Did you know that 30% of our graduates come to CSU as transfer students? Thousands of transfers choose CSU each year — many coming from community colleges all over the nation.
We understand there are benefits to starting out at a community college and finishing your degree with us. And we want to make sure that if you’re planning to do just that, you’re getting the most out of it.
Here’s how to ensure that your transfer experience is a valuable one.
#1: Meet with your academic advisor from the start.
The job of a community college advisor is to help you prepare for next steps. It’s important to meet with them as early as possible and let them know you plan to transfer to CSU.
They will not only look through your course schedule to ensure that you are taking transferable courses, but can also help you stay on track to meet our admission requirements.
#2: Talk with a transfer admissions counselor early on.
It’s never too early to contact one of our counselors and tell them of your interest in CSU. They can serve as a guide in a few different ways:
- They’ll explain our transfer admission requirements so you can stay on track as you take courses.
- They can walk through CSU’s Core Curriculum and help you understand which transfer courses will fulfill requirements.
- They’ll discuss your financial aid options, like merit awards and the CSU Scholarship Application (CSUSA).
- They’ll help you understand requirements for competitive majors.
- If you’re not sure about what you’d like to major in, they can also help you research options.
#3: Know how a course will transfer before you take it.
If at all possible, you should know the following before you take a course at your community college:
- Will the course transfer?
- Will it count toward your intended major or minor?
- Will it fulfill one of our core curriculum course requirements?
If not, you may want to re-think taking the course.
CSU offers a few transfer credit tools to show you how courses will transfer in, before you apply. If you’re transferring from a Colorado community college, a great tool to use is Transferology. And if you’re from out-of-state, our Tentative Transfer Evaluation can help.
#4: Your grades are important.
Your grades can make a big impact both academically and financially at CSU. Grades determine a few things:
- Your merit award eligibility.
- The transfer-ability of the course.
- Admission to your intended major, if it’s a competitive major.
If you get an unsatisfactory grade in a course, meet with your community college advisor. They may recommend re-taking it.
#5: Get your math requirement taken care of.
All CSU majors require a minimum of three credits of mathematics to graduate. To ensure transfer students are on track to satisfy the math graduation requirement, we have an admission requirement in mathematics. Many transfers prefer to take a transferable course at their community college to fulfill both the admission requirement and the graduation requirement at once.
You can take a look at what courses and grades will fulfill our transfer admissions requirement in mathematics on our website or by talking to a transfer admissions counselor.
