Mar 28, 2024  
Undergraduate Catalog 
    
Undergraduate Catalog

Transfer Student Services


Charles W. Donaldson Student Services Center, Suite 218 | 501-916-3273 | fax: 501-916-3168ualr.edu/transfer

Transferring Credit to UA Little Rock

Core Transfer Reciprocity Policy

Transfer Credit Policies

Special Transfer Credit

Accreditation Requirements

Application of Transfer Credit 

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock welcomes transfer students and is committed to making their transition to campus and transfer of credit a smooth process. The Office of Transfer Student Services (OTSS) was established to expedite the articulation of general transfer credit and provide dynamic student service to meet the transfer credit evaluation needs of transfer students. Our main goal is to make transferring to UA Little Rock easier for students to accomplish and the transfer process easier to understand. We provide a friendly starting place for transfer students to connect with essential information and resources.

IMPORTANT NOTE: UA Little Rock cannot accurately evaluate transfer hours, advise, release financial aid funding for which students may be eligible, or guarantee registration in degree-appropriate courses until ALL final admission credentials have been received and processed. Students may receive an unofficial evaluation of general core curriculum transfer credits before admission to UA Little Rock by requesting an evaluation from the Office of Transfer Students Services (OTSS) online. Unofficial evaluations require the submission of transcripts to OTSS.

Transferring Credit to UA Little Rock

Credit can be transferred to UA Little Rock in a variety of ways, but please be aware that UA Little Rock does not accept the following types of credits:

  • Remedial/developmental/study skill courses. (These course(s) are posted to the UA Little Rock transcript but no credit hours are transferred.)
  • Courses marked “in progress.”
  • Courses from post-secondary institutions that do not have accredited or candidacy status in an institutionally or regionally accrediting association. 
  • Courses designated as credit/no credit, pass/fail, audit, or satisfactory.

Earlier attempts of a course repeated at a transfer college or university (for courses not otherwise designated as repeatable courses). Only the credit hours earned on the latest attempted course will transfer.

Transfer Credit Policies

Only credit hours earned at other institutionally or regionally accredited institutions will transfer and be posted on the UALR transcript. Grades and GPA do not transfer and are not calculated in the student’s GPA earned at UALR. However, all grades from all prior post-secondary institutions are calculated for awarding graduation honors.

“D” Transfer Policy

Only courses with grades of C or greater will transfer automatically; however, a student may request to transfer as many as 6 credit hours with a grade of D from any institutionally or regionally accredited college or university. Credit for the hours will be accepted as transfer credit if the course satisfies a degree program requirement and if the student would be allowed to earn a grade of “D” if the class was offered at UA Little Rock. A student may request a D credit transfer via the Non-Standard Credit Request form at any time before the awarding of an undergraduate degree. For more information on the transfer of D grades, please see UA Little Rock Policy 501.10.

Limitations on Transfer Credit

There is no limit on the number of credits that a student may transfer to UA Little Rock, but students graduating with four-year degrees (baccalaureate) must earn 30 hours in residence at UA Little Rock.

Students graduating with two-year degrees (associate) must earn 15 hours of credit in residence at UA Little Rock. Please note that some degree programs may have restrictions on the number of upper-level courses that may be used to satisfy major or minor program requirements. For certain degree programs, some credits may not be applied to satisfy a degree requirement due to when the course was earned or content changes over time.

Transfer Students and Undergraduate Catalog Choice

Transfer Students may choose to follow the requirements of an older undergraduate catalog of requirements at UA Little Rock. A student transferring to UA Little Rock from institutionally or regionally accredited four-year institutions, community colleges, or junior colleges with 13 or more hours of accepted credit may graduate under the provisions of a UA Little Rock Undergraduate Catalog in effect during any semester of the previous five years in which they were enrolled at the other institution.

Note: At no time may a student follow the provisions of a UA Little Rock Undergraduate Catalog that is more than five years old at the time of the student’s entry into UA Little Rock.

Accreditation Requirements

UA Little Rock recognizes academic credits earned at other institutionally or regionally accredited post-secondary institutions

Transcripts from institutions not accredited by the institutional or regional accrediting associations will be handled at the discretion of the Registrar. Students presenting such transcripts may appeal for consideration of credit transfer to the Registrar. Only official transcripts including complete records of the courses taken and sent to UA Little Rock by the institution(s) attended will be accepted for evaluation. The Registrar may also request that a course description or syllabus be presented.

Core Transfer Reciprocity Policy

  1. Transfer students from public Arkansas institutions shall be deemed to have met all UA Little Rock core requirements and shall not be required to complete any additional core courses if they transfer in a completed designated transfer degree (an AA, AS, or AAT) or 60 completed hours that include 35 hours of the state minimum core.
  2. Transfer students from public Arkansas institutions shall be deemed to have met a specific core requirement and shall not be required to complete an additional core course for that requirement if they transfer in a course included in the Arkansas Course Transfer System (ACTS) that matches a course in the UA Little Rock core.
  3. Transfer students from public Arkansas institutions, including students transferring between UA Little Rock colleges, shall be deemed to have met the requirements of a specific core curricular area and shall not be required to complete an additional core course in that area if they transfer to a course taken to meet a core curricular area requirement at the sending institution or UA Little Rock college.
  4. Transfer students from institutionally or regionally accredited out-of-state or private institutions, including those transferring in completed associate degrees, who have completed 35 credit hours of coursework in the following distribution shall be deemed to have met the core requirement in that core curricular area and shall only be required to take coursework from the area(s) they are missing:
    • English/Communications: 6-9 hours
    • Math: 3 hours
    • Science: 8 hours
    • Fine Arts/Humanities: 6-9 hours
    • Social Sciences: 9-12 hours, including 3 hours of US History or American National Government
  5. A “designated transfer degree” is an Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, or Associate of Arts in Teaching – or any future associate degree program approved by ADHE–that includes a 35-hour state core curriculum.
  6. “Core curricular area” refers to one of the five categories established in the State Minimum Core Curriculum by Act 98 of 1989: English/Communications, Math, Science, Fine Arts/Humanities, and Social Sciences.
  7. This policy shall not keep individual programs from requiring students to complete specific core courses as (1) degree program requirements, (2) prerequisites for degree program requirements, or (3) licensing requirements.

Special Transfer Credit

Transferring Credit by Examination

Students who take CLEP, AP, DANTES, International Baccalaureate, and Excelsior College Examinations must have official score reports sent directly to the UA Little Rock Office of Testing Services for evaluation. Credit obtained through examination is recorded as approved hours on the student’s official transcript without a grade. Course credit from examinations will not count toward residency requirements or GPA calculation. A maximum of 30 hours may be awarded for all forms of Credit by Examination. Because there are a variety of ways whereby a student may achieve credit for a specific course (for instance (IB, AP, CLEP, placement test, concurrent, transfer course, UA Little Rock course) under no circumstances should a student receive multiple credits for the same course. Additional information may be obtained from Testing Services by calling (501) 916-3198 or on the Testing Services website.

Transferring Military Service Credit

Via a unanimous vote in 2008, the Faculty Senate approved accepting military credit certified by ACE as equivalent to college-level courses for transfer to UA Little Rock. Official transcripts must be provided for evaluation and should be requested based on the branch of service (Joint Services Transcript). Military transcripts should be submitted to UA Little Rock’s Office of Admission, which after document imaging, will be forwarded to the Office of Transfer Services to evaluate for the awarding of potential core academic credit. Please note that UA Little Rock does not automatically transfer military credits based on evaluations by other universities. Students should meet with their major degree program advisor to review the application of military service credits for meeting degree program requirements.

Transferring Technical and/or Vocational Credit

UA Little Rock does not automatically transfer technical and/or vocational credits from other universities. Students with technical and/or vocational credits who would like this credit considered for application toward a specific degree program may consult with their departmental advisor after officially declaring a major. Any transfer of technical and/or vocational credit requires the signature of a departmental advisor on a Request to Receive Credit for Technical and/or Military Credit form to be submitted to the Office of Records and Registration for processing.

Transferring International Credit

Students who have earned college-level credit at an international college or university should submit officially evaluated post-secondary school transcripts to the Office of Admissions (If obtained from a foreign institution, transcripts must be evaluated and translated by International Education Evaluations, Inc. (foreigntranscripts.com) or a NACES approved agencies (naces.org) with a document by document/course by course evaluation). International transfer students must meet additional admission requirements as detailed in the Office of Admissions portion of this catalog.

After international transfer credits are verified and posted to the UA Little Rock transcript, and once all admission credentials have been received and processed, the student’s file will be forwarded to the Office of Transfer Student Services to evaluate the application of Fordits.  For international transfer credits to be articulated, the student must provide English translations of course descriptions to the Office of Transfer Student Services.

Transferring Occupational Programs Credit

UA Little Rock will accept up to 16 hours of lower-level undesignated elective credit for occupational programs from institutionally or regionally accredited institutions. Students to whom this might apply should consult with their major degree program advisor to see if this is an option for them, and submit transcripts to the Office of Records and Registration (501) 916-3110. An evaluation of credit will not be made until after a student is enrolled at UA Little Rock.

Transferring Credit after Enrollment at UA Little Rock

UA Little Rock students may choose to enroll at another institutionally or regionally accredited institution while attending or intending to return to UA Little Rock as degree-seeking students. To ensure that the credit received elsewhere meets UA Little Rock degree program requirements, students are strongly advised to consult with their academic advisor (if declared majors) or if they intend to take core curriculum courses at another college or university before the declaration of a major, students should consult with the Office of Transfer Student Services at (501) 916-3273. International students should always consult with the Office of International Student Services before taking any courses offered by an institution other than UA Little Rock after they have enrolled at UA Little Rock.

Application of Transfer Credit to Degree Program Requirements

Transfer students must be academically advised before registering for classes. Visit UA Little Rock Advising to find an academic advisor. Students may potentially enroll in UA Little Rock courses before the final transcript credit articulation is completed. Transfer credit articulation is an ongoing process until all final transcripts have been submitted. Because transfer credit articulation impacts course placement and registration, transfer students with a provisional admission status may need registration overrides to register for certain courses. The process of transfer credit articulation can take several weeks to process after a student has been admitted to UA Little Rock

The Arkansas Course Transfer System (ACTS) contains information about the transferability of courses within Arkansas public colleges and universities. Students are guaranteed the transfer of applicable credits and equitable treatment in the application of credits for admissions and degree requirements. Students may complete specified General Education courses anywhere in the public system as well as many courses in the degree/major that have been pre-identified for transfer. We hope this site is helpful for students, parents, and campus personnel. This system is designed to assist in planning from the high school level through the adult workforce.

The Transfer Equivalency Guide (TEG) for Arkansas and regional schools is available on the Records and Registration website and includes upper-level (junior and senior) courses that are not part of ACTS.  

Note: If a particular institution of higher learning does not appear in the TEG, that does not mean that UA Little Rock will not accept coursework from that institution. Also, if an institution appears in the guide, but the particular course you are seeking is only listed as being accepted for general elective credit, please consult further with your academic advisor. One often misunderstood point is that a given course may be accepted toward the total hours required for a degree at UA Little Rock, but may not be accepted as meeting a specific course requirement of the core curriculum or for a major or minor.