Thinking about Boston University? Begin by submitting your BU application and sending all required high school and college transcripts. Below is an overview of key information for transfer applicants.
Transfer Student vs. First-Year Student
Apply as a transfer student if you have completed the equivalent of a US secondary school education and will have at least one full-time semester (12 or more credits) as a degree candidate at another college or university.
If you are currently in a US high school and are part of a dual enrollment program, you should apply as a first-year student.
Syllabus Submission:
To evaluate your courses for transfer credit, we need a complete syllabus for each course you want reviewed, including courses you are currently taking.
Syllabi are the packets professors typically hand out during the first week of the course. They are different from course descriptions as well as transcripts. They include an overall description of the course, course objectives/goals, assignments, lab components, grade breakdown and a daily or weekly schedule of material covered in the course. Providing full syllabi helps Department Evaluators determine whether a course is equivalent to a BU offering and whether it qualifies for transfer credit.
Please refer to Transferology to see courses that have been previously transferred into BU. If your courses appear in the database, you do not need to submit syllabi for those courses. However, for all courses not in the database, you will need to submit complete syllabi for evaluation.
If you took a corresponding lab with a lecture (common with science courses), please be sure to submit separate syllabi for the lecture and the lab.
If you cannot obtain your syllabi, please first contact the course instructor or the department office to request a copy. If those options are unsuccessful, you may submit a current syllabus from a professor who is teaching the same course, but the course title and course code on the syllabus must match what appears on your transcript.
How it Works:
If a course has not been previously approved, a complete syllabus is needed for review. Each course syllabus is sent to a designated faculty/staff member within the Department in the BU school or college that offers a similar course. This means your syllabi might go to a number of different departments, including some outside the school or college to which you applied.
The faculty review each course syllabus individually to determine if it’s equivalent to any course at Boston University.
Once a decision has been made on transferability, the results are then returned to the Registrar or International Admissions and processed to your student record.
For more information on how to apply to Boston University, please visit Boston University Admissions.