Course-equivalency credit: what is it?
Course-equivalency credit is the substitution of credit for a specific UF course in place of credit for a course taken at another institution. With this type of credit granted, the non-UF course meets all the requirements that the substituted UF course meets. One important example involves the Statewide Course-Numbering System (SCNS): a course taken at any Florida public university or community college (“FPUCC”) will transfer to UF, with course-equivalency credit for a UF course with the identical number, if a course with that number is offered at UF1. Note: “Course-equivalency credit” is the term used by the math department for this type of credit; other departments and units at UF may refer to the same type of credit by a different name. The granting of course-equivalency credit is not automatic (except in cases covered by the SCNS) and is not governed by the name of the course; see How do I obtain course-equivalency credit for a math course? below. Example 1. Your major, Electrical Engineering, requires MAC 2312 (Calculus and Analytic Geometry 2) and MAP 2302 (Elementary Differential Equations, for which MAC 2312 is a prerequisite). UF receives an official transcript from Gatorbait University showing that you received a C or better in a course called “Math 202: Calculus for Science and Engineering Majors 2” there. UF will enter this information in your UF transcript, but will supply a “dummy number” such as MAC 0000 (a number that does not correspond to any UF course), which will show on the same line of your UF transcript as Math 202 shows.
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- Without equivalency credit for Gatorbait’s Math 202, you will not automatically meet the Calculus 2 requirement for your major, and you will not be considered to have met the prerequisite for MAP 2302. Your major department may, at its discretion, decide to accept Gatorbait’s Math 202 in lieu of Engineering’s Calculus 2 requirement, but it does not have the authority to grant course-equivalency credit for MAC 2312 (only the math department has that authorit), since that would affect the way your Gatorbait course is treated by every other department and unit at UF, including Mathematics. Only the math department will be able to enroll you in MAP 2302.
- With equivalency credit, Gatorbait’s Math 202 will automatically meet both the Calculus 2 requirement for your major and the prerequisite for MAP 2302.
If you submit a course-equivalency request to the math department for, say, MAC 2313 (Calculus and Analytic Geometry 3), it will not matter whether the other institution’s name for its course was “Calculus for Science and Engineering Majors 3”, “Really Intense Calculus for Math Whizzes 2”, or “Carrots for Parrots: the Fascinating History of Pet Food”. The math department will not base its evaluation on what another college chooses to call its course.
Note: Transfer credit is not the same as course-equivalency credit. The term “transfer credit” may be used simply to mean the acceptance of credits earned at another institution as hours towards the 120 needed for a UF degree, and perhaps towards other broad requirements such as General Education. In Example 1, the fact that Gatorbait’s Math 202 shows on your UF transcript at all means that you’ve been given transfer credit for it; the same line on your transcript will list the number of hours you’ve been credited with. “Transfer credit” is also sometimes used as an umbrella term that includes many types of credit, including course-equivalency credit.
You may hear what the math department calls “course-equivalency credit” referred to by other names, including “equivalency”, “transfer-equivalency credit”, “transfer-credit equivalency”, and “course substitution”. In any important conversation relating to credits used towards your UF degree for work not done at UF, make sure you describe the type of credit you’re talking about; don’t just refer to it by name.
1 Actually the full seven-character codes need not be identical, as long as the three letters and the last three digits are identical. Thus, for example, if you successfully completed a course numbered “MAC 1311” or “MAC 3311” at another Florida public university or community college, you would automatically receive course-equivalency credit for MAC 2311 at UF. However, if the course were numbered “MAC 2321”, then even if the course had the same name as UF’s MAC 2311, Analytic Geometry and Calculus 1, you would not automatically receive course-equivalency credit for any UF course.