Students looking to transfer credits from an online community college to a four-year online institution are definitely not alone.
Among Arizona State University’s online undergraduates, roughly 80 percent have earned enough credits to be considered transfer students, and at the Pennsylvania State University–World Campus, about 90 percent of online undergraduates have earned credits elsewhere, officials say. Some, though not all, of those students are coming from online community college programs.
However, the online transfer process can be just as fraught with obstacles as it is for face-to-face students. Given that, here are four tips to make the journey as stress-free as possible.
[Get four-year credits with online community college classes.]
1. Find out about articulation agreements: Just like in face-to-face programs, online community college students are likely to have less difficulty transferring credits if they continue their education at a four-year institution that has an articulation agreement in their degree program.
These agreements establish how credits from an associate degree program will be automatically applied when a student continues into a bachelor’s program in the same field at the partnering four-year school.
Generally, existing agreements between two face-to-face institutions will also apply for students in those schools’ online programs, says Karen Pollack, the assistant vice provost for undergraduate online and blended programs at Penn State World Campus.
Online community colleges may also have agreements with four-year institutions that aren’t close geographically, Pollack says. For example, Penn State’s World Campus has a partnership with California’s Coastline Community College that allows Coastline’s students to progress from an associate degree to a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
2. Narrow down potential choices: Online community college students might find the transfer process more difficult because they’re less likely to be bound by geography when choosing their next institution.
“The problem is that you have more options, and so it gets more difficult to do the planning,” says Russell Poulin, the director of policy and analysis at WCET, a cooperative that pushes for the effective use of technology in higher education.
The good news is that online students who are proactive about researching their options may be able to prioritize their top choices more quickly, because they are less affected by the quality-of-life decisions that require a campus visit.
“For the student that is continuing online, they don’t have to worry about housing or parking or those type of questions, so they would have a little bit less research to do,” says David Hall, the director of academic advisement at Rio Salado Community College.
[Learn more about how to transfer academic credits to online programs.]
3. Understand advising options: The more easily online students can connect with advising services at their future institution, the more smoothly they’ll find the transition, experts say.
Online community college students shouldn’t assume those services will be as easily accessible at their prospective transfer program.
“Really check into how the online services are available and how those work, because they’re different everywhere,” says Pat James, the executive director of the California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative.
Prospective students may be able to receive an academic pre-evaluation, even though such services generally aren’t advertised, says Joe Chapman, the director of student services at Arizona State University Online.
This involves a personal review of the applicant’s community college transcript that results in an unofficial estimate of how many credits may be applied to a given degree program. ASU Online has five employees devoted primarily to this effort, says Chapman, who adds that similar services are often available at other institutions.
Chapman stresses that students know the verdicts of pre-evaluations are not guarantees and may even be slightly pessimistic in their predictions.
“We also want to be conservative and err on the side of caution so that we’re not over-promising and under-delivering,” he says.
4. Be prepared for unforeseen obstacles: Students may not be able to anticipate all the challenges they will face during the transfer process, and should be prepared to be surprised, experts say.
[Ask these five questions about online community college courses.]
As one example, Poulin says students in competency-based community college programs may find their prospective four-year school has difficulty interpreting that experience in a course-based system.
Hall, with Rio Salado, says he has seen students get fooled by simple issues of nomenclature. For example, students may be told that their credits will transfer to their prospective institution, only to find they are recognized as general credits, but not for a particular degree program.
James, with the California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative, says she has seen students encounter difficulty having all their credits recognized because they technically took community college courses from two different partner institutions.
In any of those situations, Hall says, a student’s best friend is time.
“The sooner they research their options the better,” he says. “And again, we’re here to help them with that.”
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4 Steps to Transfer Online Associate Credits to a 4-Year Online Program originally appeared on usnews.com