According to Dietrich School regulations, students may apply credits earned at another approved degree-granting graduate program toward the credit requirement for an advanced degree at the University of Pittsburgh. Six credits may be transferred toward a master's degree, and up to 30 credits of master's level work can be transferred toward the Ph.D. (with a maximum of 12 additional credits of work beyond the master's level), subject to the restrictions set out in the Graduate and Professional Bulletin on-line. Departments should submit the Course Credits Accepted Form to the Dean’s Office in order for the request to be considered.
Important things to remember when preparing Course Credits Accepted Forms:
- No credits can be transferred if a student was an undergraduate while taking them, even if they were graduate-level classes.
- If the student earned a Master’s degree at the institution from which the credits are being transferred and it is posted on the transcript, departments do not have to list which courses are being transferred on the Course Credits Accepted Form. Only the credit amount needs to be listed.
- If the student did not earn a Master’s at the institution but was a graduate student there (and this is stated on the transcript), departments need to list which classes specifically are being transferred on the Course Credits Accepted Form. While the transfer will appear as a block transfer on the University of Pittsburgh transcript, the Dean’s Office needs to know the classes for their records. Please note: departments do not need to list the Pitt equivalent courses.
Departments wishing to recommend transfer credits older than the statute of limitations for the degree (i.e. 10 years for the PhD and 4 years for the Master's degree) must have a letter from the department listing the courses they wish to transfer, a detailed description of each course, and the methods by which the courses were evaluated attached to the Course Credits Accepted Form. To prepare for this, the department should view the syllabi of each courses to ensure they are still current knowledge. A student who has received approval for the transfer of 30 credits based upon master's level work at another institution cannot then apply for a master's degree in the same program that requested the transfer credits at the University of Pittsburgh. However, if a student has received approval for 30 transfer credits, and subsequently wishes to earn a master's degree in that discipline from the University of Pittsburgh, the department must petition the Dean's office to remove all but 6 of the transfer credits from their record.
The Course Credits Accepted Form can be found in the forms section of the handbook.