VACRAO Discussion Area

I am looking for suggestions how to properly award credit for courses with credit hours unequal to the credit hours of the equivalent courses at our institution. Due to the different education systems, this seems to happen often with our students who study abroad.

Before they go abroad, our students get approval from the various departments for the courses that will transfer. Typically, the departments fill in the form with the standard 3 hours credit. So then, when the student returns, having taken a full load of 15 hours at, for instance, Saint Andrews, he is awarded only 9 hours of credit at our school. It has been suggested that we award five credits for our three hour equivalent course. I wonder if you might have other suggestions.

Thank you for your time,

Dawn Congleton
Hampden-Sydney College

Rebecca:
At UVa, students are approved for study abroad programs on the presumption that they will be in a full-time program (at least for fall and spring terms) and will transfer back at least 12 credits.  If the credits at the host school don’t equate one-for-one with our credits, the practice is to award the equivalent number of UVa credits.  Thus, if 9 credits at another school equal 12 of our credits, we’d award a total of 12 transfer credits and apportion them between the various classes taken as best we can.  I think of the problem as being similar to accepting credits from a school on a quarter system.  If the credits were deemed equal to our own, and the student only took 9 credits (or, perhaps, only passed 9 credits), then we’d award just 9.
--Robert LeHeup