AbstractNicholson and Watters have recently investigated rings with projective socles and they have shown, among other things, that a ring R has a projective socle if and only if each matrix ring Mn(R), n > 1, has a projective socle. We generalize this result by showing that if S is an excellent extension of R, then the socle of R is projective if and only if the socle of S is projective. Examples of excellent extensions include, as well as matrix rings Mn(R), skew group rings R * G where G is a finite group and the order of G is invertible in R.