Mechanical Engineering

Undergraduate Transfer Students

The Transfer Process

When you submit original sealed transcripts from an external school, the admissions staff enter all potentially acceptable transfer courses into your ISIS account. These courses are then automatically checked by the online transfer dictionary and the awarded credit appears in your ISIS account.

If a course does not match up with a course in the transfer dictionary you might still be able to get credit by filing an academic petition. It is your responsibility to identify those courses, to present an academic petition to the relevant department, and to back up your request with appropriate documentation in the form of course descriptions, syllabi, etc.

If you feel you should receive additional transfer credits you must fill out an academic petition with words to the effect of ...

"I request that course (course number and name, number of credits, grade received), taken at (name of university) in (semester and year) transfer as credit for course (equivalent UMass Lowell course number and name) at UMass Lowell."

To the petition you should attach a photocopy of the relevant portion of your transcript as well as a course description from your university catalog and/or a course syllabus. Present this to the department transfer officer who may re-direct you to the relevant instructor.

You must ensure that the Registrar's office has an official copy of your transcript - including completed grades for the semester before you transferred to UMass Lowell.

International students must provide a full set of transcripts, an educational evaluation from the Center for Educational Documentation (CED) in Boston, and a course description for any course for which they wish to receive transfer credit. The course description must make it explicit that it is a calculus-based engineering course, rather than an algebra-based technology course. In most cases you will need to get your mathematics and science courses transferred before the ME adviser can consider your engineering transfer credits.

The most important thing for transfer students to understand is that the awarding of transfer credits is a privilege, not a right, and that transfer credits must be requested, and fully justified by the student. Please understand that requests for transfer credit are sometimes refused. Either a university rule is being violated, or the course does not satisfy the requirements of the equivalent UML course.

Rules for Transfer Credit

You must have at least a C- in any course you wish to transfer.

No course taken at a two-year institution can be transferred as credit for an upper level (300, 400 or 500 level) course.

Note that if you transfer from an institution that operates on a quarter system the number of credits transferred will be pro-rated. This sometimes presents problems in meeting the 120 credit minimum if you transfer a lot of credits.

If you received transfer credit for a mechanical engineering technology course (23.*** rather than 22.***) this course will, in most cases, not count toward the engineering program.

Transfer Advising

Evaluation of mechanical engineering technical courses and advisement of transfer students is done primarily by the mechanical engineering transfer advisers (currently the Department Chairman - Prof. McKelliget, and Prof. Charmchi).

The transfer adviser is your adviser during your entry into the program, and for the first semester thereafter. After this you should only consult the transfer adviser on matters relating to transfer credits.

M.E. Undergraduate Curriculum Transfer Guidelines (Effective 2010)

Transfer credit for Mechanical Engineering 300 and 400 level courses will, in general, only be awarded for equivalent courses from a four-year ABET accredited engineering program. Petition course instructor, with final OK coming from Chair or Transfer adviser.

Community Colleges Transfer Agreements

Other course equivalencies (pdf)

Keene State College (N.H.)

St. Anselms College (N.H.)