Inter-College Reciprocity Agreement

What should students do? 

  1. Have an official copy of your transcript from the previous college sent to Shoreline Community College
  2. Submit the Inter-College Reciprocity Agreement Request form

If all of the above requirements have been confirmed, then SCC agrees to consider course received under the Inter-College Reciprocity Agreement to meet specified distribution area requirements upon evaluating the student’s transcripts and awarding the student’s degree.

Inter-College Reciprocity is a policy among Washington State community and technical colleges designed to assist students who transfer among colleges. It ensures that students are not penalized by the differences in the specific requirements imposed by individual campuses within the general guidelines of the transfer degrees (DTA and AS-T) as approved by the Instruction Commission.

Definition: The “receiving” college or institution means students are planning to earn one or more degrees from (Shoreline Community College), and the “sending” college or institution means where students earned credits that should be considered for reciprocity (previous college or institution).

Reciprocity of Individual Courses

If a student transfers an individual course that meets a Communication Skills, Quantitative Skills or Distribution Requirement at the sending college for a specific transfer degree, that course is considered to have met that
requirement at the receiving college for a similar transfer degree, even if this course does not have an exact equivalent and even if the course credit is awarded through prior learning credit.

If a student transfers an individual course that meets a Diversity Requirement at the sending college for a specific
transfer degree, that course is considered to have met that requirement at the receiving college for a similar
transfer degree, even if this course does not have an exact equivalent and even if the course credit is awarded
through prior learning credit.

Reciprocity of Distribution Areas/Specific Requirements

The receiving institution will accept an entire Distribution, Communication Skills, Quantitative Skills, or other
requirement for a transfer degree as met if that student:

  1. Has met the sending institution’s residency credit and meets the receiving institution's policy on continuous enrollment.
  2. Has met the entire Communication Skills, Quantitative Skills or Distribution Requirement of a transfer degree, according to the sending institution’s degree criteria.*
  3. The receiving institution will accept an entire Diversity Requirement for a transfer degree as being met if that student has met the entire Diversity Requirement of a transfer degree, according to the sending 

    institution’s degree criteria.

    Please Note: Example criteria include number of disciplines, allowable disciplines, credits, sequence 
    requirements (or lack thereof). In all these instances, the sending institution’s requirements govern for 
    that particular Communication Skills, Quantitative Skills or Distribution Requirement component.

  4. Has maintained a cumulative college-level grade-point average (GPA) of 2.0 or better at the sending institution.

The receiving institution agrees to consider the requirement area met if these conditions, upon review, are met. (There is no limit to the number of requirement areas to be considered.) In view of staff limitations for transcript review, the receiving institution cannot be expected to search every transfer-in transcript to see if the reciprocity provisions apply. It is, therefore, the student’s responsibility to initiate the reciprocity process and to gather appropriate documentation as needed.

Local Provisos

The receiving college retains the right to impose unique, local prerequisite and graduation requirements. Such
requirements might include learning communities/coordinated studies requirements, writing-intensive course
requirements, and physical education/health requirements.

Transcript Notation

Transcripts will include notation of requirements met by reciprocity. Notations will include the name of the
sending institution.