The following is a list of responses to frequently asked questions regarding transfer and articulation subjects and the implementation of seamless transfer policies. These responses are provided to help guide local campus policies and decision-making and are informational.
The following entries address changes to General Education in the 2023 and 2025 revisions to General Education.
Decisions regarding course approval for SUNY General Education now reside with the campus offering the course. Each campus must have procedures to review and approve courses for the purpose of general education applicability. The campus procedures must be implemented in a manner that ensures each approved course contains sufficient content to address the SLOs of a Knowledge and Skill area. Faculty have the responsibility to evaluate courses. All policies governing seamless transfer of general education courses remain applicable, meaning that a receiving campus must accept as complete all general education requirements that have been determined to be completed at a sending campus.
Courses successfully completed with a grade of C or better and listed on the GETA are guaranteed to transfer. If the course was successfully completed under the prior GE-R format, the category must still be considered as met. Programs, departments, and institutions may have stricter requirements regarding credits only if they are applicable to both students who began their college education at the same institution (native students) and transfer students alike. Transfer students may not be required to complete more credits than a native student to meet local requirements in the same program.
If there is an issue with a receiving institution not accepting approved courses, an institutional appeal may be submitted. Please note that campus appeals must be submitted via the SUNY Seamless Transfer Campus Appeals Form and include the signature of the SUNY Campus Chief Administrative or Academic Officer/Provost.
Yes, core competencies may be met in a course that the campus has not approved for SUNY GE, including infusing or embedding the SLOs across the curriculum; however, these courses do not count toward the required number of SUNY GE credits. The only way for a core competency to count toward the credit requirement is if it is included in an approved SUNY general education course, since the course earns the credit toward the requirement. Knowledge and skill area courses may be less than three credits; however, all the SLOs of the category must still be achieved and assessed. All requirements, including the core competencies, must be provided on the GETA for the purposes of transfer, and shall list the courses or SLOs completed to fulfill the requirement.
The entries below provide answers to common SUNY General Education questions.
Campuses can require additional or different local graduation requirements so long as they do not exceed the credit caps for programs and do not require transfer students to exceed the total number of credits to graduation required of students who began their college education at the same institution.
Local general education requirements must exist apart from the SUNY General Education requirements and cannot replace or supersede a SUNY General Education requirement. For example, while campuses may have additional local requirements that exist within a requirement category, they cannot indicate a student has failed to meet a SUNY General Education requirement when it is indicated as complete on the GETA. Additional local requirements must be separately accounted for.
Yes. In fact, many transfer path courses are approved for general education.
Yes. The determination of eligibility for SUNY General Education approval rests with the course content rather than with the course prefix.
SUNY policy on double dipping defers to local campus policies at both sending and receiving campuses. Local policies cannot require a transfer student to exceed the number of credits to graduation that are required of students who began their college education at the same institution, and students are still able to meet minimum credit requirements.
Passing grades shall indicate successful completion for any SUNY General Education category. In addition, within SUNY, a grade of C or better guarantees the transfer of credit in addition to requirement fulfillment. Campuses are encouraged to accept courses for credit wherever possible, and to develop campus policies that provide for the acceptance of credit.
Campus discretion can be used when determining whether or not a course grade satisfies graduation requirements outside of general education categories (e.g. in the major or program). In establishing credit acceptance practices outside of general education, campuses must have a published policy demonstrating that native students and transfer students are treated in the same way.
Campuses may accept pass/fail types of grading; however, these grades are not guaranteed to be accepted under SUNY policy. When a sending campus has a grade equivalent for a passing grade, campuses are encouraged to use the minimum grade standards that apply, if campus policy allows.