Transfer students

Transfer policies

The Faculty of Graduate studies makes some allowances for students to transfer course credits from other graduate programs at Dalhousie or from courses completed at other institutions. Below are guidelines for these situations and others.

Transfer credits

A transfer credit allows for courses completed outside of the student's program, normally at another institution, to be used as part of the student's degree requirements. Such courses cannot have been used for credit for another degree and cannot exceed 33 per cent of the student’s overall degree requirements at Dalhousie. This total of 33 per cent also includes any courses taken on Letter of Permission (see Section 7.6.6) and Advanced Placement.

Application for transfer credits must be made within the first term following admission and must be approved by the home department and the Faculty of Graduate Studies. An original transcript and course equivalency is required if the course was not completed at Dalhousie. In order to be eligible, courses must satisfy any time period restrictions that may apply.

Advanced Placement

Upon admission, a student may be granted advanced placement credits based on courses completed previously with content equivalent to a graduate course at Dalhousie University. Graduate courses that have not been counted towards a previous degree may be awarded transfer credit (see above).

For courses that have been counted towards a previous degree, advanced placement does not normally reduce the overall course requirements in the Dalhousie program, but it may replace one or more required courses (meaning, the student would still be required to complete the same number of credit hours, but would have the opportunity to take additional elective or ancillary courses).

Advanced placement must be approved by the academic unit and by the Faculty of Graduate Studies and must be clearly annotated on the student's Graduate Program requirement in the Graduate Student Information System (GSIS). Advanced placement courses are not noted on the student's Dalhousie transcript. Combined advanced placement, letter of permission, and transfer credits normally cannot exceed 33% of the program's overall course requirements.

Transferring from a Master's to a PhD Program

A few departments will admit a student holding a bachelor’s degree with first-class honours into a master's program and recommend him or her for transfer to the doctoral program. Also, in exceptional circumstances a student with a non-thesis master's degree of first-class standing (average course grade of A- or better) may be admitted into a thesis master's program with the possibility of transferring into a PhD program on the basis of outstanding academic and research potential.

Students who wish to transfer from a master's to a doctoral program should do so within the first five terms of initial registration. Such requests must be made prior to the term in which the transfer is to take effect.

See the Faculty of Graduate Studies website for more information about transfer credits.