College Core
All A&S students entering in Fall 2025 or later will take the A&S College Core, an innovative new curriculum designed to help students develop skills that will serve them for life—as successful professionals and engaged citizens. The College Core was intentionally designed to expose students to a range of ideas, approaches, and perspectives across the arts and sciences. Students have flexibility to design the curriculum to meet their individual interests and career paths.
Note that as a transfer student, your requirements in the College Core are slightly different from those of non-transfer students.
Advising and Mentoring
In the College of Arts and Science, we understand the importance of advising and mentoring to help you make a successful transition to Vanderbilt.
Our transfer advising and mentoring process is as follows:
- The summer prior to your first semester at Vanderbilt, you will be assigned a temporary adviser based on your intended major.
- Your temporary adviser will welcome you to Vanderbilt, explain the registration process, and answer any questions you might have. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the Transfer Student Course Registration information.
- You will register for fall courses during your assigned enrollment window in June. If you miss this enrollment window, you will also have a chance to register for classes during Open Enrollment in July and August.
- Over the course of the summer, you will have the opportunity to declare your major. When you declare, you will be assigned a permanent academic adviser in the department of your major. If you haven’t decided what to major in yet, you will be assigned a pre-major adviser.
- When you arrive on campus, you will join a peer group of other transfer students, led by a Vanderbilt student mentor. Your peer group and mentor will help you with the social and residential transition to Vanderbilt.
- During your first week on campus, as part of the Transfer Student Orientation, the A&S Office of Academic Services will host an information session to help answer questions you might have.
Transfer Student Course Registration
Below are some important issues you should consider as you select your courses for your first semester at Vanderbilt:
- Determine the courses for which you already have academic credit. To begin this process, log in to YES and click on the Transfer Credit icon. Click on the Add Request link to submit a new course. More detailed instructions, including the YES Transfer Credit User Guide, can be found on the University Registrar's site.
- Determine how your courses count toward your requirements, for both the A&S College Core and for your major. (Note that AXLE is the core curriculum for all students entering before Fall 2025; the College Core is the core curriculum for all students entering Fall 2025 and later.) Look carefully at the complete list of courses for which you have received transfer credit. Review the AXLE requirements or the College Core requirements (depending on when you entered Vanderbilt), as well as the section for your prospective major in the Undergraduate Catalog to ascertain what portion of your requirements you have already fulfilled.
- Choose courses to satisfy your remaining core curriculum and major requirements.
- Choose electives to round out your course selections, if you still have room in your schedule. Typically, upperclassmen enroll in five or six courses per semester.
- Place your desired courses in your cart in YES (if needed, see the YES User Guide: Enrollment for detailed instructions on how to enroll in courses) and contact your transfer adviser. Your adviser will be able to review the courses in your cart to make sure they are appropriate and will meet your needs; your adviser can then remove your Adviser Approval Hold so that you can enroll in your courses.
Be mindful of course pre‐ and co‐requisites. Requisites are included in the class detail in YES. Due to the lengthy nature of the evaluation process, it is not likely that requisite courses that you completed at your prior institution will be posted to your Vanderbilt record at the time of enrollment. Should you encounter difficulties enrolling in courses with pre‐ or co‐requisites, please contact the College of Arts and Science Office of Academic Services at arts‐sci‐records@vanderbilt.edu.
Transfer Credit
It is the student’s responsibility to provide all of the information required by the Office of the University Registrar to assess the program for which transfer of credit is requested. Work presented for transfer must be from a regionally accredited college and is subject to evaluation in light of the degree requirements of the College of Arts and Science. Credit will not be awarded for independent study, physical education, or dance performance courses.
Work transferred to Vanderbilt from another institution will not carry with it a grade point average. No course in which a grade below C– was received, or which was taken on a pass/fail basis, will be credited toward a degree offered by the College of Arts and Science. The question of credit in the College of Arts and Science for previous work done at another institution must be settled in advance of the student’s first registration.
Transfer students must spend at least four full semesters, including the last two semesters, enrolled in the College of Arts and Science. They must earn at least 60 credit hours and complete at least one writing course in fulfillment of the writing requirement while so enrolled.