Credit Guidelines
Use these guidelines when considering what courses to take outside of Wellesley College.
If accepted, an estimation of your transfer credits will be included in your admit letter. Neither the Registrar nor the Office of Admission will supply an estimation before that point. Prospective transfers can get a sense of what courses will transfer by visiting our Course Catalog. The College will only consider awarding transfer credit for courses similar to those taught at Wellesley.
If you are applying from an international institution, you can request a credit evaluation of your previously completed university courses following admission and arrival on campus in the fall. Some of your earlier academic work may be applied toward the fulfillment of Wellesley's requirements. Credit will be granted only for those courses determined by the College's registrar to be comparable to courses in Wellesley's curriculum. In order to gain credit for previous coursework, you must first successfully complete one year of study at Wellesley.
Courses that may transfer
- Economics from a community college.
- Lab science from a community college, with department approval.
- Single-semester introductory or intermediate language course. Note: These will not qualify for transfer until the second semester of that level is complete.
- Freshman seminars (syllabus required for evaluation).
Courses for which credit cannot be transferred
- Courses that are not classified as liberal arts and sciences, and are not offered at Wellesley.
- Courses graded pass/fail, unless you submit a letter from the professor who taught the course, stating that you would have earned a grade of C or higher.
- Courses with a grade of C- or below.
- Mathematics subjects prior to calculus (pre-calculus, college algebra, trigonometry).
- Business (management, finance)—except for one accounting course.
- Communications, including speech.
- Computer science courses that cover microcomputer applications or non-programming topics.
- Criminal justice (to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis).
- Journalism.
- Physical education or dance, lab-only, and nonacademic studio art.
- Distance or online learning.
- Individual study or self-paced courses.
- Internships, practica, workshops, how-to courses, or experiential learning.
Additional considerations
- One (1) unit of Wellesley College work typically equals 4 semester-hours or 6 quarter-hours. That means that if you attended an institution where you took 5 courses each semester worth 3 credits each, each course could transfer as .8 or .75 units of Wellesley College work, depending on the total number of credit hours needed for the degree.
- Students may transfer in a maximum of 16 units, only 4 units of which may be earned in summer sessions.
- Distribution requirements (except for writing) must be fulfilled by taking or transferring in one (1) whole unit of coursework.
