Don't understand the 2nd guessing.

Parents Forum
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<p>Lots of threads regarding students who want to transfer.</p>

<p>This just seems to be buyers remorse- but if you have done your research in the first place- gotten a good selection of schools to choose from, visited or done other research to have criteria to compare once you have your acceptances- why the change of heart?
It isn't that the grass is always greener- what is so difficult about living with decisions you have made?</p>

<p>I understand that some schools do a bait & switch with financial aid- offering freshmen scholarships that aren't renewable or enticing students with merit aid that has restrictions too difficult to keep.
Many students change schools because they decide they just can't afford it & it certainly is less disruptive to choose a school in the first place that is affordable, but even more difficult is staying at a school and taking out $$$$ in loans in order to stay.</p>

<p>I also know students who decide their school is just too small for what they want to major in- my oldest attended a college which was smaller than her sisters high school & some students transferred because of their major &/or because they wanted to save more money for graduate school.</p>

<p>People do change their minds- but unless I am mistaken some of the recent threads seem to deal with superficial reasons to transfer- that aren't necessarily going to be better than anywhere else.</p>

<p>Much of life is learning to deal with the hand you are dealt- not trying to endlessly get better cards- college is a good place to start with that, if they haven't done so already.</p>

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<p>“if you have done your research in the first place- gotten a good selection of schools to choose from, visited or done other research to have criteria to compare once you have your acceptances-” </p>

<p>thats a lot of “Ifs” for many students and families new to the college applicartion process these days, particularly if they did not have the financial means to visit colleges…</p>

<p>The truth is that for many students and parents who never went to college themselves, finding a college that really is, net-net affordable, is a LOT harder these days. Colleges state one [ full] price and then promise that they will make it affordable, through a lot of “smoke and mirrors” adjustments to FA packages, which are not transparent at all.</p>

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<p>There are many reasons students transfer. Some find that the school is too challenging; others find it lacks sufficient challenge. Some go away to school and find they would prefer to be closer to home, after all. Some think they know what they want, but change their minds & therefore find they need to change their school. Some go away to school, but their families have financial issues come up & it makes sense to switch to a less expensive school, come home to live, etc. There are many more reasons.</p>

<p>My kids both had mulligan schools. Both had great experiences at their first schools, but each had important reasons for switching. It wasn’t a “grass is greener” thing. </p>

<p>I can’t speak for anyone, but I do know that there are plenty of legitimate reasons for transferring. There are also reasons that seem “silly,” but it is quite possible that the REAL reason is something other than what the student is stating on CC. If the reason truly is superficial, it’s not the end of the world. Sometimes it leads to a lesson learned, which is a good thing.</p>

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<p>They are 17 year old kids. They have to make the decision about what schools to look at well over a year before attending. They apply a year before attending, some choose the school almost a year before attending, the rest at least 6 months before attending. </p>

<p>I don’t know about your teens, but mine changes his preferences for many things over those “long” periods of time. </p>

<p>My point is that some of the college changes could be related to personal growth.</p>

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<p>I admit I have difficulty looking at things from another POV- as the character on Glee would say " Aspergers!".</p>

<p>But my kids are first gen college ( I didn’t graduate from high school), and we didn’t have even the resource of CC when the oldest was applying to schools.
However, they both took a year off after high school, which gave them more time & perhaps maturity to benefit from their schools once they began.</p>

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<p>The students I worry about most are those who are transferring because they claim that they can’t make friends. I worry that it will be devastating for them if they transfer school and then have an even more difficult time constructing a social life. I don’t worry as much about those transferring from a very small school who find they don’t fit in with the prevailing culture, but I worry about a friend’s child who is transferring from Wisconsin to Indiana (and they live in Michigan). I worry that she will just be carrying whatever her problem is with her…</p>

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<p>Admittedly, occasionally, the reasons on here can be lame, but I have too many friends on cc and IRL who have kids who are struggling for reasons big and small and have come to conclude that life is too short to be miserable and that transferring really isn’t that big a deal. I also have one friend whose dd wasn’t thrilled once she got to her school and realized it emptied out on the weekends, but she’s found her people and has made it work. I can see your point that maybe more of these kids on cc should be like this girl and stick it out and that they’d realize it’ll all be fine, but it’s no skin off my nose if they elect to make a change.</p>

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<p>There are also a lot of changes that can happen in a university. Budgets, scandals, admin changes/losses that can make the school you were “sold” different from the one you find when you arrive. There are at least 2 threads on CC about students at school who’s budget cuts are really impacting their ability to completed required courses. That could be pretty frustrating!</p>

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<p>Some students don’t have the option to take a year off. I’m also a first gen and my high school counselors were far from helpful. However, my mother made it clear that she wanted me to go straight to college after high school. It was nice that your kids had time off; I feel something like that could’ve benefited me.</p>

<p>Pressure, lack of knowledge, and lack of resources/help brought me to a school I was content in, but not satisfied with (for many reasons). The pressure sucked more than anything! As a first gen, my family had me on a pedestal as the first person to even graduate high school and everyone expected so much out of me. </p>

<p>Just offering the perspective of a potential transfer.</p>

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<p>There are at least 2 threads on CC about students at school who’s budget cuts are really impacting their ability to completed required courses. That could be pretty frustrating!</p>

<p>Yes- but what indication do they have, that it would be better anywhere else?- could even be worse combined with less aid available to transfer students.</p>

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<p>My D1 is a college senior this year. Looking at her high school classmates, I know a few who transferred that I think did not do a very “in depth” college search. They did a tour and an info session on campuses, but never attended a class, ate in the cafeteria, went back for an overnight or accepted students day, etc. In at least one case, I think the parents were unrealistic about covering the family’s portion of the cost for 4 years as well.</p>

<p>I know I have seen a few posts over the past few years about students who were surprised when a lot of students left campus on weekends from their school. Again, I think a sign that they did not look very deeply into the culture of the school and ask a lot of questions.</p>

<p>Of course things (the school or the kid or family finances) can change, giving some good reasons for transfer. But sometimes I wonder what people who are making one of the biggest financial investments of their lives are thinking when they don’t do a lot of research into the purchase.</p>

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<p>True emeraldkity. Just coming up with other things that may make someone second guess their choice. Not being able to get a class I need would be one thing that would REALLY push my buttons. Probably more than anything else.</p>

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<p>D1 transferred to get her major. She did an independent project in this subject May of senior year in HS, and then took the only course offered in the area by her college freshman year, so she knew that would be her major and that she needed to go else where to pursue it. This major is a subject not taught in HS.</p>

<p>There are many reason to (try to ) transfer, some better than others.</p>

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<p>I blame the common app…check, check, check and the kids have done “their job.” They hardly have to read the website let alone do any research to answer a “Why xyz college” question which has become virtually non-existent. Not only that because of the common app kids apply to way, way, way too many college, very little research gets done in my opinion.</p>

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<p>Not many people post on CC just to say how great their experiences are. People post here to vent, or to ask for help, or to ask for support and guidance. I don’t think there are any more transfers now than there were when I was in college.</p>

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<p>We have some experience with the “I think I made a mistake - I want to transfer” situation.
DD was torn between her two top choices: state flagship with over 40,000 students, 50 blocks from home, where her older sister studies, or private college with 5000 students 250 miles away. She chose the private college. </p>

<p>Once school started she was very homesick and said she thought she had made a mistake. She has never reacted well to change of any kind, so this shouldn’t have been a surprise to us, but it was.</p>

<p>We were pretty sure, however, that she would get over this with time. We supported her with advice on dealing with homesickness, making new friends etc. and let her apply to transfer to the state flagship for the fall of her sophomore year. The difficulty and length of the process for admissions to the school helped us here - transfers submit their applications in January, but don’t hear if they have been admitted until June or even July. She completed all the process steps, including interviews with professors in her proposed major. </p>

<p>By the time the acceptance came in June, she was perfectly happy at the private college, and anxious to return for her sophomore year. </p>

<p>(Finances were not a concern, because she has merit scholarships that bring the cost of the private school down to the total cost of the public one, guaranteed for all four years.)</p>

<p>I transferred after my freshman year myself, for a dumb reason. (To be with high school boyfriend, who then came out of the closet before I even started at college #2.) It all worked out fine in the end, as both schools were good matches for me in other respects.</p>

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<p>It isn’t so much that I don’t understand motivation for transferring, but unless something is significantly different about their process, I can’t see that they are necessarily going to be happier with another school.</p>

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<p>I recently changed jobs. I liked my old job a lot, but there were things going on with other people in my department that made me want to run (far and fast!). I tried to make it work, but it just wasn’t happening. I tried to find work in the same field, but that also wasn’t working out. I ended up moving into another job in another field. It could have ended up no better than the other job … many places of work have horrible managers. However, I was pretty comfortable that the management at the new company was better. I was taking a chance, because I could have hated my new line of work. Fortunately for me, the management is amazing, and the work is a good match for me. If this had not been the case, though, I would have figured at least I tried. And if I really hated it, I could always find something else. I see the college transfer process as being somewhat the same as my job transfer.</p>

<p>The biggest drawbacks to transferring are money (it’s not always more expensive when you transfer - both my kid’s transfers ended up costing us less) and losing ground (classes not transferring). If students are careful about those issues, they aren’t taking a big chance transferring. Even if it’s not what they had hoped, there are always options.</p>

<p>Just like I wouldn’t advocate staying in a job you don’t want to be in, I wouldn’t advocate staying in a school you don’t want to attend. No, it’s not always better when you move … but sometimes staying guarantees it won’t be better.</p>

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<p>OP, I have been posting about my DC wanting to transfer. I have friends with children who have transferred. My DC have friends who have transferred. I, myself, transferred after my first semester at a public U–it wasn’t near as academic an environment as I thought it would be–so I found a different school. </p>

<p>When scouting out potential schools, my DD attempted to sit-in on classes at different schools. Believe it or not, the majority of the schools ignored our queries about classroom observation,. TWO of them asked why DD would want to do such a thing. Of course, these were “only” state schools, but nonetheless, all she was offered a 90 minute tour. Yes, we ate in the cafeteria and observed the students around us. Yes, we were allowed a peek into the Freshman housing “model unit” which was furnished compliments of Bed Bath and Beyond. When we inquired about the weekend life on campus, such as partying, noise, etc. we were told that “kids will be kids” and posted quiet hours were “suggestions only”. One housing director told my daughter that if she wants a calmer, studious lifestyle, she has to live off-campus! Hello! This is supposed to be college, not kiddie daycare. [By the way, Freshman were required to live on-campus].</p>

<p>Only ONE school (Hampshire) extended an invitation for DD to visit for an entire weekend, to room at a dorm and experience campus life. All the other schools seemed to think that a 90 minute tour (and possibly walking around by ourselves afterwards), combined with information about athletic and dining options, as well as where the nearby shopping malls were, was sufficient. That, combined with a brochure listing the average SAT scores (at the better schools) or a pamphlet listing all the new buildings (at the lesser schools) was seen as enough information to make a decision on. </p>

<p>In my DS’s case, a reduction in faculty and curriculum have impacted his academic choices. Remember, neither students nor parents are told of these changes in advance. Why would a school do such a thing? It is not in their best interest to do so.</p>

<p>Case in point: DD is friends with a junior who has taken 2 years of Japanese language. When he returned to school this fall he had no idea that the the Japanese instructor wasn’t going to be teaching 3rd year. The class was canceled due to lack of interest (most of the students went into 1st year Chinese). What does this student do? He really wants to continue his Japanese study. But it’s already almost halfway through his junior year. </p>

<p>The NY Times had an article on college transfer rates–it’s 1 of 3. I don’t think it is only the fault of the students. I believe a strong (and/or weak) economy can alter the dynamics of an educational institution greatly.</p>

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<p>Another possibility might be that increasingly, students are pressured to choose early where to apply. At my daughter’s high school, guidance counselors tell everyone to apply early, which involves deciding on, in many cases committing to, one school by October 15 of their senior year. That might work for many kids, who’ve been thinking and visiting and testing since the beginning of junior year, but some kids may decide prematurely. The three months between October and January might help them figure out more clearly what they want and need in a school. </p>

<p>As much as I sympathize and empathize with just wanting it all to be over, I’m not sure it’s good for kids who are developing quickly and are so subject to whim and enthusiasm. </p>

<p>Not to mention the fact that being able to visit the schools for accepted students’ weekends once you’ve been admitted seems to help a good deal to ground the choice in a truer experience of the school. Choosing a school can be based on some pretty flimsy preconceptions, all the more so if you’ve “always wanted” to go to a particular school.</p>