A Great Big "Thank You"
Transfer Credit Fall Numbers
Articulation Changes for the Robert H. Smith School of Business
On the Hunt for Non-Transferable Coursework
Watch Out for "X" / "MH" Courses
NEW Services and New Look for TCC
Student Record Problems?
Transcript Receipt Dates Now Available
New to campus? Want to learn more?
Your Input (That's right, we need it!)

A Great Big "Thank You"

Thanks to everyone who helped make this summer's Transfer Orientation the smoothest on record. Because of the speedy turn-around time from evaluators all over campus, updated transfer evaluations were available for students in record time this year--in most cases within two weeks of a transcript's posting date.

Transfer Credit Fall Numbers

Total Transfer Students Reviewed (Incl. 174 International Students)	2,904
Total Transfer Courses Reviewed for Fall 2000 Students	72,629
Total Number of Institutions in Transfer Database	2,191
Total Size of Transfer Database (in courses)	172,401

Articulation Changes for the Robert H. Smith School of Business

The Robert H. Smith School of Business hosted representatives of community colleges from across the state of Maryland on Friday, October 18. Dean Howard Frank offered a welcome and an introduction to the University of Maryland business programs starting at Shady Grove in FA 2001. Advance notice of curricular restructuring to take place over the next several years was offered by the faculty in business law, accounting, and statistics to help ensure the smoothest of transitions for community college students to the Smith business programs. Advisors with questions about admission or phase-in of articulation changes should contact the Transfer Credit Center or Luke Glasgow (lglasgow@deans.umd.edu).

On the Hunt for Non-Transferable Coursework

The TCC typically makes adjustments to records during a student's first semester on campus to accurately reflect any late departmental evaluations whenever certain courses are deemed pre-collegiate, remedial/preparatory, or vocational in nature.

To ensure though that all students admitted in the same semester with the same course receive the same evaluation, we have recently developed a new Brio query which audits all incoming student records simultaneously against late evaluations and marks them for adjustment. We began using this tool starting Fall 2000 as an early measure against any future record discrepancies that may show up in graduation audits.

Colleges will still be able to grant exceptions to allow these courses for individual students based on circumstances (e.g., advisor error), but exceptions will now be noted in SIS by the Transfer Credit Center to flag them against future credit adjustments.

Since we will run these checks periodically during a student's first semester, be aware that overall credit accepted may change slightly depending on the arrival of late transcripts and the outcome of any late departmental evaluations.

Watch Out for "X" / "MH" Courses

A quick reminder to campus advisors: Use caution when giving students Permission to Enroll in other institutions. Certain courses in the transfer database, like those marked with a red "X" (and 17 Footnote), have been designated by departments here as "No Advance Permission" and are closed to students of record at UMCP. This is sometimes because the evaluating department has deemed the course as a weaker version of something at College Park or other area institutions and sometimes because the course is similar, but not parallel to a College Park course.

A second type of course, one marked in the Footnotes area with an "MH" also needs special consideration. The "MH" designation in this field means that the course counts for General Education credit at College Park only because of MHEC articulation agreements. Such courses typically would not carry any credit toward CORE/USP on our campus. Credit for these courses can be allowed in certain cases when advising students on permission to enroll, please give TCC a call to verify and warn the student that course credit will need to be set manually when they transfer it back to College Park.

NEW Services and New Look for TCC

If you've visited the Transfer Credit Center's website recently, you may have noticed that TCC on the web has a new look. Our main page can now be found at http://www.tce.umd.edu. Please adjust your browsers for the new address. Along with this new look for the TCC, we've also updated our FAQ pages and added several new services to make students' lives (and yours) much easier.

• New PTE Pages - Detailed information on the rules/process involved in seeking Permission to Enroll is now available to students through TCC at http://www.tce.umd.edu/pte.html
  
• New LEP Pages - Entry requirements and other useful information on several of the campus' Limited Enrollment Programs is now available through the TCC website at http://www.tce.umd.edu/lep.html . Any additional questions pertaining to admission to these programs should be sent directly to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at um-admit@umd.edu / (301) 314-8385.
  
• New Unofficial Transfer Lookup Feature - Course by course information, as typed-in by the student, on transferability and equivalency of their courses. Now available at http://www.tce.umd.edu/lookup.html, this feature differs from our current database in that it allows a student to build an "unofficial transcript" of transfer courses, one at a time, rather than sift through the entire database from a particular school. Once the appropriate school is selected, this feature works by having the student input both the course ID and mm/yy when the course was taken. The program then searches the database for the correct evaluation of the course at that time in its history and displays it for the student. It is printer-friendly, but comes with caveats about ultimate applicability.

Of course, the entire database will still be available at: http://www.tce.umd.edu/master.html for students and advisors interested in shopping the catalogs for courses but, in many ways, you may find this new lookup feature more user-friendly. As always, please send us your feedback on all these new modifications to tccinfo@deans.umd.edu. We want to make these services as user-friendly as possible.

Student Record problems? Who you gonna call...?

Do you have a student transcript that needs to be posted? Is a course missing? A semester missing? Is the credit level, grade earned, or course title on a transfer student's record incorrect? Here's a current list of contacts in the Office of the Registrar who can help correct these discrepancies:

Arts and Humanities (College Liaison Coordinator)	Kyra Capen	x48274	kcapen@deans.umd.edu
Clark School of Engineering Undergraduate Studies	Vickie Hill	x48263	vhill@deans.umd.edu
Architecture Computer, Mathematical, and   Physical Sciences	Charlotte Cook	x48255	ccook@deans.umd.edu
Education Smith School of Business	Wafaa Vonblon	x48273	wvonblon@deans.umd.edu
Behavioral and Social Sciences Journalism	Monique Matthews	x48262	mmatthew@deans.umd.edu
Agriculture and Natural Resources Health and Human Performance Life Sciences	Kismet Flagg	x48226	eflagg@deans.umd.edu

As always, the staff of the TCC stands ready to assist if needed.

Transcript Receipt Dates Now Available

In an effort to meet overwhelming student demand, the Office of the Registrar has recently begun posting "date received" information pertaining to transfer transcripts. The information can now be found in both SRECORD in SIS, and also in the "Unofficial Transcript" area of TESTUDO on the web at https://www.sis.umd.edu/uotrans. Students wishing to verify receipt of their transfer work by University of Maryland can now do so even prior to posting of the credits.

Typically, transcripts are posted by the Student Services area of the Registrar's Office within three business days of receipt. However, if you notice a transcript has arrived but has not yet been processed, members of the Student Services staff (listed above) should be able to assist with the posting.

New to Campus? Want to learn more?

If you'd like to learn more about the mission and work of the Transfer Credit Center, please feel free to contact tccinfo@deans.umd.edu with any questions you may have. If you'd like to set up a short transfer credit training session, please contact either Theresa at (301) 314-8413 or Glenn at (301) 314-8256 and we will be happy to set up a time to visit your office.

Your Input (That's right, we need it.)

Corrections are of course very important. We want a database that is 100% accurate, but with the numbers noted above, it is a struggle to keep it error free. We appreciate every complaint you make (REALLY!) and endeavor to correct any mistake within seconds of its report (although sometimes some research is necessary). Your suggestions for development are equally important. Even though TCC must take its place in the priority list, please keep'em coming!