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Transcript Entry

Requirements

Enter all of the coursework you completed at all US and English Canadian colleges or universities attended. See Foreign and French-Canadian Transcripts and Study Abroad or Overseas US Transcripts for guidelines on foreign coursework. Note the following:

  • Reporting coursework accurately is your responsibility. Since credit values, grade values, and course subjects vary widely from school to school, your programs need some type of standardization so they can accurately compare applicants. This standardization is achieved by using your coursework to create a standard set of GPAs, ensuring you are compared to other applicants fairly and equally.
  • Complete the Colleges Attended section before entering your courses.
  • Report all courses on your transcripts, not just prerequisites. Be sure to include courses from which you withdrew, repeated courses, ungraded labs, test credits, gym courses, orientations, or other non-graded courses.
  • Use official copies of your transcripts. Coursework must exactly match your official transcripts; don't use an unofficial version, like a printout from your school's website. List your courses under the correct term, year, and class level. Department prefixes and course numbers must precisely match those on your transcripts.
  • Enter courses under the institution where you originally took the course, exactly as they appear on the original school's transcript. Don't list courses under the school in which the credits were transferred. You may need to go back to your Colleges Attended and add a school to enter the transfer credits for.

Note that if you don't want to enter all your coursework yourself, our specialists can enter it for you for an additional fee. See the Professional Transcript Entry Service (PTE) topic for more information.

Enter a Term

  1. Click Start to begin entering courses for a college or university.
  2. Add a semester, quarter, or trimester depending on the term system you selected in the Colleges Attended section.
  3. Select a term.
  4. Select a year. Options are based on the time spans you selected in the Colleges Attended section.
  5. Select an academic status. Academic status refers to your status during the term you are inputting, not your current status. Refer to the list of Academic Status definitions below for more information.
  6. Select a completion status. If you're entering courses for a term that is currently in progress or planned, select In Progress/Planned.
  7. Click Save.
  8. Continue adding terms, as needed.

Academic Status Definitions

  • Freshman-Senior: Applies to all college- or university-level courses taken prior to your first bachelor's degree. In general, four-year students should list one year per designation and five-year students should list their last two years as senior. Non-traditional students should label their terms as evenly as possible in chronological order.
    • Dual enrollment courses (college courses taken during high school) are considered Freshman and should be listed under the college where you took them. Do not report these courses again as transfer credits at your undergraduate institution.
  • Post-Baccalaureate: Applies to undergraduate-level courses taken after your first bachelor's degree is earned. If you earned a second bachelor's degree, that is considered post-baccalaureate.
  • Graduate: Applies to master's degree- and doctorate degree-level work only, regardless of whether the degree was earned. Work such as that taken in pursuit of a Ph.D., MD, PharmD, JD, JurisD, LL.D, DC., etc. are considered doctorate degree-level.

Enter a Course

Enter Courses for a Completed Term

  1. Click Add A Course under the appropriate term.
  2. Enter the course code. Department prefixes and course numbers must exactly match what appears on your official transcript.
  3. Enter the course title. You can abbreviate it if it does not fit in the text box.
  4. Select the course subject. If you're unsure, make your best guess; our team will help you if it doesn't match.
  5. Enter the course credits exactly as they appear on your transcript. See the Course Credits section below for more details.
  6. Enter the grade exactly as it appears on your transcript, including any pluses or minuses.
    • If your grades are listed as "BA," "CB," or "DC," you must list them as "AB," "BC," and "CD" in order for the system to recognize them.
    • If your grades are listed as numbers (e.g., 93), enter them exactly as they appear on your transcript. They will automatically convert to the equivalent CAS letter grade.
  7. The CAS Grade populates automatically. This allows us to standardize your coursework for all programs and cannot be edited.
  8. Click Save.
  9. Continue adding courses, as needed.

Enter Courses for an In-Progress or Planned Term

You should enter any courses that you are currently taking or plan to take in the near future. This is not required, but is strongly recommended, as some programs require it. Note, however, that any term containing In Progress/Planned courses cannot be marked as complete; the entire term must be marked as In Progress/Planned. Contact your programs to determine if they require planned or in-progress coursework to be listed. Once you complete in-progress courses, you can update them in the application.

  1. Make sure that you selected In Progress/Planned for the term you're listing the course under. This alerts the system that you aren't required to enter a grade for this course.
  2. Enter the course code.
  3. Enter the course title. You can abbreviate it if it does not fit in the text box.
  4. Select the course subject. If you're unsure, make your best guess.
  5. Enter the expected course credits. Depending on the format of your credits, you may need to convert them. See the Course Credits section below for more details.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Continue adding courses, as needed.

Enter Narrative Transcripts

If your institution uses a narrative transcript, enter your coursework as described above. If the transcript lists "suggested" credits and/or grades, be sure to enter those as well; otherwise, list the course credits as "0.0" and the grades as "Pass."

Your programs will see the list of classes you took, along with a copy of the official narrative transcript that you submit.

Course Credits

Semester, Trimester, and Quarter Credits

If your course credits are mostly in "3.0," "4.0," or "5.0" format, then your transcript is listing normal semester, trimester, or quarter credits and no conversion is necessary. Enter the credits exactly as they appear on your transcript.

Unit Credits

If all of your course credits are listed in "1.0" or "0.50" format, then your transcript is listing credit units and you need to perform a conversion. Check the back of your transcript for a conversion ratio, which will say something like "1 unit is equivalent to 4 semester hours."

If there is no conversion on the back of your transcript, contact your registrar's office to determine the conversion ratio. Then, convert the credits by multiplying the number of units listed on your transcript by the conversion factor. For example, if your conversion is 1 unit = 4 hours and your transcript lists 1 unit for a course, you would enter 4.00 credits on your application. If 0.50 is listed, you would enter 2.00.

Review OptomCAS Grade Value Charts to view some Canadian institutions' unit conversion ratios.

Lab Credits

If your transcript lists labs separately, you must list them as separate courses on your application as well. Record the labs exactly as they appear on your transcript. If your transcript combines lab and lecture courses into one course, list it as one course on your application.

Test Credits

You can only list test credits if they were awarded by one of the schools you attended and they appear on your transcript. Test credit types include Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), CLEP, DANTE, Regents, and courses you "tested out of" at college or university. List these credits under your first term at the school that awarded you the credit and enter "CR" as the grade. If no course prefix or number appears on the transcript, enter "N/A" for Not Applicable.

Be sure to designate these test credits appropriately in the Transcript Review section (below).

Enter Course Types (Transcript Review)

Once you enter and save all your courses, click Review & Finalize My Transcripts. Your next step is to designate specific courses as study abroad, Advanced Placement, repeated, etc. You must complete Transcript Review before you can add prerequisites in the Program Materials section.

Primary College

Identify your primary undergraduate institution. This is typically considered the college or university where you earned (or will earn) your first Bachelor's Degree. If no degree is planned, select the college or university where you completed the majority of your undergraduate coursework.

Repeated Classes

Indicate if you repeated any of your courses. Courses should only be marked as repeated if you repeated them at the same institution (i.e., you retook the course for a higher grade). Withdrawn courses, courses taken at different schools, and courses taken multiple times for new credit (i.e., school band, physical education, etc) are not considered repeated.

Record full credit values and grades for all repeated courses. OptomCAS is required to include all repeated courses in GPA calculations, regardless of an institution's or state's academic forgiveness policies.

If you repeated courses, select Yes and click Continue. Then, click the plus sign next to the repeated courses for each college or university you attended.

Advanced Placement Credit

Indicate if you received Advanced Placement (AP) credit on the College Board Advanced Placement Exams for any of your courses.

If you received AP credit, select Yes and click Continue. Then, click the plus sign next to the advanced placement courses. Be sure to only select courses that are clearly marked as AP on your transcript.

Other Test Credit

Indicate if you received credit for tests other than the AP exam, including International Baccalaureate (IB), CLEP, DANTE, Regents, or Institutional/Departmental exams (i.e., courses you "tested out of" at college or university).

If you received test credits, select Yes and click Continue. Then, click the plus sign next to the courses. Be sure to only select courses that are clearly identified as test credits on your transcript.

Honors Courses

Indicate if you took any honors courses, which are generally college or university courses taken at an honors level. These are usually designated with an "H" in the course number on your transcript. Note that earning Latin honors upon graduation does not mean your courses are retroactively considered "Honors."

If you took honors courses, select Yes and click Continue. Then, click the plus sign next to the courses. Be sure to only select courses that are clearly identified as honors on your transcript.

Study Abroad Courses

If you studied abroad, indicate the courses you took as part of your institution's study abroad program. Refer to the Sending Transcripts section for more information.

If you studied abroad, select Yes and click Continue. Then, click the plus sign next to the courses.

 

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