Pre-Admission Graduate Credits

A program may accept graduate coursework completed at another accredited college or university toward meeting its degree requirements. Official transcripts must be submitted to Graduate Admission from the records office where the credits were earned. A student may transfer graduate credits earned at another accredited college or university only if all of the following requirements are satisfied.

• The student has graduate degree-seeking status at Saint Mary’s College.
• The courses taken were graduate courses that are appropriate for their graduate program at Saint Mary’s College.
• Grades of B (3.0/4.0 scale) or better were achieved.
• Generally, the courses to be transferred were completed within a five-year period prior to admission to a graduate program at Saint Mary’s College.
• The transfer is approved by the Graduate Program Director of the student’s intended program.

Typically, no more than six semester graduate credit hours may be transferred into a Saint Mary’s College graduate program. Additional graduate credit hours may be transferred by students who already have an earned graduate degree. A student pursuing a master’s degree at Saint Mary’s may transfer up to 9 credit hours; A student pursuing a doctoral degree at Saint Mary’s may transfer up to 50% of the total credits required for the Saint Mary’s degree. Transfer students who join a previous cohort will be charged according to the tuition rate applied to that cohort.

Grades for accepted transfer courses are not included in the student’s Saint Mary’s GPA. Certain types of graduate credits are not accepted for transfer to Saint Mary’s College graduate programs. In particular, graduate programs do not accept credit awarded

• for life experience;
• for courses taken at non-collegiate institutions (e.g., government agencies, corporations, and industrial firms); or
• by post-secondary institutions that lack candidate status or accreditation by a regional accrediting association, or some equivalent international accreditation.

All transfer credit is subject to review and approval, at outlined above. Transfer students who join a previous cohort will be charged according to the tuition rate applied to that cohort.

Pre-Admission Graduate Credits Earned by Saint Mary’s Undergraduate Students

Saint Mary’s graduate courses completed while a student is an undergraduate at Saint Mary’s may be accepted into a graduate program. The following requirements need to
be satisfied:

• The student has graduate degree-seeking status at Saint Mary’s College.
• The courses taken were graduate courses that are appropriate for their graduate program at Saint Mary’s College.
• Grades of B (3.0/4.0 scale) or better were achieved.
• Generally, the courses to be transferred were completed within a five-year period prior to admission to a graduate program at Saint Mary’s College.
• The transfer is approved by the Graduate Program Director of the student’s intended program.

No more than six semester graduate credit hours may be transferred into a Saint Mary’s College graduate program. (Note: since students participating in 4+1 programs are admitted into a Saint Mary’s graduate program before completing their bachelor’s degree, the number of graduate hours taken in their program between the time of admission into the 4+1 program and the completion of the baccalaureate degree is not limited by this policy.)

Grades for accepted transfer courses are included in the student’s Saint Mary’s graduate GPA.