iPOS

Credit hours completed at ASU or at another regionally accredited U.S. institution or international institution officially recognized by that country associated with a non-awarded graduate degree (i.e., did not finish the program or were a non-degree seeking student), before the semester and year of admission to an ASU graduate degree program, are considered pre-admission credits.  With the approval of the academic unit and the Graduate College office, students may include a maximum of 12 graduate-level credit hours with grades of “B” or better that were not used towards a previous degree. Preadmission credits must have been taken within three years of admission to the ASU degree or certificate program to be accepted. 

ASU students enrolled in an approved Accelerated Bachelor’s/Master’s degree program (commonly referred to as 4+1), may share ASU credit hours. Students must contact their ASU undergraduate advisor and graduate support staff to ensure proper sharing of credit hours. Bachelors/Master’s students may earn up to a maximum of 12 graduate credits during their undergraduate degree to be used later towards a master’s degree. An undergraduate degree and a graduate degree may not be awarded during the same term of enrollment. Students must apply, be admitted and registered as graduate students to earn a master’s or doctoral degree at ASU. Students that are not enrolled in an approved Bachelor’s/Master’s degree program are not eligible to utilize courses earned during the undergraduate degree program for a graduate degree. 

PhD students may apply up to 30 credit hours, referred to as a blanket 30, of appropriate coursework from a previously awarded master’s degree toward their PhD plan of study with approval of their academic unit and the Graduate College. If a PhD student has an awarded master's degree and their official transcripts on file with ASU, they will have the option to select the number of blanket credit hours they'd like to use toward their plan of study in the "Previous Degree" section of the iPOS. You should consult with your major advisor prior and the Program Director for your graduate program before adding the blanket credit hours.

Blanket credit hours must then be added to your plan of study in the "Course Admin" section of the iPOS. Typically, you will add all 30 into your electives and research section. However, if you would like to add a previous course to replace a specific requirement of your degree program (i.e., a core course requirement), you should discuss this first with your major advisor and the Program Director for your graduate program. Once you have their approval, contact sols.grad@asu.edu for guidance on adjusting your iPOS.

NOTE: If you obtained a master's degree at ASU, you should see the option to add all of your MS courses to your PhD iPOS on the Course Admin page if you select to add your courses from your transcript. If you do this, multiple petitions will populate because the system will assume you are attempting to add coursework you are not eligible to add. If you did obtain a master's degree at ASU that you’d like to use toward your PhD, avoid this by using the blanket hours to add your credits instead of adding each specific course on the Course Admin page.