I’m planning to transfer but I’m not sure if I can still use the topic about an event that marked my transition into adulthood. Can I only choose the essay stating my reasons for transferring or can I still use the old prompts as well?
Transfer essays are very objective specific. It’s not about telling a story like freshman essays, it’s about explaining why you want to leave your current school and what you hope to gain at your new one. So, no you can’t really use your old senior year essay.
where can we find the common app transfer prompts? link?
@EffieWhite Yeah I wrote a new essay using the old prompts and didn’t intend to use my old one. Now I found out that you only have one prompt as a transfer student, so I’ll just need to write another essay. @otoribashi The prompt is basically why you want to transfer and how it’ll help you academically. You can find the exact prompt through google.
In my opinion, you have more freedom with the transfer essay topic. It’s basically “Why Transfer?” in short.
what if you’re in a community college? i feel like those “why do you want to transfer” prompts are geared towards people in universities that want to transfer to more highly ranked schools… ? cuz if you’re in community college it should be pretty damn obvious why one would want to transfer.
well yes it’s obvious why you’d want to transfer out, but more important is why you want to transfer to that specific school! Does a program only offered by that school interest you? Want to do research? etc. It all depends on your interests. For your common app transfer essay I would just write what you want to gain from the type of university you’re applying to. For me I want to figure out if I want to do medicine or research and am looking for a college-town feel. What’s your major?
ohh i see, so in the common app we have to be college-specific? im a physics major and im interested in research and being able to work with professors or people in the field. also interested in taking technologies to market and that sort of driven start up hungry environment. interested in intellectual community where everyone is highly driven yet still friendly and not competitive in the evil douchebag way (where people value working together and not putting each other down to beat somebody on an inconsequential test for example).
are we supposed to be campus-specific on the common transfer app? what if we’re applying to multiple schools?
Oh I’m sorry I worded it strangely. I meant that your commonapp essay should focus on broad reasons for transfer while the specific school supplements should describe the reasons you want to transfer there specifically. For me I want to go to a research university, so that goes into my commonapp essay. If any research at a specific university interests me, I would add that to the college-specific prompt plus some other reasons.