Transfer Credit: Canadian and International Universities

You apply for transfer credit after being admitted to the Faculty of Arts & Science. Check your offer of admission in your JOIN U of T portal for more information about applying for transfer credit. Make sure to submit your application before the deadline specified.

If you’re applying from a Canadian university, you can check Transfer Explorer to see what courses have been previously assessed for transfer credit by the Faculty of Arts & Science. You can use Transfer Explorer for planning purposes before you submit your transfer credit application. Note that Transfer Explorer is intended for reference only, and your transfer credit assessment results may differ from what you see on Transfer Explorer.

Apply for transfer credit by completing the following steps:

• Complete the transfer credit application
• Pay the $30 transfer credit assessment fee

You will receive an email confirming that your application has been received.

Yes. Applying for a transfer credit assessment is mandatory if you are eligible to receive transfer credits. To check eligibility, please review your offer of admission in your JOIN U of T portal. If you are eligible for transfer credit and do not apply for a transfer credit assessment, or you do not provide all the required documents to finalize your transfer credit assessment, you will be unable to register in the Faculty of Arts & Science after your first Fall/Winter session.

No. Transfer credit awarded for previous post-secondary studies cannot be refused. Applying for and accepting your transfer credit is mandatory if you are eligible.

Yes. University transfer applicants are required to submit official course outlines. Incomplete submission of course outlines will delay transfer credit assessment. In order to be assessed for transfer credit, email all course outlines/web links to transfer.artsci@utoronto.ca.

Follow this format in your email:

• Subject line: Course outlines for newly admitted student
• Include your first and last name and your U of T student/applicant number in the email
• Attach course outlines in PDF format, or include links to online course outlines
• Course outlines should include the following information: 
  • Number of hours
  • Instructor name and contact information 
  • Delivery method (e.g., online, in person), including link to student portal
  • Length of the course
  • Grading scheme
  • Number of essays, tests and exams
  • Reading lists

Once you have applied for a transfer credit assessment, paid the transfer credit assessment fee and submitted all required documents, your assessment may take up to six weeks. The transfer credit assessment process can only begin after you have completed the transfer credit application and paid the assessment fee. Make sure to apply for a transfer credit assessment and submit any required documents as early as you can.

 Transfer credit will not be granted for courses not reported on your U of T application. If you report that you have enrolled in summer courses, your eligibility to meet the admission conditions outlined in your offer letter will be reassessed once these courses are completed. This will delay your final transfer credit assessment and impact your ability to plan your course enrolment. Should you fall below the admission conditions outlined in your offer letter based on your summer course results, you may be withdrawn from your courses and your registration will be cancelled.

Your transfer credit assessment will be emailed to the email address you provided on your application to the Faculty of Arts & Science. 

If you have cleared your admission conditions, you will receive a final letter. If you have not yet cleared your admission conditions, you will receive a provisional letter. Both types of assessments will give you information about your next steps and/or equivalents that have been assessed. Learn more about how to interpret your transfer credit assessment.

A provisional letter means you need to ask your institution to submit the updated electronic version of your official final transcript(s) directly to transfer.artsci@utoronto.ca. Include your first and last name and, if possible, your U of T student/applicant number when requesting your transcript(s). If electronic submission of official transcripts is not available, please email ask.artsci@utoronto.ca for further instructions.

Your provisional or final letter might indicate that some of your courses are still under review, or you may be asked to submit course outlines if you have not already done so. If you are asked to send a course outline for one or more courses, email the course outline to transfer.artsci@utoronto.ca as soon as possible. Follow this format in your email:

• Email subject line: Course outlines for newly admitted student
• Include your first and last name and your U of T student/applicant number in the email
• Attach course outlines in PDF format, or include links to online course outlines
• For each course, include the following information:
  • Number of hours
  • Instructor name and contact information 
  • Delivery method (e.g., online, in person), including link to student portal
  • Length of the course
  • Grading scheme
  • Number of essays, tests and exams
  • Reading list

If a course is still under review, you will receive a revised letter when the assessment has been finalized.

You can use your Canadian or international university transfer credits in a number of ways:

Degree credits: All Arts & Science students have to complete 20.0 credits to obtain their degree, and up to 10.0 transfer credits count toward those 20.0 credits. The remaining 10.0 credits have to be Arts & Science courses. 

Breadth requirement: All Arts & Science students have to complete the breadth requirement before graduation. Most transfer credits count toward breadth requirements categories. 

Program requirements and course prerequisites: In some cases, transfer credits can be used to satisfy enrolment or completion requirements for specific programs, or to meet prerequisite requirements for courses. Check the Academic Calendar for detailed program requirements and course prerequisite information, and contact the academic unit that offers the program or course if you have any questions. 

Your transfer credits do not have any marks associated with them. Your mark is only used to determine whether you are eligible for transfer credit. Your transfer credits therefore do not contribute to your grade point average (GPA) calculations.

If you are unsure about how your transfer credits can be applied toward your degree and program requirements, contact your College Registrar’s Office for advice.

If you are not sure which program(s) you want to enrol in, or you don’t meet the enrolment requirements yet, check the Academic Calendar for detailed program enrolment requirements and review the Program Toolkit for deadlines and program application instructions. You can contact your College Registrar’s Office for advice.

If you receive 4.0 or more transfer credits, you may be eligible to enrol in a program right away. Some programs are open for enrolment between March and mid-September, while others may only be open for enrolment in March and April. Some programs require an application, so you have to wait to find out if you are eligible for admission to the program. Even if you receive 4.0 transfer credits or more, you do not have to enrol in any programs until the end of your first Fall/Winter session in Arts & Science.

Course enrolment for the Fall/Winter session starts in July. Arts & Science students use ACORN to enrol in courses. Read through the course planning and course enrolment pages to learn more about course enrolment. You will also need to check the Arts & Science Calendar and Timetable before you can start enrolling in courses.

Be sure to review your transfer credit assessment for information about exclusions. You cannot enrol for degree credit in courses listed as exclusions in your assessment. If a required course is an exclusion of a transfer credit you received, contact the academic unit that offers the program with this course requirement to get advice about planning your courses. If you do need to enrol in a course listed on your transfer credit assessment as an exclusion to an unspecified transfer credit (for example, if you receive the unspecified transfer credit MAT1**H and MAT135H1 is listed as an exclusion, and you need to complete MAT135H1), contact your College Registrar's Office. For more information, see the understanding your transfer credit assessment page.

Course enrolment dates are determined by year level/number of credits completed (including transfer credits). Your year level will be determined at the time of admission based on the number of semesters completed at another university. If you don’t have your transfer credit assessment before course enrolment, no need to worry — you will still get to start enrolling in courses on the same day as students at the same year level.

Priority enrolment: Some courses are noted as having priority enrolment for specific groups of students on the Arts & Science Timetable. As a transfer student, you have priority enrolment in certain 100-level courses.

• If you are admitted to an Honours Bachelor of Arts, you will have priority enrolment in the same courses that are noted as having priority enrolment for Year 1 Humanities, Year 1 Social Sciences and Year 1 Arts & Science students. Check the enrolment controls on the Arts & Science Timetable for each course.
• If you are admitted to an Honours Bachelor of Science, you will have priority enrolment in the same courses that are noted as having priority enrolment for Year 1 Science and Year 1 Arts & Science students. Check the enrolment controls on the Arts & Science Timetable for each course. 

Your transfer credit assessment provides helpful guidance on what courses you should take in your first year in Arts & Science. It’s possible that you may not have a final transfer credit assessment by the time course enrolment begins. Even if you do not have a final transfer credit assessment, you can and should enrol in courses when your enrolment start date and time arrive. Many courses fill up quickly, so you should not wait for your transfer credit assessment to enrol.

 If you have not yet received a transfer credit assessment and are getting ready to enrol, you are strongly encouraged to put together a self-assessment to help guide your initial course choices. Once your transfer credit is finalized, you may need to change your course enrolment to avoid taking courses for which you received transfer credit. In order to complete a self-assessment:  

• Check Transfer Explorer to see if any courses from your university have been previously assessed for transfer credit by the Faculty of Arts & Science. While your transfer credit assessment results may differ from what you see on Transfer Explorer, the information there is generally a good indicator of what kind of transfer credits you will receive.
• Review the Arts & Science Academic Calendar to find courses that might be equivalent to previous courses you’ve completed. Look for similar key words and concepts in the descriptions, as well as whether the course is an “H” (half-year) or “Y” (full-year) course.
  • If you see a course that looks similar to a course you’ve already taken or is listed as an equivalent on Transfer Explorer, review the course description for exclusions. Exclusions are courses that have similar content, so students are not allowed to enrol for degree credit in both. For example, if you think you might get credit for STA220H1, you would not be allowed to enrol for degree credit in any of the courses listed as exclusions in the STA220H1 course description. If you think a required course might be an exclusion of one of your transfer credits, contact the academic unit that offers the program with this course requirement to get advice about planning your courses.
• Decide which Faculty of Arts & Science programs interest you. Look at the program admission/enrolment requirements in the Academic Calendar and the Program Toolkit.. The courses listed in those requirements are the ones you should prioritize for enrolment.

If you are unsure about whether you are going to receive credit for a required program course, you should enrol in that course. You will need to drop the course later and replace it with something else if you end up receiving transfer credit for it. Some courses fill up quickly, so it’s better to secure your space in a course you may need if you’re not sure whether you’ll be receiving transfer credit for it.

You might be expecting to receive transfer credits that will help you meet the prerequisite for a course. ACORN will allow you to enrol in a course even if the prerequisite is not officially on your academic record, but the academic unit that offers the course is allowed to remove you from the course. Contact the academic unit to ask for permission to remain enrolled.

You may be eligible to receive RSM or MGT transfer credits for business courses. 

If you are not pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce degree, you will not be eligible to receive RSM or MGT transfer credits for business courses taken at another institution. If you meet the eligibility requirements for transfer credit, you will instead be awarded unspecified transfer credits, for example SII1**H (Breadth Requirement 3, Society and Its Institutions).

Transfer students have until the end of their first semester in the Faculty of Arts & Science to request a reassessment.

The same time limit applies to all department interviews (if applicable) and submission of detailed course outlines (syllabi). If you have questions or concerns about your assessment, please email ask.artsci@utoronto.ca. Supporting documentation and a written explanation for reassessment of a transfer credit decision may be requested.