Academic Advising Guide

As you choose your courses, you will need to consider these 4 interconnected elements:

1. Transfer Credits from your previous college

2. Your college's graduation requirements

3. Your college's distribution or core requirements

4. Your major requirements

Your college may have given you a credit distribution checklist to help you keep track of which credits you have fulfilled. You can also use this to help you choose your courses, so that you are working on a few graduation, distribution, and major requirements each semester.

Let's review the four elements.

1. Transfer Credits from your previous college: (back to top)
The deans' office at your college will issue you a Transfer Credit Evaluation that designates which credits were accepted for transfer and what the Rutgers course equivalents are. For instance, if you took a one-semester Introductory Spanish course at your previous institution, you may have been given credit for one semester of Spanish at your college. Not all courses will transfer, and academic advisors may need to review official course descriptions and syllabi in order to determine transfer credit.

If you are coming to Rutgers from a New Jersey County or Community College, your credit evaluation should be quite straightforward because the courses that transfer have already been determined by agreements between your previous college and Rutgers. Prospective transfer students can determine which credits will transfer, and choose a recommended program of study by visiting the ARTSYS web site.

2. Your college's graduation requirements: (back to top)

Before you begin figuring out which graduation requirements you have fulfilled, you will need to understand a bit about the complicated structure of Rutgers University- New Brunswick. There are eleven Undergraduate Colleges that make up Rutgers-New Brunswick, and the graduation requirements for each is different. Some colleges require minors, for instance; others do not. Most require full-time status; others do not.

As a transfer student, you were accepted at one of the following colleges: Douglass College; Livingston College; Rutgers College; University College-New Brunswick; Cook College; School of Engineering; College of Pharmacy; Mason Gross School of the Arts.

You will need to become familiar with the graduation requirements of your college by reviewing the packet of information you received at Transfer Orientation, and by reading about the degree requirements for your college in the Undergraduate Catalog. Carefully review credit, residency, "proficiency," major and minor, as well as "general education" requirements.

Click on the name of your college for an admissions page.

• Douglass College

• Livingston College

• Rutgers College

• University College-New Brunswick

• Cook College

• School of Engineering

• College of Pharmacy

• Mason Gross School of the Arts

As transfer students, none of you were initially admitted into the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies or the School of Business-New Brunswick. These schools have separate admissions processes, and certain requirements must be fulfilled before students apply. Most Rutgers students apply at the end of their sophomore year for admission at the beginning of their junior year. Incoming transfer students should check with their academic advisors and with the Deans of either the Communications or Business Schools for information about the separate admissions procedure.

3. Your College's "Distribution" and/or "Core" Requirements (back to top)
Again, in order to be certain you are taking courses that demonstrate a range of learning that your college considers necessary for a bachelor's degree, you need to be familiar with the specific requirements defined by your college. These are defined in the section about your college's "Degree Requirements" in the Undergraduate Catalog, or in the individual links above.

You may also have received a checklist in your transfer orientation packet, which you can use to help evaluate which requirements you still need to fulfill.

4. Your Major Requirements (back to top)
As with graduation and distribution requirements, the specific rules and regulations that govern the declaration of a major (and even what majors are available) are determined differently by each college.

You can view a list of available majors. Once you go to the Directory of Majors, if you click on the major you are interested in on the left, you will see whether it is available at your college in a chart on the right.

Students in the Professional Schools (Cook, Engineering, Pharmacy, Mason Gross) can view their online catalogs.

Back to Academics index page