Pre-admission and transfer credit

Courses taken at any institution, including PSU, before the term of formal admission to a PSU graduate degree program are pre-admission credits. Courses taken at any other institution at any time are transfer credits. Transfer credits must be graduate credit taken at a regionally accredited institution and applicable to a graduate degree program without qualification at the originating institution.

A master’s student must earn a minimum of two-thirds of the credits required for the degree after formal admission to the graduate degree program at PSU and must earn a minimum of two-thirds of the credits required for the degree at PSU. Departments may have stricter limitations. Pre-admission and transfer credits for master’s degrees must meet all the following requirements: must be letter-graded B- or higher (pass or similar grading methods are not acceptable); must not be used for any other degree at any institution (except for dual master's degrees); must be no older than seven years old at the time the master’s degree is awarded; and must total no more than one third of the required credits for a master' degree program. Otherwise eligible PSU credits applied toward a completed graduate certificate can be applied toward a subsequent master's degree without counting toward the pre-admission limits. For master’s degrees, pre-admission credits taken at PSU are requested via a DARS exception submitted to the Graduate School. This request should be made soon after admission to the graduate program. Transfer courses from another regionally accredited institution are requested via the Proposed Transfer Credit form (GO-21M) submitted to the Graduate School. It is strongly suggested that this form be submitted early in the student’s program. (The M.S.W. program has specific transfer credit allowances resulting from accreditation requirements and inter-institutional agreements, but a minimum of 42 credits applied to the M.S.W. must be taken at PSU.)

For graduate certificates, two-thirds of the required credits, or 15 credits minimum, whichever is larger, must be taken at PSU. Individual programs may set higher minimums. Transfer credits for graduate certificates must be letter-graded B- or higher (pass or similar grading methods are not acceptable) and must be no older than seven years old at the time the graduate certificate is awarded. Transfer credits from other institutions must be approved by the graduate certificate program and the Graduate School using the Proposed Transfer Credit form (GO-21M). Although pre-admission limits do not apply, reserved credit limits do apply. Students are encouraged to apply for and be admitted to graduate certificate programs as early as possible.

For doctoral degrees, pre-admission and transfer limits are at the discretion of the individual doctoral programs. Transfer credits are requested via the Proposed Transfer Credit form (GO-21D) submitted to the Graduate School.

Approved graduate transfer courses from other institutions are not entered on PSU transcripts and are not considered in the computation of PSU cumulative graduate GPA. However, transfer courses are included in the approved program of study for all graduate certificate and degree programs and are used to calculate the program GPA, which must be 3.0 or higher in order to graduate.

Pre-admission and transfer credits from international institutions are subject to the same requirements and limitations. Requests for international pre-admission and transfer credits require additional documentation to facilitate verification of eligibility.