Frustrated for my son...maybe a transfer....what do I need to know

Transfer Students
1

Obviously I have not been much help to my son…so we have learned some really important lessons. Let me give some quick background…and then I will see what you guys who have more experience can help.

My son was (is?) a national Merit Finalist. He chose University Nebraska Lincoln as his school and went there. (couple of hours from his mom…he lives in Nebraska. The scholarship they offer is called the Chancelor’s scholarship and was for full tuition. He needed to maintain a 3.5. At the end of the second semester (due to a C in Physics 213) he had a 3.457 and lost the scholarship. We ‘thought’ that summer counted and he could catch that above 3.5. It doesn’t.

We have had a lot of issues with UNL. A research project position that he had a formal written offer for, that never materialized, promise of current student scholarships that he would only qualify for once as a sophomore and above that didn’t materialize etc.

So he is at a school right now and has no financial aid other than loans. That is fine for the year. The question is…do schools ‘try’ as hard for transfer students, or only for freshmen? Will another school likely look at him and offer academic aid, or not very likely?

I feel a lot of it is partially my fault. First kid who’s going to University, and I didn’t myself. I didn’t know other schools had much better offers for NMF. If I had he would have gone to Oklahoma where I live. Tuition, Room, board etc…and has to maintain a 3.0 to keep it vs 3.5. Not that I don’t want him to try hard…but more money and added flexibility would have been nice.

Was going to look at Kansas State (girlfriend goes there) and Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and maybe a couple others…He will be out of state at the others, so dont know if he will get much more savings vs what in state tuition is at Nebraska.

A few facts about him. Computer Engineering major. 3.96 gpa in HS (small school, no AP/IB etc classes offered) 32 ACT in HS. Should be 3.5+ GPA here in a couple weeks (he is taking a required literature class over the summer and should boost overall GPA slightly. 3 CR class.

1st Semester Schedule:
Honors Computer Science
Honors Physics
Calculus 2
Sociology

2nd Semester
Calculus 3
Physics 2 (the one he got a C in)
Unix
Honors Computer science 2

What are your thoughts? Any hope? What do I need to know about the processes etc.
I think THIS year he is stuck where he is, but for after that???

2

  1. If he doesn’t want to go back this fall, he can take a leave of absence from UNL, and take a gap year while he thinks through what he really wants to do next.

  2. If he has a specific target university (especially if it is a public U in a state where he can get in-state tuition rates), he can consider transferring to a community college in that state and fulfilling the requirements that guarantee automatic admission for his major at that public U. That could bring the cost of his education down by quite a bit.

  3. Some universities do have scholarship money for transfers. It is perfectly OK to ask the target universities about scholarships. Sometimes that kind of money is only available for students transferring from a community college so check that out as well.

3

Is UNL affordable without the scholarship?

4

It is harder to get merit aid at public universities than at privates and the amount of aid is generaly significantly less for transfer students. The fact that he was NMF is more or less irrelevant on a transfer application. It is all about his college performance. Some smaller private engineering schools do give reasonable financial aid to strong transfer students but he might have to go further away.