Financial Aspects of College Transfer for a Geology Major

Transfer Students
1

My son is currently at U of Maine aiming for a double major in Forestry and Earth Science. When he originally applied to UMaine he wanted to do Forestry. Later on in his high school senior year he decided he was more interested in Geology. UMaine Forestry department persuaded him to do the above double major in 5 years, with possible a masters in Forestry in the 5th if his grades were good enough, and promised him generous scholarship money from the department if he did. UMaine has (had? Recent lack of funding has hurt the department) a great forestry program, but not such a great geology program - even though he really likes his professors there, the department lacks resources. Also, the course outline that the forestry department gave him didn’t consult with the earth science folks, and so now there are issues in trying to make all this work. He is starting to resent that he has had no time to explore other subjects as the bulk of his courses are forestry related, and he just isn’t drawn to them as much as he is to the hard sciences. So he is looking to transfer and is asking me to help with the research for that. By dropping Forestry he will lose a $6000 scholarship (which isn’t even guaranteed, but has to be renewed from year to year, based on GPA). So he figures, since college tuition is going to go up, he might as well look elsewhere.

I am just trying to understand how to make this work financially. There is very little information out there that gives a realistic idea of what we’d have to pay for him as a transfer student at any given university/college.It seemed easier to figure this out at the high school stage armed with SAT scores and high school GPAs. It seems like you have to apply then hope? His first year he had a 4.0 at college, but things have got harder this year, so I’m not sure where he’ll be at by the end of this, his 3rd semester.

As a forestry major, he could probably get decent work (not the highest paid out there) right out of college. As a geology major, he’d probably need a masters at the very least, so grades, courses, and I assume, stature of the undergraduate college in the relevant field all matter for him. I believe he is more interested in the environmental side of geology rather than an eventual job in the petroleum industry, etc. (and I know, the latter is where the money is).

If anyone has any advice about the transfer process, and about good Geology programs out there that accept transfer students, and are affordable, I would be very grateful to hear from you. I do have a list of some of the top geology programs out there. The thing is, many of them are at out of state public universities (Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona etc.) that we simply could not afford the first time around (when our kids were freshmen). The private colleges are less apt to accept transfers, even though they have offered a much better financial deal to my kids when they were in high school. Carleton sounds like a great option, for instance, in terms of its program). Also, would the more selective programs turn up their noses at a would be transfer student from UMO due to its lack of ‘rank’ and prestige? I’m just wondering if he should continue to tough it out at his current university and fill in the gaps at a post-grad level - or will he not be taken seriously for the above reasons?

2

Geology programs at Colgate, Colorado College and Hamilton are very strong. (The OOS publics you have identified are good, but most likely have been recognized for their graduate programs.) Hamilton from this group has a flexible curriculum that would allow your son to easily pursue his other interests. The financial barriers to transfers are not as great as might be assumed. Some college websites make clear that their financial aid to tranfers is offered on an essentially equal basis compared to that offered to freshmen. Though I agree the picture can initially appear murkier. UMO will not be looked down upon.

3

You are correct that for transfers it is less predictable than for freshmen applicants. Your son will have to apply, and then wait to see where he is admitted. The better your son’s grades are, the better his transfer options so encourage him to keep his grades up. Coming from UMO in and of itself will not be a problem.

Merit-based aid rarely is offered to transfer students. You need to know what you can afford to pay so that you will be able to evaluate the need-based aid that your son is offered. The Net Price Calculators aren’t always accurate for transfer applicants, but you can run them to get a ball-park estimate.

Your son should have a sit-down meeting with the Geology department where he is, and find out where their graduates end up. If they are getting decent jobs right out of college and/or being admitted to decent grad programs, then he can consider staying where he is but just changing his major to Geology.

He also can consider taking a semester/year/summer at another university in the US as a visiting student (think of it as a domestic “year abroad”) to pick up coursework in topics that aren’t well covered at UMO. The study abroad/exchange office on his campus might be able to help him set that up.

4

I went through the process of searching for geology transfer institutions two years ago and know at least something about every major program. How much can you afford to pay each year?

5

Whenhen - As close to $15K as possible (with student loan of about $5k if available. For the last couple of years, when my two youngest kids (including this one) went through the freshman application process, most of the offers were coming in at about $14k-20k EFC (the one exception was Princeton that had a ridiculously low figure for his sister). This compares to most OOS public colleges that were well over $30K. Right now, though we are paying about $9k and he has around $5k loan per year. Without the Forestry scholarship, we will be back to $15K. I can’t recall, but I think Purdue’s offer was around $11-14K with scholarship and loan based on his father’s Indiana residency. And no, he doesn’t want to go to IU or Purdue for various reasons, if he can avoid it.

Merc81- Thank you. I’ll take a look at those. I know we looked briefly at Hamilton for my daughter.

Happymom- thanks. I guess my son has been talking to people in the department, and he is the one thinking it is time to move if he is serious about Geology. Hadn’t thought about a semester at home (he has, however thought about going overseas). As for aid, the pattern I saw was that the better aid packages come from the places that accept fewer or no transfers. I guess we’ll need to look at his grades come December. However, I’m trying to find places for him to check out now before the break so he’s ready to roll. And for some reason he is super busy and stressed this semester - not sure if that’s with academics or he over extended himself on the extracurriculars.

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.

6

SD Mines starts at a low list price, but that may still be a stretch based on your price limit.

7

I would run the net price calculator for Syracuse to see what the EFC is. Syracuse has a very strong geology department, and is literally across the street from SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry. My concern with transferring to LACs is that the course availability is extremely limited, meaning there will likely be difficulty with scheduling. Many LACs also do not teach some of the courses which are all but required for employment in the environmental science world, or teach them at an extremely cursory level (GIS is easy to learn, but knowing which statistics to input into GIS and whether the output makes sense is far less intuitive.)

With a 4.0 from a decently respectable university, he is competitive for schools with solid to excellent financial aid which accept a number of transfer students. I know Vanderbilt accepts lateral transfers (that is from US News top 30 schools). I don’t know how they would treat a 4.0 from Maine, but it is worth a shot as is the University of Miami.

Given the relatively low number of courses needed for most geology grad programs, the University of Maine does seem to offer the proper courses based on what I’ve seen on the website. If your son could get a summer research position or work with the Student Conservation Association (apply before Feb 2) he would drastically increase his competitiveness at good environmental geology grad schools.

What courses has your son taken in both fields? Also include complementary courses such as Calculus, physics, chem, etc.

8

I’m from the West so I’m not familiar with this program, but given the fact that U Maine does not call its earth science program “geology” (I have no idea about the other schools in Maine), your son may be eligible for the [New England Regional Student Program (RSP)](Tuition Break | New England Board of Higher Education). This could give him a discount at other New England area schools, most notably the University of Vermont, but again, I’m not sure.

Cornell and the University of Southern California are two top schools which not only accept a large number of non lateral transfers, but also have fantastic geology and environmental science programs. Neither offer forestry, and South LA is certainly a far cry from Orono. Indiana University does have a strong geology program at the undergraduate level, although if he doesn’t want to go there, it’s off the table. Your son may be eligible for the University of New Mexico’s Amigo Transfer Scholarship which could bring the COA down to a more manageable level. I don’t believe UNM offers forestry, but its geology program is well resourced and it’s hard to beat an exposed high desert landscape for undergraduate fieldwork opportunities.

9

“My concern with transferring to a LAC is that course availability is extremely limited” (6)

A good LAC geosciences department will offer in excess of two dozen courses, over one dozen more than a student will ever take.

“meaning there will likely be difficultty with scheduling” (6)

A strength of LACs is their ease of scheduling.

“Many LACs also do not teach some of the courses which are all but required for employment in the environmental science world, or teach them at an extremely cursory level (GIS is easy to learn, but knowing which statistics to input into GIS and knowing whether the output makes sense is less intuitive).” (6)

An upper-level course description from a LAC catalog:

GIS for Geoscientists. Introduction to basic concepts in computer-based GIS, emphasizing hands-on practice in portraying and analysing spatially referenced data sets to produce a variety of types of digital products and to solve geologic problems. Practice using data from multiple sources, including data downloaded from online sources, field-collected data and published map data. Mastery of basic skills using ERSI ArcGIS software.

10

@merc81, a student who wishes to combine one specialized major with a broader one like environmental science/ biology better hope that the prerequisite courses are offered at the proper times. The number of LACs which offer essential courses like mineralogy, structural, or petrology more than once or twice a year is exceedingly small. I also totally disagree that a strength of a LAC is the ease of scheduling, but then again, perhaps I’m biased by my experiences having difficulty fitting all my required courses into my schedule at the LAC I transferred from.

Also that course looks to be a very cursory overview of GIS. Pretty much exactly what I said that many LACs lack.

11

Is it? If the desired courses are only offered once every two years, then the student has no choice about when to take them. And if, in the semester they are offered, they have time conflicts with other desired courses, too bad.

12

Re #10: A top LAC geosciences department will offer ~20 courses on an annual basis, and another ~10 courses on a biannual basis. Since a concentrator will commonly enroll in one or two geosciences courses per semester, choices for an individual student are deep and varied. If inherent limitations restrict the choice of taking Field Study in Iceland, an available geosciences course at one LAC, to alternate years, the student will simply plan around this, and ideally will be appreciative of having an oopportunity which may not be available elsewhere. By ease of scheduling generally, I meant that 1) courses at a well-resourced LAC are unlikely to be closed for reasons such as over or under-enrollment and 2) combining course selection in geosciences with that, say, in a subject like history, where 50 or more courses are offered annually, should not be a problem in most cases.

13

Beyond the above, LACs tend to encourage, and almost always allow, registration in upper-level courses across the curriculum, irrespective of a student’s major.

@whenhen: I’ll note that a prerequisite for the GIS course description posted (8) is “any course in geoscience that addresses GIS,” indicating that exposure to GIS methods is systemic within this particular school’s geoscience offerings.

14

@merc81 Ok, from the course description it looked to be exactly what we did in my very basic intro GIS course (however we didn’t do the data collection ourselves, we used unclean info from various university owned sensors). Perhaps Carleton teaches it in a more rigorous fashion, but it does seem to be missing advanced concepts, most fundamentally statistical manipulation which is absolutely critical for meaningful reports.

Not true. It’s common for upperclassmen students to take 3-4 geology courses a semester. If the OP’s son were to also need to study forestry, or some possible analogue like environmental science, real scheduling issues do come into play.

This is why I asked the OP which geology courses her son had taken up to this point. There are four or five core courses upon which virtually every advanced geoscience concept is based. If the son has taken 3/5 of the classes, then maybe a LAC (but really only a tiny number of LACs) would work. If not, I would strongly advise a research university.

Not unique to LACs, unless you mean students can enroll in science courses without the prereqs. I would not advise doing that.

15

Whenhen - not ignoring your question. Just waiting on my son to get back to me on the answer ( I know he has a big project to complete this week).

16

This would require about 10 courses per semester from the annual ones, and another 2-3 courses per semester from the once every two years courses, for a total of 12-13 courses per semester.

Examples? Looking at a few LACs in the Keck consortium:

Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/geology/courses/1516F
About 3 introductory-level and 4 non-introductory-level courses per semester, with most non-introductory-level courses once every two years.

Williams: http://geosciences.williams.edu/courses/
About 4 introductory-level and 7 non-introductory-level courses per semester. It is not clear whether most of these are offered every year or every two years.

For a small non-LAC:

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology: http://www.sdsmt.edu/Academics/Departments/Geology-and-Geological-Engineering/Docs/4-semester-teaching-rotation-10-13-2015/
About 20 courses per semester, about two thirds of which are yearly courses, with the rest offered every two years.

For the student’s current school:

University of Maine: https://umaine.edu/earthclimate/undergraduate-studies/program_requirements/#sched
About 5 introductory-level and 5-7 non-introductory-level courses per semester, with a mix of yearly and every two years courses.

That seems to be more of a characteristic of well resourced schools, not whether they are LACs or otherwise.

That is not unique to LACs. Registration in upper level courses outside of one’s major would only be gated by prerequisites and course popularity.

17

Re # 15: I was not recommending LACs as a class to the OP, but specific colleges. I mentioned three schools (post 1) that I believe to have very strong geosciences departments. None were Amherst or Williams. With the exception of Colorado College, which is on a block plan, Hamilton and Colgate do appear to offer ~12-13 geosciences courses, or more, per semester.

(Regarding the Keck Consortium, this is a corporation sponsored grouping of colleges; as a source for identifying strong geosciences programs, I regard the consortium lightly.)

18

Hamilton: http://www.hamilton.edu/academics/departments/courses-and-requirements?dept=Geosciences
Looks like 2 introductory-level and 6-7 non-introductory-level geology courses per semester, if the ed courses are not offered this year, and F and S mean fall and spring offerings.

Colgate: http://www.colgate.edu/academics/courseofferings
Looks like 4 introductory-level and 4-5 non-introductory-level geology courses per semester.

Colorado College: https://www.coloradocollege.edu/academics/dept/geology/courses/course-grid.dot
Looks like 1-2 introductory-level and 6-8 non-introductory-level geology courses in each of the fall 4 blocks and spring 4 blocks.

In numbers of courses, these do not appear to be much greater than the student’s current school, but the student should compare what specific topics are offered at each school to see if any there is any advantage in matching the student’s interests.

19

Re #17: As Hamilton’s course listings are currently listed, 9 geosciences courses appear to be offered every fall, and an additional 4 courses seem to be divided in availability across two fall semesters, for an approximate total of 11 fall semester courses annually. The pattern for the spring would yield ~13 courses. The number of available offerings per school year would be ~23. (I counted Senior Project as a course.)

20

In terms of Colgate’s courses, I did overestimate their frequency based on another page I had used as a source. I do like their offerings in general, however. Colorado College’s block plan, irrespective of the frequency of their offerings, does seem particularly well suited to the study of geology.