Concordia University accepts credits from colleges and universities that are regionally accredited, and the Registrar’s office is responsible for reviewing transcripts and for applying the accepted transfer credits to your student record. The initial evaluation of your transcripts will review your previous work to see which courses might cover Concordia’s general education requirements. Once we have designated which courses cover each requirement, we will then add the course information to your unofficial transcript. All accepted credits that do not cover a specific general education requirement will count toward your elective credits. Concordia only allows for 90 credits to transfer and count toward your degree.
Transferring Credit FAQs
Regionally accredited means that the higher education institution is accredited by one of the six following accrediting associations:
- North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
- New England Association of Schools and Colleges
- Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
- Middle States Commission on Higher Education
- Southern Association of College and Schools Commission on Colleges
- Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Yes! Transfer students who have completed the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum or an Associate of Arts degree from an accredited institution are considered to have met Concordia’s general education requirements with the exception of the Theology requirement, which must be completed at CSP.
Concordia also accepts individual goal areas completed within the MnTC even if you didn’t complete the entire program.
Concordia has several transfer guides for many of the community colleges in the twin cities area which list the pre-approved courses that will cover our general education requirements. View the list of transfer guides.
Once you have been admitted to Concordia, we highly recommend checking with us before taking any courses at other institutions to ensure that they will transfer in to Concordia. You may email registrar@csp.edu to find out if a course will transfer. Please include your student ID number, the institution where you will be taking the course, the course codes and title, and the general education area for which you would like the course to transfer. We will review the course and let you know the details about its transferability.
Yes! As long as the transcript is sent from the institution directly through a secured electronic transcript service such as eScrip-Safe or National Student Clearinghouse, we will accept an electronic copy of a transcript and consider it official.
The Registrar’s office receives all new transfer files from the Admissions office after the drop deadline for each semester. We then review all transfer credit for accuracy before applying transfer credit to student records. This process may take several weeks to complete, and all transfer work should be entered by the end of the first half of each semester. If at that time you still do not see your transfer work on your unofficial transcript, please contact us by emailing registrar@csp.edu, or stop by our office in the LMC to go over your credits.
The Registrar’s office only assesses transcripts based on General Education requirements. The individual college departments are responsible for approving/disapproving transfer credit for major and/or minor requirements.
To petition with the department to have transfer work count toward your major or minor, you will need to fill out a Course Substitution Form. This form may be found on CSP Connect under the Grades and Registration tab or in paper form outside of the Registrar’s office. Please ensure that you have obtained all of the appropriate approvals and signatures before returning it to the Registrar’s office for processing. If you are unsure who needs to approve your particular course, please check with your academic advisor.
There are several factors that affect whether or not a course will transfer into Concordia. Some of the major reasons include:
- Transfer Credit Limit: Concordia will accept no more than 90 credits via transfer. You must earn the remaining credits for your degree at CSP. We always ensure that the credits which cover any general education requirements are used within the 96 credit limit.
- Official Transcripts: Concordia only accepts transfer credit if we have received an official transcript. Transcripts that were issued by the institution, but opened by the student are not considered official.
- Final Transcripts: Sometimes, during the admission process, students will send transcripts that list some courses as in-progress. In order to properly evaluate whether these courses will transfer, the Registrar’s office will need a final official copy of the transcript with all grades accounted for. Any in-progress grades will not be added to your accepted transfer credits.
- College-level Courses: Concordia only accepts courses that are at the college-level. This means that any college-prep courses (including some introductory courses) will not transfer.
- Transfer GPA: Concordia will accept transfer courses in which you have received a D for General Education requirements, unless the transferring cumulative GPA is less than a 2.0.
- Duplicate/Repeated Courses: Concordia will not accept duplicate or repeated courses, even if the course was taken at two different institutions, and even if the course was repeatable at your previous institution.
If you are still unsure why some of your credits were not accepted, please send us an email at registrar@csp.edu indicating which course and which institution you are questioning. We will look over your record and send you an emailed answer.
We accept the credit amount that you are bringing in from the other institution. This means that if you took a 3 credit class at another institution and our General Education requirement is for a 4 credit class, we will still only accept 3 credits for that transferred course.
Generally speaking, a 3 credit transferred course will cover our 4 credit requirement. However, if that course counts in your major, you may need to take additional elective coursework in your major to reach the required credit total.
We need to have the official transcript from the university through which you took your PSEO courses. We cannot accept the transfer courses from your high school transcript.
It depends. In accordance with faculty policy, all transfer work that is accepted for elective or General Education credit is applied with a Pass grade and carries no grade points.
However, if a course is transferred into Concordia for your major or minor, then the grades for these courses are taken into account when calculating your major or minor GPA at our institution. These grades will also be included in your cumulative GPA calculation.
Concordia accepts credit by examination from the following:
- CLEP – CLEP offers 33 exams in five subject areas, covering material taught in courses that you may generally take in your first two years of college. Most CLEP exams are designed to correspond to one-semester courses, although some correspond to full-year or two-year courses. Concordia’s policy on acceptable CLEP exams and passing scores and the course requirements they satisfy. Visit the College Board website for more information on registering for and taking each exam.
- Advanced Placement – Taken each May by students all over the world, the AP Exam is the final step you take after a year of hard work in an AP class. These standardized exams are designed to measure how well you’ve mastered the content and skills of the course. Concordia’s policy on acceptable AP exams and passing scores and the course requirements they satisfy . Visit the College Board website for more information on registering for and taking each course and final exam.
- International Baccalaureate – Concordia’s policy on acceptable IB exams and passing scores and the course requirements they satisfy.