I spent a number of years at Olin. During that time, I had a lot of conversations about how Olin wasn’t a good fit. There are plenty of valid academic and non-academic reasons to want to transfer, ranging from “I need to be closer to home to support relatives” to “Olin can’t really support my major,” to just not vibing with the campus culture. Yet, whenever the possibility of transferring to another college came up, everyone just assumed that Olin credits would not be accepted (“what even is a QEA cycle”), that it would be a huge waste of time and money.

That’s why I’m writing this article, to let people know it is possible. If this article were published during my first or second years, I would have started the transfer application process then. Sunk cost is a fallacy.

Can I actually transfer Olin credit?

Yes! You will lose some time, but nowhere near as much as I originally thought.

Let’s use UMass Amherst as an example (because they were the first school to send a credit evaluation).

UMass Amherst accepted 3 years worth of Olin courses… with the sole exception of Circuits. Some courses were marked as satisfying a general education requirement; for example, TLAB¹ was marked as satisfying the Biology requirement. Unfortunately, for the courses that were not marked as general education, I do not know how many of these I can apply towards a major. They run a more detailed evaluation after you accept (and I’m still weighing my options).

Don’t forget about potential credits that Olin didn’t accept from high school: community college, AP exams, credits from another institution earned through a high school program (for example, RIT takes credits from PLTW²… if you had to endure PLTW in high school, I offer my condolences).

In the end, if UMass is my final choice, I can probably graduate in 2 years if I choose so. If I returned to Olin, it would most likely take 1.5.

I can’t tell you about any private institutions yet, sorry. They don’t handle transfers on the same rolling basis state schools do. From what I understand, most private institutions limit transfer credits to four semesters, so I will lose two years.

So, you want to transfer:

Here’s some advice that you can’t just Google.

• Download important records that are behind Microsoft Single Sign On. IT will disable yournamehere@olin.edu. Most important for transferring is to download every syllabus from Canvas (or the course website). Some schools require a syllabus when evaluating your courses for transfer—I forgot to do this, and have been reaching out to professors and my remaining student contacts. This is frustrating.
• Olin has a prepared letter explaining what the QEA+ISIM+ModSim cycle covers. This was intended for people applying to graduate school, but you can add it as an additional document upload in your transfer applications.
• Don’t re-use your high school college application essays. One of mine literally made me vomit upon rereading it.
• Visit campuses. I applied to college during peak ‘rona, and online “tours” really did not influence my top choices. It actually helps to have a sense of the neighborhood (or lack thereof), and how alive the campus feels.

1. Think Like a Biologist ↩︎
2. Project Lead the Way ↩︎