Prospective Student Resources

The Office of the Registrar evaluates credit for incoming transfer students, typically at or after the point of admission. They do not pre-equate courses for prospective students, but course equivalents for many schools including UW-System schools, Wisconsin Technical Colleges, Wisconsin tribal colleges, and select two-year Illinois and Minnesota schools are available via Transferology.

If you are at a school for which UW-Madison has equivalents but you cannot find an equivalent for a specific course, it does not necessarily mean it will not transfer; it just means it has not yet been evaluated. You can continue to check back – Transferology is updated on a weekly basis with any new equivalents that have been created.

For help in understanding how to use Transferology to find and interpret UW-Madison’s equivalencies, check out our Understanding Transferology: Transfer Course Equivalencies Guide.

UW-Madison will transfer most undergraduate courses from nationally or regionally accredited U.S. institutions and foreign institutions recognized by their respective country’s Ministry of Education.  There are three exceptions, listed below:

• Remedial courses – Courses considered to be below the level of collegiate study (e.g. basic algebra, reading skills)
• Vocational or technical courses – Courses at a two-year institution that are part of an applied associates degree or not designed as pre-requisites for further collegiate study (e.g. office management, welding, automotive technology)
• Doctrinal courses – Courses at any institution that advance a particular political or religious doctrine.

The full, official transfer credit policy used by the Office of the Registrar’s Credit Evaluation Services team is available on their website.

Your transferable credits can transfer in 3 ways:

1. Direct equivalent: You’ll receive credit for a UW-Madison course, which will automatically add to the number of credits towards degree and can satisfy general education and/or breadth requirements as well as major requirements.
2. Departmental elective: You’ll receive credit for electives within a particular department.  These types of credits can satisfy general education and/or breadth requirements as well as add to your number of credits towards degree.  They do not automatically satisfy major requirements, however.
3. General elective: This type of credit automatically adds to your number of credits towards degree, but does not carry any breadth or general education designators.  These courses do not satisfy major requirements.

A maximum of 72 credits towards your degree can be transferred from two-year schools.  There is no limit to the number of credits you can transfer from a four-year institution as long as you have not previously received a bachelors’ degree.

If you have taken courses at an institution that uses quarter credit or units other than semester credits, we will convert your quarter credits/units to semester credits. If you have attended an institution that uses quarter credits, you will not lose credits in the conversion. For example, if you have 40 quarter credits (40 x .666 = 26.64), you will receive 27 semester credits.

Credits completed at an international institution will be converted to UW–Madison credits using the average number of credits taken by a UW–Madison student (15 credits per semester). Total degree credits granted may not equal total course credits due to rounding in the conversion of fractional credits to semester hours.

You will need to submit all transcripts from high school and any other institutions you’ve attended, which would include your dual-enrollment courses. They will be evaluated similarly to other transfer credit. However, please note that your high school dual-enrollment does not count towards the minimum 24 transferable credits that you need for applying to UW-Madison.

The Joint Services Transcript can be evaluated for credit if you like, although Admissions does not require the JST to be submitted as part of your application. Please refer to the Office of the Registrar’s website for more information on how military credit is evaluated.

The transfer credit evaluation is completed after the point of admission.  The credit evaluation is posted to your Student Center, and you should receive an email from the Credit Evaluation Services team notifying you how to access it.  Credit evaluations can be complex; use this Reading your Credit Evaluation Guide to gain a better understanding of how your credits transferred.  Your credit evaluation will be complete before you attend SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising, and Registration).

You are able to use the Reading your Credit Evaluation Guide; otherwise, you will learn how your credits will apply to your degree at SOAR  (Student Orientation, Advising, & Registration) before registering for courses.

While the Credit Evaluation Service produces the credit evaluation itself, they do not offer academic advising and are not able to answer questions about how your credits apply to your UW-Madison degree. With that fact in mind, they offer the following recommendations for next steps:

1. Confirm your enrollment in your Applicant Homepage and sign up for the Student Orientation, Advising, and Registration (SOAR) program if you haven’t already. SOAR is where you will receive academic advising, get help understanding how your credits apply to a degree here, and register for your first semester’s courses.
2. Learn about our general education and breadth requirements even before you come to SOAR!  Our Undergraduate Guide contains information on all of our degree requirements.
3. If a course has transferred differently than you hoped, submit a course reevaluation request form to the Office of the Registrar. You’ll need to give us your name, wisc.edu email, campus ID number, and your academic advisor’s name. You will provide some information about the course and upload a .pdf of a detailed syllabus from the semester in which you took your course. You’ll receive a decision within 4 to 6 weeks.

Once the Office of Admissions & Recruitment receives your application, they will send you an application acknowledgment. If you provide an email address, the acknowledgement will be sent to that email. If you do not supply an email address, you will receive the acknowledgement letter in the mail.

The acknowledgement will include your campus ID number, which can then be used to activate your UW NetID and check your application status.

This online system enables you to:

• • Check to make sure we’ve received all your application materials.
  • View your admission decision
  • Check the details we have on file about you, including residency status and term of entry
  • Update your mailing address, phone number, and email address
  • Monitor the status of your financial aid application and accept your award
  • Accept or decline an offer of admission

Check Application Status 

If you applied for Fall:

• February 1 deadline, you will receive a decision by end of March.
• March 1 deadline, you will receive a decision by end of April.

If you applied for Fall:

• October 1 deadline, you will receive a decision by end of December.

Congratulations! If you are deciding to come to UW-Madison, you will need to officially accept your admission through your MyUW portal. You will need to register for any placement tests that Admissions tells you to take, and then sign up for Student Orientation, Advising, and Registration (SOAR), which will also be when you get to enroll for your first semester of classes.

You can get started on next steps by using Admission’s Admitted Student Checklist. You can also check out our Admitted Students page!

We recommend that you contact the Office of Admissions to ask why you got denied and how to improve your application for a future semester. You can make an appointment with a transfer counselor here: calendly.com/futurebadger/transfer-meeting

There is no limit to the number of times you can apply for transfer admission to the university (although there are credit limits for particular limited enrollment programs). Being denied previously will not negatively affect your chances of admission; counselors look at the current application and all its supporting documentation when making their decisions.

Defer means that you haven’t been accepted or denied yet. Before making a final decision, the Office of Admissions needs more information, which usually means seeing and receiving your final grades for the semester in progress.

Basically: remember to report your final grades!

First, if you haven’t yet done so, add UW-Madison to your FAFSA. This will prompt the Office of Financial Aid to put together an award package for you after an admission decision has been made.

Second, log in to the WiSH – the Wisconsin Scholarship Hub, the database that contains all of UW-Madison’s school and college-based scholarships. You will need to login with your NetID, which you will receive after you apply to UW-Madison.  Fill out the general application, which will help identify which scholarships you might be eligible for.  Then you can apply for specific scholarships using the Common Scholarship Application within the database.

We also recommend that you check out these resources:

• The Office of Financial Aid – Learn more about the types of aid you might encounter on your award offer. Wisconsin residents may be eligible for Bucky’s Tuition Promise (household adjusted gross income is $58,000 or less) or Badger Promise (first-generation students transferring from two-year schools in Wisconsin). Eligibility will be determined by your FAFSA, and the funds will be automatically included in your award.

You are not required to live on campus! Check out resources to Find Housing.

Every enrolled student receives a bus pass, which makes it easy to get around campus and Madison, regardless of where you end up living. (You can also check out our transportation tips!)

Check out our Additional Resources section at the bottom of this page  – there’s a great list of recommended links there. If you can’t find what you’re looking for or would like help navigating those resources, let us know – we’ll try to get you connected to the resources you need.