Accreditation- "Transfer Students"
Why is accreditation so important to students who want to transfer to a new institution? What trends have you noticed on your current college or university campus? How do the two correlate ?
I get a lot of students that ask about transfer credits at my school and I always explain how some credits don't always transfer to other school the same way. One thing that I've seen in some states they have codes and if the codes match they transfer to being the same course, but sometimes certain credits with transfer to lower level or higher level courses when students get their Associates and then go for a higher degree.
Accreditation is important to these students so that they know a school will atleast look at their credits. While there is no "for sure" that credits will transfer it atleast puts a students mind at ease to know their transcripts will be reviewed.
At our campus, we get a lot of "refugees" from "traditional" colleges who want to know if their credits will transfer, and many who have been relocated in mid-education, and want to continue their studies. Additionally, many with Associate Degrees from other schools wish to continue on to achieve Bachelor's Degrees from our campus (in some cases, we are the only institution in the region offering such programs.) In my interview/information-gathering process, I always take time to discuss accreditation: what it is, why it matters, etc. A lot more people know that they need to ask about it than really know why. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Questions about whether our school is accredited are generally just to establish the credibility of our programs, not due to a wish to transfer to other institutions, but it does come up occasionally.
