Once admitted to the Faculty of Nursing, transcripts are assessed and students are informed via the Bear Tracks Transfer Credit Report if they have received transfer credit for any courses in previous post-secondary education. This process is completed automatically for all students with an official transcript from a previous post secondary experience. There is no action required by the student to start the assessment process
Obtaining transfer credit normally DOES NOT shorten the length of your program, but may lighten the course load in certain terms.
For transfer credit to be granted from an institution outside the University of Alberta, you must meet the minimum passing grade for transfer (See Transfer of Credit). The Faculty of Nursing recommends students enroll in all required courses until they receive their Transfer Credit Report. Once you receive your Transfer Credit Report, you can determine if you need to delete any unnecessary courses by the appropriate term registration deadlines.
While this is not an exhaustive list, students can commonly expect to receive transfer credit for the following courses:
ENGL/WRS course (3 credits)
STAT course (3 credits)
Elective courses (2 courses total; 6 credits)
If a student has previously completed nursing-related courses that they would specifically want evaluated, we request that they send us a copy of the course syllabus for each course they are inquiring about so that a further evaluation can take place.
Certain first-year nursing courses are open to enrollment for students outside of the Faculty of Nursing. Students may wish to complete these courses prior to the start of their Nursing program, however it is not required for them to do so.
Human Anatomy
Human Physiology
Medical Microbiology
For a list of courses that can be taken at the University of Alberta for transfer credit for the above subjects, please see this webpage.
Please also be aware that English, Anatomy and Physiology and Medical Microbiology are typically taken in the Fall term of Year 1 of the BScN program. Completing all of these courses beforehand would result in a part-time course load for the duration of this initial Nursing term which can have financial implications. We do not have the capacity to move courses from the winter terms into the fall term to pad your course load.
It is important to note that regardless of approved advanced standing or transfer credit received for some specific courses in our BScN programs, the remaining length of the Collaborative and Bilingual programs remains as four years since all nursing courses within our programs are intentionally delivered sequentially.