Sometimes students enrolled in one school at Northwestern may wish to transfer to another school. For example, a student in the School of Music may wish to transfer to Weinberg College, or a student in Weinberg College may wish to transfer to the School of Education and Social Policy. The process of making such a change is referred to as an Interschool Transfer, or IST. If you are thinking of transferring out of, or into, Weinberg College, you are encouraged to discuss your possibilities with a Weinberg College Adviser.
The Class Schedule for each quarter shows the first and last days on which you may initiate a transfer to another school. To initiate the official IST process, get an IST application and a copy of your transcript from the Registrar's Office. Complete the IST application and have it approved by your current school. Then take the application and transcript to your proposed new school. The Class Schedule also indicates the last day on which the application may be submitted to the new school.
If your request to transfer is approved, then your enrollment in the new school will become effective at the beginning of the following quarter. You therefore need to apply for a transfer during the quarter preceding the one in which you wish to be a student in the new school. Each undergraduate school maintains its own admission standards; IST requests are not always approved by the proposed new school.
If you wish to transfer out of Weinberg College, then after your IST application is signed by a Weinberg representative you should submit the application to the dean's office of your proposed new school. Someone at that office will explain the subsequent steps you should take.
If you would like to transfer into Weinberg College, then after you submit your IST application at the Weinberg College Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising, you will meet with a College Adviser. At this meeting, the adviser will talk with you about your academic plans and about the ways in which the courses you have taken thus far might apply to Weinberg College requirements.
Here's the answer to a question asked by many students transferring into Weinberg College: If you transfer to Weinberg after your freshman year, then you do not have to take any freshman seminars. If your transfer becomes effective for spring quarter, then you only need to take one freshman seminar. If you apply to transfer to Weinberg during fall quarter of your freshman year, and your request is approved, then the transfer will become effective for winter quarter. You will spend two freshman-year quarters in Weinberg College, and you will need to complete two freshman seminars.
Weinberg College will send you written notification at the end of the quarter to let you know if your request to enter the College was approved. If you transfer to Weinberg College from another school at Northwestern, you should talk with a College Adviser about the limits on how courses from other schools can count toward Weinberg College requirements. For example, generally no more than eleven courses offered by other schools of the university may be counted toward your graduation requirements, and no more than three of these credits may be from applied music courses. (Approved School of Continuing Studies courses in Weinberg disciplines do not count toward this limit.) See the handbook section on taking classes outside of Weinberg for more information on counting non-Weinberg courses toward a Weinberg degree.
Students transferring from the School of Music or the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences should check with a Weinberg College Adviser to learn how classes from those schools can count toward Weinberg College distribution requirements.
