I understand why colleges are doing this. It rubs me the wrong way, but I am not sure why.
I think because they are taking students who have the money for school, but maybe not the grades/scores (or they are just not sure)…and then those student’s SAT scores are not included in the freshman info for the Common Data Set.
Or it could be that they lose a bunch of freshman students so need to replace them.
I’m not a big fan of this either but I do recall one circumstance where it made sense to me (I do alumni admissions meetings). There was a super qualified, URM/first generation student who was brilliant. Everyone who talked to her thought she was amazing but she got the auto transfer option and we were all shocked. Turns out she never took the SAT subject tests which at time were still required (and before the school did January admits).
I don’t love the use of the transfer option to pacify alumni or donors. I fee like it screws the school the students end up attending for the first year.
The other odd thing I heard about for the first time this past admission cycle were schools doing a delay admit for a year but with the caveat that a student NOT enroll anywhere else. Basically a forced gap year. That seems even weirder to me!
Feels like a money grab…not as bad as the programs that BU and Northeastern have implemented to boost revenues (go away for a semester/year without financial aid!).
Kids never get their Freshman experience back.
My S received this offer from Cornell this past year and we were shocked because we thought he would be outright denied. He had the scores, grades, and ec’s for the program to which he applied. But, he stopped turning in homework and assignments first semester senior year. So, he ended up with mostly Bs for the whole year (he did well on tests and in class participation). We visited over the summer (hadn’t been to Cornell) and the admission director for that school said the have a shortage of first year beds (which they’re working on), but have classroom space for more kids so take them 2d year. I’m doubting S will transfer, but if they didn’t have the option, he would have surely been denied. They have transfer orientation, programs to integrate the kids, and the last 2 student body Presidents were transfer option kids. So, I don’t think it harms them any.
I think it’s not a bad way to let applicants with potential issues (like @havenoidea 's DS) prove that they can handle the academics or being away from home or whatever before jumping into the deep water. It might be a case where senior slide got away from him, or she had a health issue, or something completely unexpected arose. In another thread there was a kid who recently lost a parent, which is a terrible thing to try to deal with under the easiest of circumstances. I would think most schools would be more comfortable giving that person some room to regain equilibrium rather than insist on a Now Or Never admission offer.
On the other hand it could just be a cynical way to shift the stats of the bottom 10% of your class from the First Year Admits column to the much less scrutinized Transfers column while at the same time reducing the number of ill-prepared kids dropping out and having a pool of replacements ready to go to bolster the enrollment numbers. But I don’t want to sound too jaded.