to be equivalent to a C- or better according to accepted grade conversion scales to earn credit.

Discipline-Specific Rules

The following rules and procedures concerning restrictions or conditions for transfer credit for courses in several disciplines also apply:

  • Accounting: A maximum of 2 course credits in general introductory coursework will be accepted.

  • Computer science: Only 0.5 course credit is awarded for a programming course valued at 3 or 4 semester hours elsewhere, and 1 course credit is the maximum that will be awarded for programming courses.

  • Economics: Students who transfer both introductory macroeconomics and introductory microeconomics may not enroll in Economics 101 (Principles of Economics) at Trinity College. Students who transfer in either introductory macroeconomics or introductory microeconomics may enroll in Economics 101 at Trinity College but will receive 0.5 course credit for the transferred course.

  • Education: Many “practical” courses are acceptable, but such courses as “Teaching Crafts” are not.

  • English/writing and rhetoric: A maximum of 2 course credits in introductory expository writing courses will be accepted.

  • Filmmaking: A maximum of 2 course credits will be accepted.

  • Journalism: A maximum of 2 course credits in journalism courses emphasizing writing will be accepted.

  • Languages: A lower-level course in a language cannot be transferred after the crediting of a higher-level course in the same language.

  • Mathematics: Courses at the calculus level or higher will be accepted; courses of a lower level or those in algebra, trigonometry, pre-calculus, geometry, or statistics will be reviewed by the chair of mathematics to determine their eligibility for credit at Trinity College. A lower-level course in mathematics cannot be transferred after the crediting of a higher-level mathematics course.

  • Physical education: For students matriculated prior to the fall of 2021, only courses similar to those taught at Trinity will be transferred. Credit for intercollegiate sports will not be transferred.

  • Studio arts: A student desiring credit for courses in the craft disciplines (those using fibers, metals, or clay) must receive the written approval of the director of studio arts before enrolling.