It is essential that students understand the following policies and information concerning inbound transfer of university/college credit and transferability of CIBU credits and degree acceptance by other institutions.
Inbound credit transfer
At the undergraduate level, up to three years (90 semester units; 135 quarter units) may be transferred inbound to CIBU toward BS degree completion. Such credits are not automatically accepted. Students must make sure that CIBU has non-US university credits evaluated by one of the School’s approved credential evaluators (see Admissions and Records Department for approved list).
At the graduate level, a maximum of 6 semester (9 quarter) units are allowed for transfer toward a CIBU graduate degree. Such credits must be evaluated for content similarity, level of instruction, and contact hour parity, and must be part of the student’s credential evaluation package (see approved list of credential evaluators) for foreign university academic work.
Student transcript evaluation from CIBU source European institutions is conducted on all incoming students.
CIBU Credit Transferability and Degree Acceptance
For both undergraduate and graduate work at CIBU, students seeking acceptance and recognition for their work and/or degrees at CIBU, there are differing possible outcomes ranging from full acceptance, to partial acceptance to non-recognition within the mix of some 5000 colleges and university programs currently in the United States system of higher education.
There is great complexity and subjectivity here and students must understand this and be ready to be persistent where necessary. This needs further clarification and some background understanding.
With thousands of institutions, at differing levels of entrance difficulty, cost and prestige, there is no single credit-degree recognition system nationally, unlike many other countries in the world from which our students come. In many countries, there is one credit transfer set of rules, it is neat and simple and everyone understands and follows such system…..by contrast, the United States has over 50 different accreditation systems and all of them are voluntary, not regulated by the government. There are 50 state agencies overseeing schools and colleges and all are different. California happens to be the most rigorous and has very high standards.
Just because a student has a degree from a given private or state university in America, does not at all guarantee acceptance into the next level of institution or graduate program. In fact, such decisions are based on student grades, interviews, and test scores (i.e., GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, etc..). In many such cases, competitive rivalries exist between schools (even Ivy League icon brand names). Faculty committees most often make admission decisions, and often such rivalries and opinions hold sway over even objective test scores.
Equally, just because a student hails from a lesser known school does not mean that he or she will be at an undue hardship in seeking admission to better known institutions. Clever students with very good grades, test scores, and interview success, even outstanding faculty recommendation letters, may be successful in entering graduate programs of their first choice.
Thus, you must understand that the US system places the premium on individual achievement and track record, individual persistence and persuasiveness not on entitlement by virtue of other factors alone.
CIBU has in its last ten years had some graduates gain entrance to graduate programs at University of San Diego, SUNY, Pepperdine University and Thunderbird.
CIBU has permanent State Approval from the State of California and national accreditation through ACICS.
