How to Identify Transferable Sophia Learning Courses
If you have decided to complete Sophia Learning courses to fulfill general education and/or free elective requirements, the first thing you need to do is review your Academic Evaluation. To view your Academic Evaluation, log into your mySNHU account. On your mySNHU homepage, click on View My Academic Evaluation under the Quick Links.
Review your Academic Evaluation and see what general education and free elective courses you have left to complete.
As stated previously on the How to Accelerate Your Degree Progress page, it is strongly recommended that you complete general education courses such as English Composition I, English Composition II and Statistics at SNHU. Additionally, major courses should be completed at SNHU. Examples of major courses that may be available through Sophia Learning include Introduction to Psychology and Lifespan Development for Psychology majors, Introduction to Sociology for Sociology majors, and Introduction to Criminal Justice and Criminology for Criminal Justice majors. If you are considering completing major courses through Sophia Learning, please reach out to me before enrolling so we can discuss whether this is the best option for your specific situation and long-term goals.
To determine what general electives you have left to complete, please go to the general education sections of your academic evaluation and click on the blue course subject links to see what courses would be transferable. Then review the Sophia Learning courses that are available that could transfer in to meet those specific general education requirements. Please note that transfer equivalencies and available Sophia Learning courses can change over time. Students should verify course availability and transferability before enrolling in any Sophia Learning course.
The screenshot below illustrates where you should click to view transferable courses:
As you can see from the screenshot, this student has several general education requirements left to complete. If the student wanted to fulfill the Ethical Thought and Equity requirement by completing a Sophia Learning course, they would click on PHL to see what courses can fulfill that requirement. By clicking on PHL, you would see that PHL-111 - Introduction to Critical Thinking and PHL-212 - Introduction to Ethics both fulfill this requirement. Then, if you review the Sophia Learning site, you will find that both of these courses are offered on Sophia Learning.
Now, you're probably wondering, how can I determine what free electives to complete? Let's start by understanding what a free elective is. Free electives are any courses of interest in the 100-400 level for which you met the prerequisite requirement(s). There is no list on your academic evaluation of what free electives you can complete because you can take any course of your choosing.
In the third section of your academic evaluation, where you can view the number of credits required for your program, the credits applied to your program, and the catalog year, you can also see how many free electives are required for your program. See the screenshot below:
If you have already completed some free electives at SNHU or transferred in courses that were applied to your program as electives, you should be able to see those courses listed toward the bottom of your academic evaluation in the Electives section. The Electives section will come after the major course/concentration requirements. If you do not see an Electives section, it means you have yet to complete any electives.
If you have courses that have applied toward your electives requirement, manually deduct the number of free electives completed from the number of free electives required for your program. For instance, if you're a Psychology major, and you're required to complete 39 credits of free electives, but transferred in 14 credits from your previous institution, you will have 25 credits of free electives left to complete. Since most courses are 3 credits, 25 credits divided by 3 credits per course equals roughly 9 courses. If you have not completed any free electives and are required to complete 39 free elective credits, you'll need to complete 13 free elective courses.
After reviewing your Academic Evaluation and identifying which courses you can complete through Sophia Learning, please make sure to review the American Council on Education site to see when courses will be expiring. Sophia Learning courses can change over time as new courses are added and others are discontinued. It is critical that you review this site before getting started and complete your selected courses AND transfer them into SNHU by the dates listed to ensure the credits transfer.
To learn how to use Sophia Learning, watch How to use Sophia Learning - Platform Demo - 2023.
Before you start taking any Sophia Learning courses, please email me at advising@snhu.edu or schedule an appointment with me @AdvisingSupportWithBrenda to discuss your plan. It's critical that I know what courses you plan to complete through Sophia Learning so that we don't register you for courses you will not need.
