Research the criteria by which judgment is made for approval. For Stanford students, no more than 12 hours may be transferred from an accredited institution; the courses must have corresponding classes offered at Stanford; students must have physically attended classes; and courses must have been taken "after the conferral of the bachelor's degree."
Obtain a letter of approval before leaving your graduate program to take a course elsewhere. Sometimes credit transfers are needed from a program that has not been completed, or transfers might come from courses offered at a different university. Regardless of where you would like to transfer credits from, consult your graduate department director to obtain permission.
Determine how many credits you need transferred and how many your institution will allow. At the University of South Florida, English students may transfer nine credit hours from an accredited institution with permission; however, students who take classes as a non-degree seeking students may transfer 12 hours "when the student becomes a degree-seeking student or candidate."
File the required paperwork and wait for credits to transfer. Once permission to transfer credits is given to students and the necessary paperwork is filed with your graduate department, all that is left to do is wait for the transferred credits to appear on university transcripts.