We were pleased to host an open session for all members of the SUNY community on October 21, 2025. If you were unable to attend, or if you’d like to revisit the topics and materials discussed, you are able to access all related resources on this page. If you have any questions or need further support, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Event Description
The SUNY Seamless Transfer Initiative is an ongoing effort to implement the recommendations and success metrics outlined in the final report of the SUNY Transfer Task Force, which was approved by the SUNY Board of Trustees in December 2024. The Initiative aims to enhance all aspects of the transfer student experience, with a particular emphasis on improving the outcomes of “vertical” transfer students transitioning from SUNY community colleges to SUNY baccalaureate programs.
Campuses will strive to achieve campus targets that collectively contribute to system-wide transfer success metrics. These targets will be achieved through the adoption of tools, resources, process/practice recommendations, and policy reforms actively promoted by the SUNY Office of Student Success Transfer and Articulation team.
Event Recording
Access the event recording via Microsoft Stream. Clicking the video below will open the recording in a new, accessible screen. You are also able to download a transcript on the Microsoft Streams viewer.
Event Slides
Download a PDF version of the slides presented during the Fall 2025 Transfer Town Hall.
Event Q&A Responses
The following are responses to questions raised during the event. In some instances, we may have combined like questions into a single representative question. To protect privacy, any questions specific to individual campuses or persons have been excluded. If you need clarification or have additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
While PLA and transfer credit are two distinct catagories of coursework, we recognize that many PLA experiences (especially test scores) are often entered into transfer articulation modules or tools. As we refine the data collection process, SUNY will need to work with campuses to determine how to properly identify PLA versus transfer courses, so we can effectively track each disticntly, and provide an accurate picture.
We are not capping students. Our goal is to fully understand transfer credit acceptance rates across a wide range of student profiles. In future iterations of the measure, we plan to include transfer credit acceptance rates for students with credit totals below, at, and significantly above the upper-division threshold. This will allow us to better assess how varying levels of transfer credit impact student progress and provide a more accurate reflection of how campuses are accepting credits—especially for students with a high number of completed credits.
We also recognize that some campuses naturally serve more students with large credit counts due to their institutional missions and degree offerings. Additionally, we anticipate that SUNY ReConnect may influence these patterns, and we want to ensure we can fully evaluate its impact.
The transfer credit acceptance rate is a measure that will continue to evolve. The current targets are based solely on the data we have available today. As we move forward, we fully intend to refine and enhance this measure in collaboration with campuses, ensuring it more accurately reflects the realities of transfer credit acceptance across the system.
When we refer to “all transfers,” we mean all students who transfer —regardless of whether they completed an associate degree. This distinction is important because many students transfer before completing their degree, or the degree may not yet be recorded at the time of data collection. To ensure accuracy and comparability, we did seek to exclude non-transfer programs such as AAS and AOS from the measures.
There has been interest in developing a separate measure to track the progress of transfer students from AAS and AOS programs. While this may be explored in the future, these programs are not currently included in our initial assessment. This is because the Seamless Transfer Policy does not include these degree types, and the number of students in this category is comparatively small.
Understanding why students accumulate excess credits requires deeper analysis. While some national studies have examined this issue, the findings indicate that multiple factors contribute to excess credit accumulation, and there is no single set of causes that applies universally across institutions.
As our work progresses, we may find that transfer credit acceptance rates are linked to excess credit accumulation. If such a relationship emerges, we anticipate refining the measure to include additional dimensions that provide a more accurate and comprehensive picture. We are not assuming in advance whether or not this interaction exists, but we remain open to evolving the measure based on what the data reveals.
The current definition is broad and bsaed on our available information. It captures credits that were successfully completed—meaning the student earned a passing grade—but were not articulated as credit at the receiving (transfer) institution. These are considered “credits not applied” or “lost.”
The general formula used is:
Credits Earned at SUNY Community College
− Credits Applied at the SUNY State-Operated Campus
= Credits Not Applied
This difference represents the number of credits that did not transfer or were not accepted toward the student’s program at the receiving institution.
Our current data does not provide detailed insight into how transferred credits are applied. Specifically, we cannot yet distinguish whether a credit was applied as an elective, toward a major requirement, or in another category. This level of detail is not available in the existing data, but it is a stated goal. Gaining this granularity will help us better understand how credits are applied—and why some may not be accepted or applicable.
This step, recommended by the Transfer Task Force (Objective 1.10: Catalog Evaluated Courses and Conduct Automatic Second Reviews), is designed to improve both the collection and review of transfer articulation data. Beginning in Fall 2025, we will advance a secondary review procedure for courses not initially accepted for credit. Alongside this, we will continue working toward broader and more consistent data collection to support and strengthen transfer practices across campuses over time.
The term “Automatic Second Reviews” refers to a procedural step in which campuses re-evaluate courses that were initially not accepted for transfer credit. The specific process for conducting these reviews may vary by campus. A formal guidance document outlining expectations and next steps is forthcoming. Campuses will be asked to identify their policies and confirm that these reviews occur.
Most campuses already meet this standard and have established processes to ensure a thorough review and evaluation of transfer credits.
While wholly new procedures or policies may not be necessary, we are asking campuses to emphasize the importance of this step and reinforce the value of a comprehensive review. This is essential to fostering a transfer-forward culture.
Campuses can emphasize this by:
- Updating campus policies and websites to clearly state that all eligible transfer credits shall be reviewed, including a second review for initially denied credits.
- Training faculty and staff involved in transfer evaluation on the importance of second reviews and how they contribute to student success.
- Creating or supporting cross-departmental review teams to ensure diverse perspectives in evaluating previously denied credits.
- Including transfer credit review goals in strategic plans or institutional effectiveness metrics.
We are highlighting this practice because it has been identified as a high-impact strategy. Implementing a second review—particularly by involving additional staff and faculty in reconsidering previously denied credits—has been shown to improve transfer credit acceptance rates and supports the principle of making every credit count.
Yes, absolutely. We’re excited to begin developing new dashboards focused on SUNY Transfer Success Metrics, along with regional dashboards to support collaboration between SUNY community colleges and SUNY state-operated campuses.
These tools will be essential to our collective success, as all metrics and targets are shared across institutions. To be effective, campuses will need to work together jointly assessing programs, strategies, and outcomes. Emphasizing this shared responsibility and making data more widely available and transparent will help us build a stronger, more coordinated transfer ecosystem.
We will consistently emphasize the importance of completing an associate degree prior to transferring in all communications, outreach efforts, materials, and programming. Research shows that students who complete an associate degree before transferring are significantly more likely to graduate overall—and more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree within four years. Promoting degree completion is a key strategy for improving student outcomes and supporting successful transfer pathways.
Yes—this process is known as reverse transfer. SUNY already has a reverse transfer policy and procedure in place, and we plan to enhance it in the coming months. A key objective will be to develop a reliable method for identifying students who are strong candidates for reverse transfer, by improving access to and use of relevant data.
This is a well-known challenge in national and SUNY benchmarking efforts.
One of the key difficulties is identifying all the necessary dimensions to accurately assess the success of part-time students. Many part-time students are either non-matriculated or not enrolled in formal associate degree programs, which has historically made measurement more complex.
SUNY’s long-term goal is to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of all transfer students—including part-time students, who play a unique and important role in our system. Our aim is to create a measure that is not only useful for internal planning and evaluation, but also serves as a model for other university systems.
Most transfer success measurements are cohort-based, meaning they track students who entered the SUNY system as an associate degree starter within a recent timeframe, and progressed over a set number of years. As a result, students who re-enter after a long absence are not currently included in our targets or Transfer Success Metrics.
Additional work is underway by other teams to better understand the diverse backgrounds of SUNY ReConnect students, many of whom are returning to college after an extended break.