Psychology and Neuroscience majors and minors are permitted to take no more than two of their eight required courses at other universities. Courses must be approved in advance by the Chair of the Undergraduate Committee. In addition, the courses must satisfy all of the College regulations about transfer credits as found in the ORC. Additional information can be found on the ORC Regulations page. It is wise to seek approval for more than the number of desired courses because a particular course may end up being filled or canceled at the other university.
Transfer courses in certain cases can provide a good way of pursuing an interest that cannot be satisfied easily in our department. To take maximum advantage of such opportunities, however, they should be planned well in advance. Approval of courses for transfer credit is subject to the nature of the courses and the institution at which they are taken. Transfer courses may not be used to satisfy the upper level (50, 60, or 80) requirements for the major or minor.
The department does not offer credit for Advanced Placement. Our recent experience with high school-based AP Psychology indicates that fewer than 15% of students with scores of 5 on the AP exam have mastered material equivalent to a passing grade in Psychology 1 at Dartmouth.
Decisions regarding transfer credit in psychology are made by the Chair of the Undergraduate Committee, Professor Catherine Cramer.
Use the checklist for requesting transfers of credit with the other required materials:
Please submit a PDF of the full syllabus for each course in Psychology being requested from the institution including the reading assignments (text & authors), evaluation methods (exams and homework), schedule of class meetings, and Professor name and title. Syllabi can generally be obtained on request from the psychology department at the school to which you are applying. This must be a PDF. References to web pages are not an acceptable substitute. No application will be considered without this information.
Appropriate completed paperwork from the registrar's office or pre-matriculation request from the first-year office.
Requests for transfer credit that do not include all the required information will not be considered. A course description from a course catalog is not sufficient, and requests that do not provide course syllabi will be denied. The required documents should be submitted to Psychological.and.Brain.Sciences@dartmouth.edu ten days prior to the deadline listed on the Registrar's webpage for the relevant academic term. The Chair of the Undergraduate Committee will then review the documents and either approve or not approve your request.
There is no guarantee that requests for transfer credit will be approved.
If you are granted approval from Professor Cramer, you may then submit your request to the Registrar's office to request official Registrar's approval for your transfer courses.
Students who have received Advanced Placement credit for Statistics (Math 10) and who are planning to become Psychology majors are not exempted from Psychology 10 (Statistical Methods) and should take PSYC 10 before enrolling in Psychology 11 (Laboratory in Psychological Science). Students who are planning to become Neuroscience majors may use the Math 10 credit in lieu of the statistics prerequisite for the major.