With more than 13,000 students and receiving approximately 3,400 transfer students annually, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) needed a way to transform its transfer evaluation process for quicker, more efficient transfer decisions. Handling the process manually, the institution’s staff previously needed a full 15 days to evaluate and apply each student’s incoming coursework.
They sought a tech-driven approach to shift into an automated transfer evaluation model at scale to make the process more efficient and streamlined for staff and students alike. SIUE adopted CollegeSource’s solution, TES, the transfer evaluation system, to validate equivalencies and allow for consistent articulations for coursework.
Over the last three years, SIUE has revamped its entire transfer evaluation approach and used TES to automate the entire process from start to finish – including building equivalencies in the system for all of Illinois’s two-year institutions and many surrounding community colleges, and the lower level course for all of the state’s four-year public institutions. This effort cut transfer decisions down to a one-day turnaround.
They also restructured the transfer team to become more efficient and let the technology do the heavy lifting. TES helped bridge the inconsistency between evaluations. The response from university leaders has been positive and the institution is able to ensure all students are able to make informed choices about which coursework is most valuable in counting toward their degree pursuits.
The TES Software Solution
CollegeSource’s transfer evaluation system (TES), is an all-in-one solution that streamlines the transfer credit evaluation process for collegiate administrators and advisors, facilitates faculty decision-making, and enables institutions to establish an unlimited number of validated course equivalencies for rapid and trusted transfer credit decisions.
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SIUE currently has 95,960 equivalencies. TES empowers SIUE to quickly locate course descriptions; route and track the evaluation process; store, manage, group, and publicize the resulting equivalencies; and leverage the many powerful reports and tools to manage existing equivalencies and generate lists of likely equivalencies between institutions.
TES takes the guesswork out of transfer credit articulation decisions by empowering SIUE’s higher education professionals. Utilizing the largest higher education course catalog database in the industry with more than 134,000,000 courses compiled and maintained by CollegeSource, the solution is a resource for institutions that prioritize establishing a transfer-friendly student and institutional experience.
TES’ Impact on SIUE
SIUE has seen a significant improvement in its transfer evaluation operations since its latest transfer transformation initiative began three years ago. By restructuring the transfer team around an automation-focused approach using CollegeSource’s TES solution, SIUE has saved thousands of hours in manual evaluation of transfer credit equivalency requests.
Streamlining the data and making it reusable across all transfer officers, SIUE now effectively processes all transfer requests and automatically routes exception requests to faculty for rapid, reliable and consistent transfer credit articulations.
While it initially took some convincing to embark on such a big change, SIUE’s transfer department is reaping the benefits it sowed with its investment in a more innovative approach for serving transfer students. The department operates with the ability to prioritize activities in service of transfer students as well as clearly report its operational efficiencies and benefits to administrators.
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