Transfer Policy for Public Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions in South Carolina
(Revised 12/2009)

The South Carolina Course Articulation and Transfer System serves as the primary tool and source of information for transfer of academic credit between and among institutions of higher education in the state. The system provides institutions with the software tools needed to update and maintain course articulation and transfer information easily. The student interface of this system is the South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center (SCTRAC) Web portal: www.sctrac.org. This web portal is an integrated solution to meet the needs of South Carolina’s public colleges and universities and their students, and is designed to help students make better choices and avoid taking courses which will not count toward their degree. Each institution’s student information system interfaces with www.sctrac.org to help students and institutions by saving time and effort while ensuring accuracy and timeliness of information.

Admission Criteria, Course Grades, GPAs, Validations

All four-year public institutions will issue a transfer guide annually in August or maintain such a guide online. Information published in transfer guides will cover at least the following items:

1. The institution’s definition of a transfer student.
2. Requirements for admission both to the institution and, if more selective, requirements for admission to particular programs.
3. Institutional and, if more selective, programmatic maximums of course credits allowable in transfer.
4. Information about course equivalencies and transfer agreements.
5. Limitations placed by the institution or its programs for acceptance of standardized examinations (e.g., SAT, ACT) taken more than a given time ago, for academic course work taken elsewhere, for course work repeated due to failure, for course work taken at another institution while the student is academically suspended at his/her home institution, and so forth.
6. Information about institutional procedures used to calculate student applicants’ GPAs for transfer admission. Such procedures will describe how nonstandard grades (withdrawal, withdrawal failing, repeated course, etc.) are evaluated; they will also describe whether all course work taken prior to transfer or only course work deemed appropriate to the student’s intended four-year program of study is calculated for purposes of admission to the institution and/or programmatic major.
7. Institutional policies related to “academic bankruptcy” (i.e., removing an entire transcript or parts thereof from a failed or underachieving record after a period of years has passed) so that re-entry into the four-year institution with course credit earned in the interim elsewhere is done without regard to the student’s earlier record.
8. “Residency requirements” for the minimum number of hours required to be earned at the institution for the degree.

South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center (SCTRAC)

All two- and four-year public institutions will publish information related to course articulation and transfer, including but not limited to items A through D mentioned above, on the South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center website (www.sctrac.org). Course equivalency information listing all courses accepted from each institution in the state (including the 86 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and their respective course equivalencies (including courses in the “free elective” category) will be made available on www.sctrac.org. This course equivalency information will be updated as equivalencies are added or changed and will be reviewed annually for accuracy. Additionally, articulation agreements between public South Carolina institutions of higher education will be made available on www.sctrac.org, will be updated as articulation agreements are added or changed, and will be reviewed annually for accuracy. All other transfer information published on www.sctrac.org will be reviewed at least annually and updated as needed.

Assurance of Transferability of Course Work Covered by the Transfer Policy

Course work (i.e., individual courses, transfer blocks and statewide agreements) covered within this transfer policy will be transferable if the student has completed the course work with a C grade (2.0 on a 4.0 scale) or above. However, the transfer of grades does not relieve the student of the obligation to meet any GPA requirements or other admission requirements of the institution or program to which application has been made. In addition, any four-year institution which has institutional or programmatic admission requirements for transfer students with cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) higher than 2.0 on a 4.0 scale will apply such entrance requirements equally to transfer students from regionally accredited South Carolina public institutions regardless of whether students are transferring from a four-year or two-year institution.

Any course work covered within this transfer policy will be transferable to any public institution without any additional fee and without any further encumbrance such as a validation examination, placement examination/instrument, verification instrument, or any other stricture, notwithstanding any institutional or system policy, procedure or regulation to the contrary.

Assurance of Quality

All claims from any public two- or four-year institution challenging the effective preparation of any other public institution’s course work for transfer purposes will be evaluated by the staff of the Commission on Higher Education in consultation with the Advisory Committee on Academic Programs. After these claims are evaluated, appropriate measures will be taken to ensure that the quality of the course work has been reviewed and approved on a timely basis by sending and receiving institutions alike.

Transfer Officers

Each institution will provide the contact information for the institution’s Transfer office personnel, including telephone numbers, office address and email address, on its website and on www.sctrac.org. Transfer office personnel will:

• Provide information and other appropriate support for students considering transfer and recent transfers.
• Serve as a clearinghouse for information on issues of transfer in the state of South Carolina.
• Provide definitive institutional rulings on transfer questions for the institution’s students under these procedures.
• Work closely with feeder institutions to assure ease in transfer for their students.

Statewide Publication and Distribution of Information on Transfer

The staff of the Commission on Higher Education will place this document on the Commission’s website under the title “Transfer Policies.” In addition, information about transfer, including institutional policies, course equivalencies and articulation agreements, will be published and distributed by all public institutions through transfer guides and be made available on www.sctrac.org.

Furthermore, course catalogs for each public two-and four-year institution will contain a section entitled “Transfer: State Policies and Procedures.” This section will:

1. Include the Transfer Policy for Public Two- Year and Four-Year Institutions in South Carolina.
2. Refer interested parties to www.sctrac.org as well as to the institutional Transfer Guide and institutional and Commission on Higher Education’s websites for further information regarding transfer.

For more information regarding transfer from TTC to four-year colleges and universities, contact Susan Norton, assistant vice president of academic programs, or visit TTC’s website.

For information about transferring in South Carolina, visit www.sctrac.org.