The US academic credit system needn’t be a barrier to international study

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Students who hope to apply to study in the US, especially those transferring, must plan ahead to make sure the time they’ve already spent studying will count, explains Marshall Houserman, Senior director of enrolment management at Shorelight. Shorelight specialises in matching international applicants with global education opportunities.

“Credits are a measurement of time first and foremost,” Houserman says. “Nominally, one credit hour in the US is one hour of instruction per week in class and two hours outside the classroom. So, when we think about a three-credit-hour course, which is fairly typical at the undergraduate level, we think about the student being in class from 9am to 10am Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and spending six hours doing their own study.

“The best advice for students is to make sure that they do their homework on how their credits will look in the US. Most comparative international education professionals agree that study completed over the course of one year in a country is approximately the equivalent of one year of study in the US. Generally speaking, students should expect to have earned the US equivalent of 15 credits a semester and 30 for a year.”

In the US, a bachelor’s degree is earned with 120 credits, usually across four years. Typically, conversions are straightforward because there are four main systems used globally, Houserman explains. Many countries loosely follow the US system, including China, Japan, Korea and Saudi Arabia, Houserman says, while simple comparisons are available for the British, French and Russian patterns.

Converting credits from these systems is the most common process, but Shorelight recognises and works with all global systems. “We work with our university partners on those conversions and understanding how they approach them individually so that we can speak to students specifically by partner,” Houserman says.

A problem that students might encounter when converting is overestimating the number of credits they have earned, and Shorelight works with students to avoid any surprises.

“That could be an important factor in making your college decision,” Houserman says. “We don’t want a student to assume they’re going to have three years of credit when they’ve only got one. We want students to have that preparation so it’s not a shock when they arrive to campus.”

Shorelight walks through the conversion with students so they have a solid understanding of how the process works. “They don’t always understand that there are differences in how credit is accumulated and earned and how it’s measured in different countries,” Houserman says.

Working with students on the Shorelight Transfer Direct service, available at some partner universities, counsellors estimate a student’s qualifying transfer credits and then create a personalised study plan. This identifies best-fit universities and provides a walkthrough of the enrolment process.

With nearly two decades’ experience in the field, Houserman is still driven by his desire to help students. “What’s always been my North Star is that the documents  tell a story of the student’s previous journey and where it intends to take them. My passion is helping students to make life changing decisions. It’s the student who’s decided they’re going to pick up and move 2,000, 3,000, even 10,000 miles away and leave their family and all they know behind for new opportunities. Those documents tell a story of the student. Those credits also tell a story.”

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