Graduate College

No. There is not a different application process for students that are already in a graduate program at another institution. You should apply and go through the admission process as normal.

Yes. Up to nine hours of graduate level coursework (or up to 30% of required credits for your OSU master’s program) taken at an accredited university can be transferred to a master’s degree at OSU. Potential transfer courses must be completed with a letter grade of ‘B’ or better. The courses must be less than ten years old at the time of your graduation. Like all graduate courses on your plan of study, any transfer credits must be approved by your advisory committee.

A doctoral student who wishes to transfer graduate coursework from an accredited university is not limited to nine hours. There is no official limit on transfer credit hours for a student in this situation. But they must complete a minimum of thirty credit hours at OSU.

Yes. You should provide official transcripts of any graduate-level coursework and/or degrees as soon as you are admitted to your graduate program or as soon as you have completed graduate courses at another university while in a graduate program at OSU.

The review of transfer credit is often done within your department at the time of admission, but it is not part of the admission process at OSU. Transfer credit (official transcript required) is evaluated during the submission of the plan of study, which is due before the end of the first semester for graduate certificates, before the end of the second semester for master’s students, and before the end of the third semester for doctoral students.

There are time limits for graduate certificates, master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees at OSU. Graduate certificate and master’s students have seven years from first admission to complete a certificate or degree. Doctoral students have nine years from first admission to complete a degree. There is also a separate time limit for coursework validity. Courses are valid for ten years. This means that at the time of your graduation, no courses older than ten years may be included on your plan of study as part of the degree requirements. This can be especially relevant if you switch degree programs while at OSU or are transferring in credit hours from another university.

It is possible to take a course outside of OSU while you are in the middle of a degree program, online or traditional. If you want that course to count toward your degree program, three criteria need to be met.

1) The course must be a graduate level course offered by an accredited university and be  taught by a member of that institution’s graduate faculty.

2) You must earn a letter grade of ‘B’ or better in the course.

3) Your advisory committee must have approved the course for use in your degree plan.

Maybe. If you are participating in an OSU study abroad program, then you will probably be enrolled in OSU graduate credit hours while completing the international experience. If you are registering at an international institution for a semester or year, then you will be earning hours as a student of that institution and will need to transfer those credits back to OSU.

Transfer courses should be entered individually in the “Transfer Graduate Courses” section at the bottom of the Update Courses screen. Be sure to enter all information for the course(s) as it appears on the transcript from the institution where the credits were earned. You do not need to match transfer courses to equivalent courses at Oklahoma State University for the plan of study.

Transfer courses at the graduate level are not listed on the OSU transcript. If they are on your approved plan of study, then they are officially part of your approved degree requirements. When you graduate, a notation will be added to your transcript stating that ___ hours were transferred from _____ institution and counted toward the degree requirements. Also be aware that since transfer courses are not directly transcripted, they do not affect your cumulative GPA.

The written policies governing transfer of graduate credit can be found in the Graduate College section of the University Catalog. The Office of the Registrar’s website has the most recent edition of the Catalog: Graduate College | Oklahoma State University Catalog.