Transferring credits from other institutions

Last updated 12/23/2017

Courses taken before or during CLMS can count for transfer credit if approved and if the conditions listed below are met. If you would only take a course at another institution if it could count as transfer credit, please wait to register until the use of the course for transfer credit has been approved by the faculty director.

The university allows a maximum of 6 credits to be transferred from another institution, provided they were not counted towards any earned degree. For the CLMS program, we require that these courses be graduate-level courses comparable to CLMS requirements. The faculty will determine on a case-by-case basis if they are comparable.

The detailed process for transfering credit to CLMS for a course taken at another institution is as follows:

• The student should email the faculty director specifying:
  • the course itself,
  • the institution where it will be (or has been) taken,
  • a brief justification for transfering credit for the course,
  • a link to the course syllabus.
• The faculty director will approve (or decline) the request, in consultation with other CLMS faculty if necessary.
• Register for and complete the class as usual.
• Once the course has been successfully completed, the student must:
  • Notify the faculty director of successful completion,
  • Submit a petition to the Dean of the Graduate School to transfer the credit, and
  • Send an official transcript reflecting the course grade to the Graduate School as requested.
• The faculty director will then submit departmental approval of the petition.
• Ultimately, the Graduate School will perform final approval of the petition.

Note 1: Once approved, the credits may be used to fulfill graduation requirements. However, the course will not appear on the UW transcript; the approval will appear in the student's record.

Note 2: The Graduate School requires that students be registered at UW in the quarter in which they graduate. If you plan to use transfer credits to complete your final graduation requirements, you must also register for at least one credit at UW in that quarter.

Note 3: If you plan to do the CLMS=>PhD transition and have transfered Linguistics course credits, you should still ensure that you take at least two courses in the UW Linguistics department with non-CLMS faculty.