<p>So I will be attending the Oxford College of Emory this fall and was just wondering if it is possible to transfer to the main campus after completing my freshman year. Don't get me wrong I am ecstatic about going to Oxford since I like the fact that it offers a tight community and small class setting but my parents aren't very satisfied with me going there for the money that they are paying. So for them it's either the main campus for their money or transfer to cheaper college (which I really don't want to since Emory has been a dream of mine and since I didn't make the main campus I don't mind waiting two years to get there). So yeah, is it possible for me to transfer to the main campus after my freshman year just like I would to any other college? </p>
<p>Also, I don't get much financial aid so I wanted to explore my scholarship options. Does Oxford have any scholarships for sophomores and if so are they extremely competitive?</p>
<p>And one more thing (last one I promise!). I heard Oxford has an abundance of leadership opportunities and I wanted to know about some of the major clubs/organizations that offer good leadership to freshman. I already plan on participating in volunteer oxford and owls throughout my two years (if I am able to continue that is) and I was wondering about the student council and any other program with good leadership opportunities. </p>
<p>Please any former or current Emory Oxford student or anyone in particular who is familiar with Oxford feel free to answer.
Thanks in advance for the help! Really appreciate it :)</p>
I have to say I agree with your parents.
Paying 55K a year for what amounts to Emory’s remedial program is just not worth it.
Go to a state U and then try and transfer to Emory. </p>
<p>soze:Excuse you (go there and tell us about how remedial the coursework is there and how “dumb” the students are. You know, so dumb that they are about the same quality as the UCLA student body and not that darned far behind Emory. Perhaps whenhen and aig could tell you much worse Oxford is than a state school or main campus.)?..the quality of education and instruction at Oxford is usually much higher than many humdrum state institutions (probably not necessarily on par with the best state institutions, but in honesty, the same could be said for several top 25 privates). I would be more worried about paying 55-60k for a place like Emory or some other top privates to be blunt. If you wouldn’t be satisfied paying it for Oxford, you definitely shouldn’t pay it for Emory, Oxford</p>
<p>I don’t know where such misconceptions about Oxford come from. And the fact that parents buy into it (while also naively buying into the glamor of the overly hyped “top private research universities”). If the OP goes to the state school first using that sort of reasoning, then they don’t actually value the supposed advantages of a private school education (as they probably shouldn’t unless it’s an LAC, Caltech, Princeton, or something like that) or a liberal arts setting and honestly should not bother transferring into Emory because they should end up liking the state school a lot. If you feel that way about Oxford, I would really just save the money, go to the state school and graduate from it. Because the feelings about Oxford should be translated into the same feelings about most top private schools which are clearly overly expensive and still function like normal state research universities, but perhaps with smaller classes and sometimes more rigorous courses (again, when compared to more "standard state schools). </p>
<p>You will run into plenty of bad instructors, courses below the college level, etc, but at least you aren’t sitting in a large auditorium when you receive that level of instruction right? At least Oxford cannot claim those things. The giant state schools and overly priced medium sized private research U’s can on the other hand. Plus the curriculum at Oxford is far more innovative and rich than most places.Oh…wait, that doesn’t count, let’s let rankings, our perceptions of prestige, and incoming SAT’s dictate how we view the nature and quality of education a student will receive, in which case UCLA must suck in comparison to similarly ranked schools right and one certainly should not attend it if they are OOS because it’s super expensive. The logic behind how people evaluate educational quality and how much a school is worth from most people just baffles me. It’s like no one chooses to investigate further or look into things a bit deeper than ideas of prestige and selectivity. It is as if no one cares about the fact that you will and should actually be LEARNING at these places and the learning environments at many places varies dramatically even among schools with similar stats. Nope we choose to believe, all schools with similar student bodies are equal. </p>
<p>Therefore Vanderbilt, Duke, Penn= Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago and MIT with academics right? Can the student bodies perform similar theoretically, maybe? But do the schools push their students to the same levels academically taking into account the incoming talent levels, definitely not (sometimes a simple look at the design of the curriculum and course offerings in a department of interest will reveal such differences quickly. Often course offerings and descriptions reflect what students demand and what instructors believe they can demand from their students. Instructors at some schools, on the whole, choose to demand a lot more or are willing to offer courses on more complex topics or teach the courses at a much higher level than other schools with similar student bodies. Institutional culture and student attitude toward academic rigor and intellectual curiousity rules the day)! Some schools don’t want very intense academic environments and some do. Some student bodies appreciate that and some don’t want it. They all have developed different intensity levels despite having student bodies who test almost identically. It’s like how Oxford is generally more intense than main, especially when it comes to liberal arts oriented courses, yet Oxford has a “worse” student body. Georgia Tech used to have a worse student body than Emory and yet we know it was and still is overall harder much like Harvard vs. MIT. UGA had about the same student body as Oxford and yet we know Oxford is a bit more academically intense and perhaps academically enriched…I mean come on, get with it. These things are no-brainers. I know it’s hard for many high schoolers to wrap their brains around this idea (though many do, like many incoming pre-profs may choose between top 20s based on how much grade inflation or course rigor is at each school, essentially choosing the easiest one when the schools are comparable in prestige), but parents, current college students, and alums should know better and think a little deeper</p>
<p>Your parents are silly. On what basis do they think Oxford college is somehow not worth their money when the Atlanta campus is? How unfortunate you will be not to have distinguished graduate students and random adjuncts haphazardly teaching many of your classes like you would at the Atlanta campus or any other research institution.</p>
<p>The first post is correct; you cannot transfer. On the other hand, you could graduate in 3 semesters. There are scholarships for Oxford students continuee to the Atlanta campus, but not for freshmen becoming sophomores.</p>
<p>In terms of leadership, try for RA, SGA, and research. But this isn’t high school. Don’t waste your time applying for anything that you don’t want to do to build your resume. Graduate schools and employers simply don’t value the same things that undergraduate does. From here on out, everyone wants specialists, not well-rounded students. </p>
<p>Incidentally, what do you want to major in?</p>
<p>@aigiqinf: Except the professional schools(all of them)…their admissions are still very much like HS. Get super high numbers and pad resume with as much stuff as possible. Only difference is that they do indeed look to see that you did some threshold of things that are associated with the specific field of interest. I suppose the exception are many of the very, very top professional schools which often look for students who “do things big and really well” as opposed to people who “do a lot”. </p>
<p>@aigiqinf I plan on majoring in biology and maybe a minor in some sort of humanities. And how can you graduate in three semesters? Is it if you have a lot of AP credits? </p>
<p>Now, of course I am not an idiot and am not forcing my parents to pay 55k for one year of college. I got a lot of grants and outside scholarships which significantly reduced the price for me which is why I am okay with going there otherwise I would have stuck to a public institution. I just don’t understand why my parents favor the Atlanta campus so much though.</p>
<p>They really shouldn’t unless you are more serious and are into more quantitative biology or chemistry or something. Oxford educates in biology at the intermediate and introductory levels significantly better overall though Emory does have some hidden and feared gems. Science education at Oxford on the whole is just much more consistent and better across the board (the lab components are vastly superior at Oxford). Main campus has to spend tons of money to drive innovation in science education (and it’s hard to convince instructors to participate because this is not a teaching centered institution and teaching more effectively usually lowers student evaluation scores and takes more time away from research or other administrative duties) whereas Oxford just more or less does it (I mean main campus actually now has set up a commission on improving undergraduate science education. If it was so awesome, why the need for a taskforce? In addition, this particular committee has not produced a summary/white paper yet whereas all of the other new task force committees have) I need not even bother mentioning how much richer many humanities courses would be at Oxford, though I suppose you would miss an opportunity at maybe doing the voluntary core on main which has like the best teachers teaching courses centered around the great works. However, Oxford has the INQ models for a lot of courses and is also liberal arts intensive so even non-INQ courses will probably turn out better than the average humanities course (many of which are just known for easy grading and low workload and that’s perhaps the only reason students view them favorably. However, there are of course tons of exceptions to this and departments like creative writing, Polisci, and English are pretty rigorous vs. expectations. But again, at Oxford, I believe the “meh” caliber or intensity courses are more of an exception) on main. Your parents, like the students, have bought the rankings and prestige hype. They bought the kool-aid and drank it. They, nor most incoming students can’t help it unfortunately. </p>
<p>You can graduate in as little as two semesters, but that practically never happens. About 150 people graduate in three semesters each year, however. This is a combination of AP/IB credit, summer school courses (here or elsewhere), transfer credit, and overloading. I graduated early because I brought in 31 hours of credit and was running out of courses in my area.</p>
<p>Also, Oxford students run things at the Atlanta campus. Some absurd portion of SGA Presidents and the like are from Oxford.</p>
<p>@bernie12 and @aigiqinf thank you so much for the thorough responses I really do appreciate it.</p>
<p>@aigiqinf if you could PM me and explain to me in detail about your early graduation I would be very grateful. I am not sure yet as to how many AP credits I will get (I took 6 AP exams this year hopefully 4/6 would be 4s and 5s) but I would like to know how you worked it out. </p>
<p>You realize he is not getting financial aid? There is no undergraduate program that is worth $54,720 per year. The practical answer is go with the cheaper option and save up for graduate school. OP is majoring in Biology so I am assuming pre-professional (premed, etc) in that case it really doesn’t matter which undergrad he goes to. </p>
<p>@SKB12345 : Why are you telling me? That is basically what I said…the person is also exploring potential merit aid options which will be easier (but still not easy at all) to get at Oxford. </p>
<p>One of the main reasons that Oxford College is able to charge so much for being a 2 year school is because of the auto transfer to Emory it offers. In exchange, you do two year there. That’s the deal. You miss out on the first two years of mingling with your Emory classmates. For a lot of people, no big deal, for some a big deal. I made a lot of my life long friends those first two years and there are some things that get set during that time so that transfers junior year are abit behind as they have to acclimate whereas those who have been there already have. There may also be some issues in terms of course limitations since Emory’s fare is much more bountiful that what Oxford offers. </p>
<p>As for equivalence to community college in subject depth, preparedness of students and calling Oxford remedial, those commets are just pure mean spirited. Whether Oxford is worth the $55k+ a year, or any school so worth that amount is a whole other issue. That Oxford gives an excellent chance of graduating with a Emory degree is what give this school it’s cache. Not many cc grads transfer into Emory. </p>
<p>Oxford is no more equivalent to “your local community college” than Emory College of Arts and Sciences is for those who do two years of courses there and then continue to the business school or the nursing school.</p>