Transfer Credit: Canadian Colleges

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.

Yes. Applying for a transfer credit assessment is mandatory if you are eligible to receive transfer credits. If you are eligible, you will see instructions on how to apply for transfer credit in your JOIN U of T portal. If you are eligible and do not apply for a transfer credit assessment or 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.

If you need to edit your application after you submit it, please contact transfer.artsci@utoronto.ca/

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

Detailed course outlines or syllabi are required for college applicants. All course outlines and/or syllabi must be uploaded when submitting your transfer credit application on your JOIN U of T portal including in-progress courses.  

• Files containing course outlines and/or syllabi should be attached as PDF or Word documents, one file per course, to include the institution and course name in the file name (e.g., McMaster Univ – ENG100H). 
• The course outlines and/or syllabi should match the term and year that you completed the course.
• Detailed syllabi should include (but is not limited to): institution name; course code, name and title; length of course (number of hours and number of credits); week to week topic breakdown; textbook information and/or list of readings; assessment breakdown, including number of essays, tests or exams; lab component (if applicable) and tutorial hours (if applicable). Upon review, you may be required to submit additional information or details.
• Provide the associated course links in the academic calendar of your prior institution(s) in the space provided on the transfer credit application.
• If you do not have a copy of a course outline and/or syllabi, contact your previous institution(s) to request a copy. Failure to provide detailed course outlines and/or syllabi will result in delays in processing your transfer credit request and may also lead to restrictions on your enrolment as transfer credit is mandatory. 

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 non-refundable assessment fee. Make sure to apply for a transfer credit assessment and submit any required documents as early as you can.

To monitor your transfer credit application updates, submit any additional required documents and review your transfer credit assessment log in to your JOIN U of T. 

Once a transfer credit assessment (provisional or final) is available on your JOIN U of T, please save a copy for your own records. Any updates to the assessment will supersede prior versions of the assessment.  

The application will be in progress and the transfer credit assessment not considered complete, until receipt of your official final transcripts reflecting your final grade(s) including any no credit, dropped, withdrawn, failed grades, etc.

Once you complete your registration in the Faculty of Arts & Science by making a payment or obtaining a tuition deferral (registering without payment) by the posted deadlines, your transfer credits will appear on your academic record. Visit the Student Accounts website for more information on fees and payments. 

Your college transfer credits do not have any grades/marks associated with them. Your grade from your college course is used only 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 have cleared your admission conditions, you will receive a final transfer credit assessment. If you have not yet cleared your admission conditions, you will receive a provisional 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). Refer to JOIN U of T for instructions on what official documents are required to complete your admission and transfer credit processes and how they should be submitted to the Faculty of Arts & Science. 

Your provisional or final assessment might indicate that some of your courses are still under review or you may be asked to submit additional information. Check the status of your transfer credit application on JOIN U of T frequently for any additional information and/or documentation required to complete your admission and transfer credit processes. 

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

Learn more about how to interpret your transfer credit assessment.

You can use your Canadian college transfer credits in a number of ways:

Degree credits: All Arts & Science students have to complete 20.0 credits to obtain their degree, and Canadian college transfer credits count toward those 20.0 credits. Some Canadian college transfer credits are 100-level credits. Keep in mind that you need to complete a minimum of 13.0 credits at the 200-level or higher to meet your degree requirements. While you can take as many 100-level courses as you want, not all of them will help you progress toward completing your degree.

Breadth requirement: All Arts & Science students have to complete the breadth requirement before graduation.

Ontario college transfer credits are breadth requirement credits. For example, a transfer credit from an Ontario college may be CCR1**, meaning it counts as a credit in the Creative and Cultural Representations category, or BR=1, meaning it fulfils the Arts & Science breadth requirement. Breadth requirement credits from Ontario colleges do not have an equivalent offered by one of our academic units but are nevertheless eligible for university transfer credit.

Transfer credits from other Canadian colleges are not strictly breadth requirement transfer credits like transfer credits from Ontario colleges, but the majority of transfer credits from other Canadian colleges count toward breadth requirement categories. 

Program requirements and course prerequisites: In some cases, Canadian college 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/course if you have any questions. 

Breadth requirement transfer credits from Ontario colleges cannot be used for program requirements or specific course prerequisites, but they can count as degree credits and fulfil breadth requirements (see above). 

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 up to 3.5 transfer credits, you can enrol in a program at the end of your first Fall/Winter session in Arts & Science. 

If you receive 4.0 or more transfer credits from your college studies, 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 or more transfer credits, 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.

Course enrolment dates are determined by year level/number of credits completed (including transfer credits). If you receive fewer than 4.0 transfer credits, you will enrol on the same day as first-year students. If you receive 4.0 or more transfer credits, you will enrol on the same day as second-year students.

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 what courses from your college 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.
• 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 can 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 while you are waiting for your transfer credit assessment.

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 transfer.artsci@utoronto.ca. Supporting documentation and a written explanation for reassessment of a transfer credit decision may be requested.