Transfer Credit Process
Transfer credit must be approved by the University Registrar’s Office and listed on your Stanford transcript before it can be used towards your Math major or minor requirements. For transfer credits towards other programs and the university, please see the University Transfer Credit page for more information.
Note: Only external courses taken fully in-person including all exams may be considered for transfer credit for Math department courses.
Having transfer credit on your transcript does not mean it automatically gets applied toward the major or minor.
Once it is on your transcript, majors and minors must then get it approved by the department if they wish to use it towards fulfilling major or minor requirements.
Submit Your Transfer Credit Petition
This petition must be submitted at least two quarters prior to graduation.
Process to have transfer credit reviewed for the major or minor
Ensure the transfer credit is on your transcript
Follow the steps above to ensure the transfer credit has made it onto your transcript. We cannot evaluate credit until this step is complete.
Review the types of transfer credits below and submit the corresponding request(s).
Be sure to include the following documents in your request:
- detailed course description
- comprehensive syllabus which must include a list of topics and detailed course content from the course you wish to transfer
- unofficial transcript from the outside institution showing the course you wish to transfer
If the Request is for Math 51 or Math 53
- See the note below about the annotations that you must make to the syllabus before sending it
Await review
Once your transfer credit has been reviewed by faculty, the decision goes to the final stage where the Registrar processes the outcome.
You only need to transfer credit to the Mathematics Department if you are a current Mathematics Major or Minor.
Not a Math major or minor? Any questions concerning the applicability of transfer courses towards that major or minor, or prerequisites for another department’s courses must be resolved within the other major or minor's department.
Please note:
- The department cannot give more credit towards the major or minor than what the equivalent Stanford Math course offers, nor more than the amount of units that Stanford accepts. For example, if a student is transferring the equivalent to Math 52 (which is 5 Stanford units) and received 6 units from the Stanford Registrar, only 5 can count towards the Math major or minor. If the student received 4 units from the Stanford Registrar for the Math 52 equivalent, only 4 can count towards the major or minor.
- All equivalence and transfer requests for Math 51 and/or Math 53 credit must include an accompanying annotated syllabus to demonstrate how prior courses satisfies the course content for Math 51 and/or Math 53 as described in the Math 51-52-53 topics. For Math 53, transfer credit will likely need two courses: one on ordinary differential equations using linear algebra, and one on PDE/Fourier material.