Military Training & Experience

UT Austin employs the American Council on Education's Guide to the Evaluation of Educational Experiences in the Armed Services to assess potential transferability of Military Occupational Specialties.

• Lower-division transfer credit is awarded for “upper-division baccalaureate category” recommendations in the ACE Guide. Credit is evaluated as generic semester hours in an appropriate academic department or, for subjects with no comparable UT program, as generic elective credit. Degree applicability is at the discretion of the student's academic dean's office.

• No transfer credit is awarded for “lower-division baccalaureate/associate degree category” ACE recommendations.

• No transfer credit is awarded for “vocational certificate category” ACE recommendations.

UT's qualified use of the ACE Guide is longstanding, based on several considerations:

• the applied/practical character of narrowly focused MOS training contrasts with the broader conceptual approach of university curricula;
• ACE recommendations, at face value, typically generate excess credit hours with limited or no UT degree applicability; and
• the uniformity of ACE recommendations does not encompass diverging missions, purposes, or academic rigor among institutions and degree programs.

Acceptable forms of documentation include:

• JST Transcript (Joint Services Transcript)
• CCAF Transcript (Community College of the Air Force transcript)
• form DD-214 (Report of Separation)
• form DD-295 (Application for the Evaluation of Learning Experience During Military Service)

To be considered official, any of the credentials above (except form DD-214) must be sent to UT Austin directly from the issuing agency. Students/applicants may submit an original DD-214; a certified copy will be made for office use and the original returned.

Credentials should be sent to:

University of Texas at Austin
Office of Admissions
P.O. Box 8058
Austin TX 78713-8058

Unlike college or high school transcripts, submission of military credentials for potential transfer credit is optional and is neither required for undergraduate admission nor subject to admission deadlines. But any credit awarded counts toward admissibility, so official documents should arrive as early as possible.

Basic Training

UT Austin does not award transfer credit for basic military training.

Some institutions recognize basic training, usually in fulfillment of physical education requirements, but UT has no such requirement. Moreover, physical education activity credit is inapplicable even as elective coursework in most UT degree plans.

Defense Language Institute (DLI)

Defense Language Institute is a regionally accredited associate degree granting institution, and official transcripts are required from transfer or re-admission applicants who have attended DLI. Prior enrollment at DLI must be reported on admission applications; transcripts are subject to normal admission deadlines, and grades are included in admission grade point average computation.

Current Basic language courses transfer as follows:

Degree applicability of Intermediate, Advanced, Sustainment, or Refresher language courses in transfer is minimal, because all UT Austin undergraduate programs require completion of at least sixty semester hours in residence and most also restrict the use of upper-division transfer credit in the major. DLI coursework beyond the Basic level may be awarded partial transfer credit on a case-by-case basis, but only after the student enrolls at UT and only upon specific recommendation to the Office of Admissions from the receiving UT language department.