How difficult are course transfers? (1 Viewer)

[Life'sHard]

Say you want to move from say a business course into a engineering course for example how difficult would that be to do?

 

[jimmysmith560]

That would mainly depend on your marks and GPA/WAM that you have achieved throughout the time you were enrolled in a Bachelor of Business as well as how long you have been studying this degree (e.g. one semester? one year? other?). Generally speaking, your results in your initial university course are used to determine whether you are eligible to transfer to a Bachelor of Engineering and this would depend on any specified results/mark ranges, which may vary depending on the university. If you haven't been studying a particular degree for long enough that your university marks/results can be considered in terms of assessing your request for a transfer, then the university may use your ATAR as a determinant of your suitability for this transfer. In the case of your specific example, transferring from a Bachelor of Business to a Bachelor of Engineering also implies that you will likely have to start your new degree from the very beginning due to the lack of relationship between the units of both degrees, which prevents you from benefiting from any credit transfer/advanced standing. Lastly, I believe difficulty may also be impacted by whether the transfer you wish to put into effect is done within the same university (i.e. internal transfer) or whether you wish to transfer to a different degree at a different university. In such a case, the former may be easier to achieve than the latter.

I hope this helps!

 

[CM_Tutor]

I agree with much of what @jimmysmith560 says, but would like to add a few thoughts from personal experience or the experiences of people I know.

1. Results in the university courses undertaken in the first degree program will be somewhere between very important and absolutely critical.
2. They are important for demonstrating (a) the capacity to study and perform well at university-level study, and (b) the character to work diligently towards a degree that may not have been a first choice.
3. On the topic of marks, everyone starting university needs to appreciate that marking is not like at high school. Grade bands are usually high distinction (85+), distinction (75 to 84), credit (65 to 74), and pass (50 to 64) and that (typically) at least half of all students who complete a unit of student will receive a pass. This is often spread over the cohort for all units at a single stage, so if subject X has an advanced stream, a by-invitation-only extra advanced stream, a regular stream, and maybe an intro stream, then the advanced streams will likely have a higher rate of above-pass results and the intro stream a larger proportion of pass results. D and HD results are not easy to achieve, being perhaps 15% of the results for all the students who pass. "High marks" at university are not the same as high marks at school.
4. They extent of relationship between the courses will help. For example, someone seeking to transfer to medicine will find it easier from a science program with biology subjects than from an arts program in philosophy and ancient Greek.
5. Especially after one semester (and hence less so after one year), whether you could have entered the new course directly will be considered. For example, transferring from combined commerce / law to a commerce degree is likely to be easier (as the candidate had already achieved entry to commerce from ATAR).
6. Transfer of credit is a pain in the posterior. For example, I know of a transfer from a science / law combination where science allows some out-of-faculty units to be credited, but law disallows credit of law units to non-law degrees. So, the candidate needed 144 credit points for a pass degree in science but couldn't include any of the credit points earned in law units despite the science faculty rules permitting their inclusion. However, the law unit credit points and results were included in the calculation of a WAM (to the student's disadvantage as the marks were lower than were achieved in the science units that replaced them).
7. Each faculty has their own rules and assuming that those are coherent between faculties or that faculties play well together is somewhere between problematic and flawed and even heroic. Administrative staff are meant to take pressure off academic staff by relieving the latter of work that is a distraction from their core research and teaching activities. In effect, however, the administrative staff have created policy and procedures that mean that the tail can wag the dog more often than anyone might expect. It is not always the case that academics are effectively in charge unless a decision can be elevated to (say) a faculty dean / pro-dean, etc... and this may need academic support from further down the food chain.
8. However, transfer can be portrayed by administrators as much more difficult than it actually is, and getting a clear answer to questions can also be difficult. In one case, for a within-faculty transfer from a lower to a higher program (at graduate level), the candidate approached the faculty simply seeking the form to fill out to request the transfer. After being told that it was not a routine request and admission to the higher course was limited and lots of waffle that didn't answer the question of what form was needed, the candidate suspected the administrator was hinting that marks in completed units would be important but wouldn't say so. The candidate knew the academic in charge of the stream in the higher course that the transfer was to and was confident it would be approved / supported, but was stuck because the administrator was the gate keeper for starting the process. Finally, the administrator said he would need to check something and stepped away. He returned several minutes later with the student's academic transcript which showed high distinction and distinction level results in every course in the faculty. Without commenting on marks, he asked the student to put a brief note at the bottom saying what transfer was sought and to sign it, and was then assured that it would go to the stream coordinator who would surely approve it and then everything would be processed. No form. No procedure except that brief note. I concluded that the only thing that mattered was that the results were strong.
9. Tensions / struggles also exist between academic staff, even academics within departments. I know of one student who missed time due to serious illness and, on return, spoke to the Head of School about practical coursework, followed the directions given, and then had to fight about final results after the semester was over when the year coordinator intervened and argued that they would have given different directions and that the grading should be done based on what the year coordinator would have said, despite the student having done what the Head of School instructed.
10. Transfer between univeristies and with different degree programs is possible, even after one semester - I know of a transfer from USyd Science to Macquareie Uni Education after one semester.
11. Demand levels for the new course matters. Transferring from science to veterinary medicine is difficult even with high marks as the number of places in veterinary courses is limited by the capacity to undertake practical activities. In effect, transferring in is close to 1 to 1 for every student who chooses to stop studying or transfer out.

To anyone who achieves an ATAR that is below what is needed for entry, I say:

1. Not getting a high enough ATAR does not at all mean being unable to handle the work in the course. ATARs are demand driven. From an academic / intellectual perspective, anyone with a 90+ ATAR is certainly capable of the cognitive requirements to study medicine, yet the cut off (because of demand) is much higher than 90. This doesn't mean that huge numbers will be able to transfer, nor that everyone with a 90+ ATAR is suited for medicine. My results were sufficient to enter medicine but that doesn't mean I would have been suited to studying medicine. The ATAR is meant to create a fair playing field for those competing for limited places in university studies, and it creates a ranking order that is, in effect, a queue. The fact that all the places in course X have been taken when candidate Y reaches the front of the queue does not mean that Y is unsuited to X, or incapable of studying X - in fact, Y may be better suited than some of those who were admitted because they were further to the front of the queue. So, PLEASE, don't think of the ATAR as some judgement on you or your capabilities. It is a system for regulating university entry where demand for places is greater than the supply of places. It is not perfect, it could be made more suitable (for example, by looking at whether a person's individual strengths align with the course being sought) but would then be more complicated. Think of it instead as the system that we are all stuck with. Everyone reading this is far more than a single number that has been / will be hung on us as an ATAR.
2. Universities are well aware of the flaws in the system and will try to facilitate transfers knowing that some people seeking to transfer are well suited to the course they seek, and knowing that attrition is high in first year. They also know that COVID has f***ed over the 2021 cohort and that alternative pathways will be popular and necessary and irregular situations means the HSC portrait of an individual is potentially less reliable than usual.
3. There are always alternatives if the ATAR route is unproductive or if it channels you in a direction different from your goal. Be strategic and look for a pathway that is in the right general direction, even if that means a different university or a non-ATAR pathway.
4. Despite everything I've said above, the universities and even the administrations do try to do the right thing. Just be aware that there is plenty of bureaucracy and adapting yourself to the system is much more likely to be fruitful than trying to fight against it. If you do need to fight, choose your battles wisely and seek allies.

Ok, that's more than enough for one post! Feel free to post questions / ask for clarification, etc.

 

[Life'sHard]

That would mainly depend on your marks and GPA/WAM that you have achieved throughout the time you were enrolled in a Bachelor of Business as well as how long you have been studying this degree (e.g. one semester? one year? other?). Generally speaking, your results in your initial university course are used to determine whether you are eligible to transfer to a Bachelor of Engineering and this would depend on any specified results/mark ranges, which may vary depending on the university. If you haven't been studying a particular degree for long enough that your university marks/results can be considered in terms of assessing your request for a transfer, then the university may use your ATAR as a determinant of your suitability for this transfer. In the case of your specific example, transferring from a Bachelor of Business to a Bachelor of Engineering also implies that you will likely have to start your new degree from the very beginning due to the lack of relationship between the units of both degrees, which prevents you from benefiting from any credit transfer/advanced standing. Lastly, I believe difficulty may also be impacted by whether the transfer you wish to put into effect is done within the same university (i.e. internal transfer) or whether you wish to transfer to a different degree at a different university. In such a case, the former may be easier to achieve than the latter.

I hope this helps!

I agree with much of what @jimmysmith560 says, but would like to add a few thoughts from personal experience or the experiences of people I know.

1. Results in the university courses undertaken in the first degree program will be somewhere between very important and absolutely critical.
2. They are important for demonstrating (a) the capacity to study and perform well at university-level study, and (b) the character to work diligently towards a degree that may not have been a first choice.
3. On the topic of marks, everyone starting university needs to appreciate that marking is not like at high school. Grade bands are usually high distinction (85+), distinction (75 to 84), credit (65 to 74), and pass (50 to 64) and that (typically) at least half of all students who complete a unit of student will receive a pass. This is often spread over the cohort for all units at a single stage, so if subject X has an advanced stream, a by-invitation-only extra advanced stream, a regular stream, and maybe an intro stream, then the advanced streams will likely have a higher rate of above-pass results and the intro stream a larger proportion of pass results. D and HD results are not easy to achieve, being perhaps 15% of the results for all the students who pass. "High marks" at university are not the same as high marks at school.
4. They extent of relationship between the courses will help. For example, someone seeking to transfer to medicine will find it easier from a science program with biology subjects than from an arts program in philosophy and ancient Greek.
5. Especially after one semester (and hence less so after one year), whether you could have entered the new course directly will be considered. For example, transferring from combined commerce / law to a commerce degree is likely to be easier (as the candidate had already achieved entry to commerce from ATAR).
6. Transfer of credit is a pain in the posterior. For example, I know of a transfer from a science / law combination where science allows some out-of-faculty units to be credited, but law disallows credit of law units to non-law degrees. So, the candidate needed 144 credit points for a pass degree in science but couldn't include any of the credit points earned in law units despite the science faculty rules permitting their inclusion. However, the law unit credit points and results were included in the calculation of a WAM (to the student's disadvantage as the marks were lower than were achieved in the science units that replaced them).
7. Each faculty has their own rules and assuming that those are coherent between faculties or that faculties play well together is somewhere between problematic and flawed and even heroic. Administrative staff are meant to take pressure off academic staff by relieving the latter of work that is a distraction from their core research and teaching activities. In effect, however, the administrative staff have created policy and procedures that mean that the tail can wag the dog more often than anyone might expect. It is not always the case that academics are effectively in charge unless a decision can be elevated to (say) a faculty dean / pro-dean, etc... and this may need academic support from further down the food chain.
8. However, transfer can be portrayed by administrators as much more difficult than it actually is, and getting a clear answer to questions can also be difficult. In one case, for a within-faculty transfer from a lower to a higher program (at graduate level), the candidate approached the faculty simply seeking the form to fill out to request the transfer. After being told that it was not a routine request and admission to the higher course was limited and lots of waffle that didn't answer the question of what form was needed, the candidate suspected the administrator was hinting that marks in completed units would be important but wouldn't say so. The candidate knew the academic in charge of the stream in the higher course that the transfer was to and was confident it would be approved / supported, but was stuck because the administrator was the gate keeper for starting the process. Finally, the administrator said he would need to check something and stepped away. He returned several minutes later with the student's academic transcript which showed high distinction and distinction level results in every course in the faculty. Without commenting on marks, he asked the student to put a brief note at the bottom saying what transfer was sought and to sign it, and was then assured that it would go to the stream coordinator who would surely approve it and then everything would be processed. No form. No procedure except that brief note. I concluded that the only thing that mattered was that the results were strong.
9. Tensions / struggles also exist between academic staff, even academics within departments. I know of one student who missed time due to serious illness and, on return, spoke to the Head of School about practical coursework, followed the directions given, and then had to fight about final results after the semester was over when the year coordinator intervened and argued that they would have given different directions and that the grading should be done based on what the year coordinator would have said, despite the student having done what the Head of School instructed.
10. Transfer between univeristies and with different degree programs is possible, even after one semester - I know of a transfer from USyd Science to Macquareie Uni Education after one semester.
11. Demand levels for the new course matters. Transferring from science to veterinary medicine is difficult even with high marks as the number of places in veterinary courses is limited by the capacity to undertake practical activities. In effect, transferring in is close to 1 to 1 for every student who chooses to stop studying or transfer out.

Thanks! Very insightful comments.