I’m in an odd situation that really got me thinking about transfering schools.
I graduated from high school in 2020 with a 3.9 GPA, a 25 ACT, and a 1240 SAT, and I got a decent scholarship from a private college. I am a Wrestler and a trumpet player and I got scholarships for both of those things, as well as an academic scholarship and a few smaller scholarships, and I’m paying about $3,000 in tuition and $10,000 for Room and Board this year. However, I don’t just go to one college – I go to two colleges. My other college is a community college that I don’t pay for classes at because the COVID grants take care of it as long as my grades are good. This community college has online classes that I do while my 4-year college has in-person classes. I attend both colleges full time and I am a Freshman with the credits of a Sophmore. My GPA at the community college is a 4.0 and my GPA at the 4-year is a 3.4 (I got a C- in a difficult class last semester that brought it down, but I’ll surely bring my GPA back up by the end of this semester based on my current performance). I’m double-majoring in Information Systems and Math and Data Analytics and minoring in Philosophy between the two colleges, and my academic advisor at the 4-year college is helping me make sure my credits all transfer and that my workload is sustainable. At my community college, I’m in the Phi Theta Kappa honor society (but I haven’t really been too involved in it) and I joined mainly because of scholarship opportunities (but I haven’t spent a lot of time applying). The reason I’m going to two colleges at the same time is because I was stupid in high school, and this is how I’m making up for my stupidity. I spent a ton of my time working on all these scholarship essays hoping that I’d win some $5,000 or $10,000 scholarships, but of the 30 + essays I wrote, I did not get a single external scholarship other than a small $100 scholarship and another small $500 scholarship. While I wasted my time writing essays that got me nowhere, other high school seniors were actually applying to multiple colleges, talking to coaches and band directors, and going on college visits. But my stupidity wasn’t my fault. I was just unlucky. My parents are immigrants who came to this country not even knowing English, so I had to learn all this college stuff on my own. I didn’t know that you could “bargain” with colleges to get more scholarships until I actually got into the 4-year college that I’m in right now. Now that I’m in a 4-year college, I’m meeting students who got worse grades than me, got worse standardized test scores than me, are worse at wrestling than me, and/or worse at playing their instrument than me, but somehow manage to pay $10,000 less than I am paying this year, all because they were talking to other coaches or band directors and applying to many colleges, and coaches/band directors offered more money to them simply to get them to go to their college instead of a different college. The reason I’m going to two colleges is because: 1) I get to live off campus of the 4-year college that I’m at if I get 90 credits, which will save me $8000 per year (there are a lot of inexpensive houses for rent in the city my college is in and I’m planning to live with roommates if I do stay in one) and 2) Graduating early will save me even more money and look good on a resume, which will help me get a good job and an extra year of income as long as my grades aren’t wack.
However, I’ve recently been contacted by some coaches from other colleges who are trying to get me to transfer and wrestle for them at their colleges. Last year, I got a lot of these emails from coaches too, and I ignored and deleted most of them because of my stupidity. I’m afraid to ignore these new ones this year because I don’t wanna miss a good opportunity to get more scholarships like I did last year, but I feel as if colleges don’t care about transfer students as much as they care about incoming Freshman. As long as I pass all my classes at both colleges that I’m at right now (and I’m pretty sure I will based on my grades for both colleges this semester), I will get to 90 credits by the fall of 2021, so I’ll be paying $3000 for tuition and about $2,500 for my off-campus costs (rent, food, etc.) if I stay at the 4-year college that I’m at next year. However, I’m wondering if its worth my time to look into these other colleges that are trying to recruit me for wrestling. I was thinking I could maybe get more scholarship money at another college if I transfered, and perhaps I would be paying less than I would if I stayed at the 4-year that I’m in right now. Obviously, I’m a pretty busy guy, so I don’t want to waste my time if I don’t need to. So I want to know: Is it worth my time to look into these other colleges that are trying to recruit me? Is it possible for me to end up paying less as a transfer student to another college than I would be paying at my current 4-year college?
FYI: If you’re wondering how I’m managing to get to 90 credits by the end of my “first year in college”, it’s mainly because I’ve been taking classes at the community college since Junior Year of High School, so I already had the credits of a Sophmore when I came into my 4-year college, and going to both colleges simultaneously is also helping make that possible. I also had a few AP credits that got transfered from high school as well. Technically I need 123 credits to graduate from my current 4-year, but I have to go well over that because 1) I’m double majoring and 2) most of my transfer credits are electives, gen eds, or credits for my Philosophy minor – not for my two majors. I’m technically apart of the class of 2023, rather than 2024.
Another FYI: I’m still paying less at this 4-year private college than I would at any public college in my state. Most public colleges are either DI or DII in athletics, and I’m not good enough at wrestling for those divisions. I can do band at these public colleges, but even the band scholarships added onto the academic scholarships at these public colleges would have me paying more than I’m paying at this private college. My whole issue is that I only applied to 1 private college – the one that I’m in right now – and all the other colleges I applied to were public colleges. When I was talking to the coach at this college that I’m in right now as a high schooler, he asked what other colleges I was looking to go to, and I didn’t realize that he was asking to see if he needed to offer me more scholarship money for wrestling or not at the time. Once again, I was a stupid high schooler with parents who knew nothing about college in the US, so I always thought public colleges were cheaper than private ones, but didn’t realize that private colleges often offer more scholarships and can sometimes end up cheaper than public colleges. So yea, public colleges are not really the best option for me.