The process for students to move from one college or university to NIU is almost seamless with NIU’s direct approach in accepting course credit.

Universities need to have a well-developed transfer process that will encourage more students to transfer to its university, which is something NIU has already established.

More than 50 percent of students at NIU have credits from other institutions, according to NIU’s website.

“It was easy to transfer; all my credits transferred,” said senior psychology major, Joseph Crookshank.

Crookshank transferred to NIU from Rock Valley College in Rockford.

The Illinois Articulation Initiative has made transferring simple for those moving from another Illinois college to NIU. This initiative created a package of lower-level general education courses called the Illinois Articulation General Education Core Curriculum to make it easier for students to transfer to other Illinois schools, according to the Illinois Transfer portal.

Students who are looking to transfer from an Illinois community college to NIU can find easy-to-read tables on NIU’s website that break down every course from their college to what credit it could be transferred to at NIU.

After transfer students are accepted to NIU, they can look at what courses from their other college transferred into a course at NIU.

Those courses that do not align with another course can still be accepted by taking the course syllabus and an unofficial transcript from their previous college to the course department for it to be looked over. If the department agrees, it will be accepted and credit can be given for that course, according to the NIU International Admissions webpage.

For example, if a student has already taken a graphic design course for journalism at an outside college, yet it did not transfer initially, that student can take their syllabus and unofficial transcript to the journalism department adviser and have the course approved to count towards that NIU course.

The Northern Star Editorial Board commends NIU for allowing transfer students an easier transition to a new university.

It should be widely known that students do not have to retake the same course twice even if the course did not directly transfer into the NIU course.

With more information available to students about the ability to have a transfer course reevaluated, the NIU’s transfer process would be seamless for all transfer students.