Office of the University Registrar

Midyear Students

Congratulations on your acceptance to Brandeis University!

The midyear student transfer credit policy is applicable to students who applied for fall-term admission as freshmen, but who were accepted for the following spring term as members of the midyear class. Midyear students are permitted to transfer up to 16 credits from the following external sources.

Courses must be taken at accredited, degree-granting institutions from which the student will receive an official transcript. The courses must be generally equivalent to courses offered at Brandeis, and the grade received must be a C- or better.

To request preapproval, please complete the online Midyear Course Petition form. The information needed to complete the form is: school name, school website, course name, course title, course description and the number of credits assigned to the course. If you are petitioning for General Chemistry, a course syllabus is also required. Once your petition is reviewed, you will receive a decision by email. 

Students may not be concurrently enrolled at Brandeis during a term in which transfer credit is sought, except as allowed under the provisions of cross-registration. Due to this policy, winter intersession courses are generally not approved for transfer. Intersession courses must meet for a minimum of 5 weeks and 37 contact hours to be considered for transfer credit.

If you are taking courses through the Arcadia London Midyear Program or the CET Florence Midyear Program then you do not have to complete this petition form. For more information on these programs, visit Overview of Midyear Programs.

After the fall semester is complete, students must mail an official transcript to the address below. Official electronic transcripts are also accepted and should be emailed to transfer@brandeis.edu. Any questions about Midyear transfer credit policies can also be sent to transfer@brandeis.edu.

Office of the University Registrar
Brandeis University
415 South Street, MS 068
Waltham, MA 02453

Additional Notes on Gap year Programs

  • Brandeis University Policy regarding college level work done in Israel is to accept credit only from the Israeli universities themselves (Bar-Ilan, Ben Gurion, Haifa, Hebrew, Technion, Tel-Aviv, and Weizman Institute).  We do not accept credit from any of the private institutions or colleges in Israel, for “yeshiva programs” or other religious programs, for work done in Israel under the sponsorship of American agencies (e.g. Young Judea) or for any such work that appears as sponsored or derivative credit on the transcript of an American college or university.

  • We do not award numeric credit for Ulpan courses. If you intend to be a NEJS major/minor, you may wish to reach out to the department to explore placement options.

The Principle of Equivalent Course Load 

Brandeis does not measure progress towards the degree in terms of “semester hours” or “quarter hours.” Units such as these are converted to “semester courses” according to the formula below:

  • We ascertain the number of hours or courses required for the receipt of a bachelor’s degree at the institution from which you are transferring courses. We total the number of credits acceptable to us for transfer credit, divide them by the requirement at your previous institution and multiply by 32 (the degree standard at Brandeis). For example, if your previous school requires 128 credits and you attended one semester, completing 16 credits acceptable for transfer, the equation will be 16/128 x 32 = 4. Hence, one full semester at that institution will receive full credit at Brandeis.
  • If you worked at a higher or lower rate, credit transferred will reflect that rate. For example, if you complete 12 credits acceptable for transfer at a school that requires 120 credits for graduation, the equation is 12/120 x 32 = 3.  In this scenario, the student will receive three Brandeis courses.
  • For two year schools, we multiply by 16 (e.g., if the degree requirement is 60 credits, the equation will be #/60 x 16 = ?)
  • If the equation does not yield a whole number, we round up or down depending on the remainder. For .5 and above, we round up. For less than .5, we rounds down. (e.g. 3.2 is rounded down to 3 courses; 3.6 is rounded up to 4 courses)