Transfer to Computer Science Degrees at
Queen Mary, University of London

Note: the information here is kept for archive purposes, but has not been updated since its author stopped being the admissions tutor and took on another administrative role in the Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary. Please see here for up-to-date information on applying for undergraduate places in the department.

We receive many enquiries from students on other degree programmes wishing to transfer onto ours. Possible reasons might include:

How to apply

There aren't any special transfer forms. If you wish to apply, you must make a normal application through the UCAS system in just the same way that an applicant wishing to start a degree does. There is a space on the UCAS form labelled "point of entry" where you can indicate that you wish to be considered for entry directly into the second year. See below for some comments on filling in your UCAS form for a "transfer" application.

The only exception to this is students who are already on a degree programme in another department at Queen Mary - in this case there is a transfer form obtainable from the Registry. See below for details.

When to apply

We can only take in new students, even those transferring from other universities, at the start of the academic year in September. You can make a UCAS application at any time from the September of the year before you wish to start at Queen Mary. Although the deadline for "normal" UCAS applications is 15th January, we accept that most applicants wishing to transfer from another degree won't decide to make the application until much later than this, so their application will count as a "late" application. This is fine, as far as possible we try to treat late applications in the same way as normal applications. In many cases, people will decide to transfer after receiving university course results in summer. Any application received after 1st July will be put straight into the clearing system, rather than forwarded to individual universities, but we are usually able to consider "transfer" applicants who are applying through clearing. Please note that the UCAS application you made to your original university cannot be re-opened to apply to another, you will always have to make a fresh UCAS application.

Credit Transfer

We do not run a formal "credit transfer" system. Our degrees are taught and assessed over three years (or four years in the case of the MSci degree) and the degree class will be awarded on the basis of coursework and examinations over all of those years. We will not award our degree on the basis of work done at another university. However we can, under certain circumstances accept entrants directly into the second year of our degree programmes. Applicants accepted directly into our second year will be treated as if they have passed our first year, but their degree class will be awarded only on the basis of their coursework and examinations taken in their second and third (and in the case of the MSci, fourth) year.

Second Year Entry

 We can only offer second year entry to students who have followed and completed successfully the first year of a degree which covers similar material to our own first year. As a rough guideline, this will include the first year of a degree in Computer Science at most research-oriented universities in England, but not a degree in a subject like "Information Systems", or the first year of a degree from one of the "new" universities.

The reason for this is that the material in our second year is heavily dependent on the material in our first year. Our first year is oriented very much around programming and the mathematical foundations of Computer Science, and our experience is that many of the degree programmes from which students wish to transfer out of to come to us do not cover these subjects in the first year to the same depth that we do. You should not assume that any degree programme with "computer" or "computing" in the title is interchangeable with another. Therefore if we state that we are only able to offer you a place in our first year, it is not a reflection on you or your abilities, but rather an acknowledgement that it is unfair to expect anyone to cover our second year who has not done the necessary preparatory work that is in our first year.

It is not possible to join our second year directly and do extra study to "catch up" on the material in our first year. Our degree programmes are demanding, and require full time study. To study full time material taught on the basis that you know things and have skills that actually you do not, and to do that alongside studying extra material is just not possible.

Third Year Entry

The Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary does not offer direct entrance to the third year of its degrees under any circumstances. We feel we must see and examine a student's work under our direction for at least two years in order to award a first degree.

I want to transfer because I need to move to London

This is the most straightforward reason to transfer. A change of personal circumstances may mean you have started a degree in Computer Science at another university outside London, but now need to live in London. If the university you wish to transfer from offers a degree of similar academic standard and content to ours and you have comfortably passed all examinations necessary to continue on that degree, then we will generally be happy to accept a transfer. We will need confirmation of your good academic standing from the university you are transferring from.

I want to transfer after doing badly elsewhere

We want to accept students for positive and not negative reasons. Therefore, if you have failed or done badly at something else, and are just fishing around for an escape route, we probably would not be interested in accepting you. Occasionally we accept students who have genuinely made a bad choice of subject (or sometimes been pushed into it for family reasons etc), and wish to change. In that case you would need to demonstrate even more than our usual applicants that you really are committed to Computer Science, and we would expect you to have our usual university entrance qualifications (see here for details). Very rarely, we accept students who have done badly at a Computer Science degree elsewhere due to genuine personal problems beyond their control, and have been advised it would be best to start afresh somewhere else. Under those circumstances, we would need to see a frank explanation of your problems (which would of course be kept confidential), and an assurance that they have been overcome and will not recur. We would always require your explanation to be backed up by a statement of support from the university you are transferring out of. Again, we would expect you to meet our usual entry requirements.

I want to transfer after doing well elsewhere

If you have found yourself doing well in a computing-related degree at another university institution which is generally considered "lower ranking" than Queen Mary, you may well wish to transfer in order to get a "better" degree. We are happy to consider applicants in this situation, but we will want to see that you are moving because you genuinely feel you will be able to make better use of your abilities with us rather than just for "snobbery" reasons.

In this case, the main factor we will look at to decide whether to accept you is your results in the first year at the university you are moving from. We will ignore your pre-university qualifications, so this is one way of getting into Computer Science at Queen Mary if you did not originally have the qualifications we require. We will always want to see excellent results in the first year of the degree you are moving from, so it would certainly not be a good idea to slacken or drop out because you think you can get in "somewhere better". If you apply before you get your first year results, we will generally give a conditional offer based on those results.

See above for why even if you have done very well in a computer-related degree elsewhere, we may not be able to offer you direct entry into the second year.

I want to transfer after enjoying the computing I've done elsewhere

You may have done some subsidiary units in computer programming as part of another degree, and found you enjoyed it so much that you wished you had taken a Computer Science degree. In this case, we would ask you to think very carefully before transferring and not just give up what you are doing on a whim. We will generally require applicants in this situation to continue and take their end-of-year exams in their original subject to demonstrate they have a general academic commitment and are not just dropping out through lack of ability. You should also consider whether a better option would be to continue with your original degree and then take our conversion course which is an intensive one year course covering much of what is in our undergraduate degree, but tailored to those who already have a degree in another subject.

I want to transfer from a degree in another country

Please note that there are significant differences between the education systems of the UK and the education systems of many other countries. In many other countries, university education starts at a lower level than it does in the UK. Therefore, the first year or two of university education may be more equivalent to UK pre-university qualifications such as A-levels and the BTEC diploma than it is to what we cover in our degrees. If this is so, we may be able to accept the overseas university education as qualifying for entrance to our degrees, but we cannot accept it as qualifying for entrance to our second year.

It is also often the case that degrees in other countries are fairly general in subject, and do not specialise right from the start as do our degrees. Therefore someone taking a degree in another country "majoring in Computer Science" may in fact have taken only a few units in computer science alongside many units in unrelated subjects. We cannot take that as equivalent to full-time study in just computer science, which is what our degree entails.

For these reasons it is rarely the case that we can offer direct entry to our second year to applicants who have taken just one year of a degree course abroad. For applicants from abroad who have taken a substantial amount of computer science, we will use the same criteria as we use for applicants from other UK universities, given above to decide whether second year entry is appropriate. That is, we will want to see that most of the material that is in our first year has already been covered.

Filling in the UCAS form for transfer students

If you are already at a UK university you will already have filled in a UCAS form for that university, and you may be tempted just to re-use what you wrote then. That would be a bad idea. You are in a completely different situation, and we would expect you to fill in your new UCAS form in a way that reflects that.

Firstly, qualifications such as A-levels that may have previously appeared under "Qualifications to be completed" will now be entered under "Qualification completed", please remember to include full details and grades obtained. Next, the individual course units taken at university should be listed. If they have already been marked and graded, they should be listed under "Qualifications completed", if you are still waiting for the marks under "Qualifications to be completed". If the grading system used is not a simple percentage or a letter grade with 'A' the best, include an explanation of how the grading system works (e.g. at least one university uses a 1-20 scale, with 1 the highest, so write "these grades are on a 1-20 scale with 1 the highest", otherwise how is an admissions tutor to know that they aren't marks our of 20 with 20 the maximum?).

Your personal statement should concentrate on why it is you wish to switch degree programme. Be frank about any personal problems that may have contributed to wishing to switch. Tell us the positive things about the degree programme you are on, what you have learnt from it as well as why you no longer think it is for you. Make sure you have thoroughly researched into what our Computer Science degree involves and explain why you feel you can and want to do it.

Under most circumstances where you are transferring from another university degree programme, we would want the reference on the UCAS form to be from a tutor who is familiar with your work on that programme and expresses support for your belief that you can succeed in ours. You may find it difficult to ask for one, particularly if you are leaving for a "better university", but university tutors are professionals and know they are bound to give honest references even when it means the loss of one of their best students.

You may choose to go back to your school or further education college to ask for a reference, but please note that in all circumstances where someone is transferring from another university, we will ask that other university for a reference. That is to ensure that what you say about the university you are leaving is true, and to cover ourselves against those very rare cases where someone is leaving a university for disciplinary reasons.

Transferring within Queen Mary

There is a form obtainable from the Registry in the Queens' Building at Queen Mary which you can use to transfer degree programmes. If you are transferring between departments it will need to be signed by an authorised signatory from both departments. Please note that acceptance in one department at Queen Mary does not mean you have an automatic right to transfer to another.

In general, the Computer Science department at Queen Mary will only accept transfer requests from students who have done well in other departments. If you wish to transfer to Computer Science because you have done badly in another subject at Queen Mary, our advice would be to seek a place on a computing degree at a university with lower entrance requirements.

In some cases, if you have an interest in computing, rather than switch departments your best option may be to use Queen Mary's module system to take some units from the Computer Science department, in essence to take a combined subject degree outside those usually available. We are happy to discuss such possibilities, please call in at the Computer Science department office to arrange an appointment. If you are just looking for basic training in the use of computers, you will probably find your needs are better met by Computing Services.

We admit a small number of students to Queen Mary's Science and Engineering Foundation Programme with a guarantee of a place in Computer Science if they pass it. Other students who have completed this programme and wish to be considered for a place in Computer Science should ask for an appointment to discuss it. These students will have been admitted to the SEFP by another department with a promise of a place on one of that department's degree programmes if they pass the SEFP. Going to Computer Science instead counts as a transfer within Queen Mary, and it is at our discretion whether we permit it. In general we would require better than just a pass in the SEFP to consider it.

General Information

You can find general information on our undergraduate degree programmes here.

You can find general advice on admission to our degrees here.

The home page for the Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary is here

The home page for Queen Mary, University of London is here.

You can find general information on UCAS Clearing applications to Queen Mary here, including details of our clearing visiting days.

Admissions tutor for Computer Science at Queen Mary: Dr Matthew Huntbach Tel: 020 7882 5216

Last modified: 27 April 2005