<p>Yes, discrimination. Here is my story:
I am a rising premedical sophomore from Cornell University with a 3.98 GPA. I applied for transfer to Columbia College because of a family emergency that mandates me being closer to my parents to offer them help.
I was admitted to Columbia College.
What has me really confused is that Columbia does not meet the financial need of any transfer student!
They only admit 25-100 transfer students a year, and their endowment is $1.64 billion more than Cornell's. Yet, I would have to pay 4 times the amount to go to Columbia than if I stayed at Cornell, all because of my transfer status.
And this is not because of the financial aid schedule. For the FULL duration of my stay at Columbia, they will not meet my financial need, and I CANNOT APPEAL at all.
So, because of their transfer status discrimination, I cannot afford the tuition, and thus I cannot be there to help my parents.</p>
<p>(and BTW, Cornell's financial aid office does not discriminate against transfers.)</p>
<p>I see where you are coming from, but dislike the fact that you bring your major and gpa status into the picture, as it implies that you are entitled to financial aid based off of merit.</p>
<p>i apologize if i came off that way,
but consider this:
transfers usually transfer up, to a more advantageous college (unless they have to be there for a specific reason, like an emergency), which means transfers are some of the top students in their respective colleges.
Now why would Columbia put off such a potential wealth of intelligent students (at the same time drain other colleges of their top students, whom may even have more potential than regular Columbians) with this backwards policy of financial aid discrimination?</p>
<p>I agree. Honestly I'm only applying to schools for financial aid, and I'm waitlisted for transfer at CC, and I don't care if I get in or not now because I'm not gonna get any financial aid. I was never sure how much they gave, but now that I know it's NONE, I can't be helped by them. I need at least 20k per year.</p>
<p>I see where you are coming from concerning transfer students possibly being among a college's best undergraduates, but I think it's widely known that most colleges treat transfers as "second-class" compared to freshman admits.</p>
<p>I sympathize with your situation, but I'm not the least bit surprised by Columbia. The school is having major debates and discussions concerning the vastly different financial aid offered to it's non-traditional students, so I'm not surprised that it also chooses to shaft its' transfer students. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, colleges can discriminate their financial aid policy on any ground other than a few protected categories (age, race, sex, religion, etc)</p>