Course and Program Transfers
For Science and Engineering (Applied Science, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics), with rare exception, all undergraduate science courses offered at Kwantlen Polytechnic University are transferable to all the universities and university colleges in British Columbia. This is due to the well established and respected transfer agreements coordinated through the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT.) Most transfer on a straight course-to-course basis, some transfer as a package where two or more courses combined equate to two or more courses at the receiving institution, and a few might transfer to a specific university as unassigned credit that counts towards the degree. There are no formal transfer arrangements to universities outside the province, but since the courses transfer here they should also transfer there in some form.
Because the core requirements of any Science or Engineering program can differ somewhat between each degree granting institution, the credit transfer arrangements can also vary. To ensure as smooth an arrangement of transfer as possible, faculty from each subject area meets annually between all sending and receiving institutions to iron out matters. BCCAT maintains a complete and updated Transfer Guide summary of all course transfer agreements between the province's colleges, university colleges and universities, and serves in an advocacy capacity in assisting resolution on any serious obstacles to transfer. When planning your course profile at Kwantlen Polytechnic University it is critical that you be aware of the specific requirements for the program at the institution where you wish to complete your degree. The BCCAT website and Kwantlen’s Educational Advisor web pages are excellent resources in helping you determine the equivalent courses you need to take while attending Kwantlen. BCCAT’s Transfer Tips, found on the BCCAT website, provides user-friendly information on learning how the B.C. transfer system works. Kwantlen’s Science website provides Associate of Science course charting guidance on the courses required for specific fields of science for specific university transfer.
The BC Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT) has created a personalized feature on its www.educationplanner.bc.ca website for students planning on attending two or more public post-secondary institutes to complete their baccalaureate degree. This site allows users to create a personal account, save programs to their profile, and create education and financial plans to help them map their route through post-secondary in British Columbia. This page may also be accessed from the BC Transfer Guide site at www.bctransferguide.ca Finding how courses transfer, and packaging them for transfer to one or more degree completion institutes, is now much simpler and informative.
Recent surveys supported by BCCAT provide excellent evidence of the efficiency of the province’s transfer system.
- Data submitted by SFU (a similar one exists for UBC and UVIC) at BCCAT’s request for a period from 1998 to 2002 shows that transferring students perform well when compared to students commencing their degree directly at SFU. While there is a small “cultural shock” drop in grades characteristic of orienting to a new environment, this diminishes with each year. More important, there is strong evidence that the more course credits a student earns at the sending institution before transferring, the less the “cultural shock” and the higher the graduating grade upon transfer. Similarly, degree completion rates increase with longer stays prior to transferring.
- Transferring students with a high school average of 75% or greater perform equally as well as students directly entering SFU. Transferring students with a high school average of 75% or lower perform better at SFU if they attend a college or university college first. Among SFU graduates, direct entry and transferring students perform equally as well in their last 60 course credits.
- When transferring, 91% of Arts and Science college students obtain transfer to the university of their choice, 95% to their preferred program, and 84% gained access to all the courses they wanted in their first year of transfer.
- Kwantlen Polytechnic University has the largest number, hence the strongest record, of transferring students annually over the past decade. A BCCAT sponsored telephone survey of 1589 university graduates from UBC, SFU, UVic and UNBC five years following graduation (i.e., of 1996 graduates) recorded that 47% of the participants were students who had transferred from a college or university college. Of the 223 former transfer students from Kwantlen, 97% were satisfied with their overall university education – including the portion taken at Kwantlen.
Kwantlen's Associate of Science degree offers students a GPA advantage for admission to SFU and UNBC, and it offers a 60 credit block transfer to UBC, SFU, UVic, UNBC, UCFV, and TRU (Thompson Rivers University.) In addition, a partnership agreement with Royal Roads University provides block transfer arrangement to a BSc in Environmental Science or Environmental Management for Environmental Protection Technology graduates as well as Science students.
The Science divisions at SFU and Kwantlen have signed a Dual Enrolment Pathway Partnership wherein Science students at one institution can access courses at the other institution towards completion of their degree. The courses must be unavailable at the home institution either because they are not offered that semester or because there are no vacant seats remaining. The contact point for Kwantlen students is Kwantlen's Admissions Office at any campus, while SFU students will require a letter of permission from the Office of the Dean of Science at SFU. Students will pay tuition at the rate charged by the institution where the course is taken. Kwantlen students must be in good academic standing and enrolled in an Associate of Science program. SFU guarantees course transfer credits and admission to finish a Bachelor of Science to any Kwantlen Science student who has taken an SFU course via the Dual Enrolment Pathway Partnership, and who has since completed a Kwantlen Associate of Science degree (with a 2.0 cumulative GPA or better).
Provided below are links to Science and Engineering programs at the most common receiving universities for Kwantlen students.
| UBC science | UBC engineering |
| SFU science | SFU engineering |
| UVic science | UVic engineering |
| Royal Roads University | UNBC |
