We were surprised by one of the schools response to our child’s application. A guaranteed transfer as a sophomore as long as he meets key class and GPA criteria by doing his freshman year somewhere else. I never heard of such a thing. Why would a college do this? TIA.
Many colleges do something similar for freshmen, offering them spring admission if they fulfill criteria at community colleges or abroad. It’s a way to keep the number of students steady to account for those who drop out or spend semesters abroad.
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All kinds of reasons, one of which was mentioned above.
My son was offered this at USC. Cornell offers it, as do a number of other colleges.
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It’s the college’s way of filling empty seats when students study abroad, or transfer out, or take time off, or can no longer afford tuition, or any number of other reasons.
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The student might be exceptional, but there simply isn’t room in that year’s freshman class. They want to give that student a chance to be at that college. This is particularly true at a school like Cornell, which has a high yield rate and no extra room for additional freshmen. I know two young women who took this option. One of them started at a local CC and transferred, the other started at a private university. Both are amazing students to start with and handily met the challenge of being at Cornell.
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It confirms that the student is capable of doing work at a high enough level to cope with the rigor of the college in question. Some students show promise, but the college wants them to prove themselves before greenlighting them. This was the case with my son.
Colleges know there is a very good chance the student won’t actually transfer in. My son ended up staying at his college and it has been the best decision for him. But they probably give the option to enough students to know that some of them will take advantage of it. In those cases, it’s a win/win.
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Georgia Tech does this. They do it in an attempt to expand enrollment which is an institutional goal limited by class space and dorms. If they can get you to take the high demand first year classes everyone must take somewhere else and they don’t have to find you a place on campus to live it allows them to expand the sophomore class every year. They are very strict about the qualifications. Every year there are kids who find out a class they took doesn’t transfer or they got a 3.29 GPA instead of the 3.3 required etc. and they are denied.
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These guaranteed transfer programs seem to be increasingly common.
I have also seen some acceptances conditioned upon doing first semester freshman year in a study abroad program.
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What others said. This is becoming quite common. If this is your kid’s top choice then go for it!
GTPs allow certain schools to add an additional screen to their evaluation of potential students by using other colleges. However, these other colleges, which commonly have no information to suggest that a particular student has entered their school with a plan to continue elsewhere, may be exploited to an extent, especially if they have been generous with financial assistance.
Seems like the most ethical thing is for the student using such a GTP to enroll in a community college and for the GTP college to accept that and give transfer credit (including subject credit) for the community college courses, since community colleges expect many students to transfer to four year colleges. A student with financial limits may find the doing the first year at a community college is a way to reduce cost as well.
Of course, this depends on having quality community colleges available, which seems to be more true in some states than others. It also may not be suitable for premeds due to medical schools looking down on community college courses.
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Yes, and I suppose a lot of those high demand first year classes are big lectures. If they can get you to do those elsewhere, their proportion of “class size of 50+” or similar metrics decrease, which may help their rankings.
I suppose it could also allow them to admit students that fit their institutional priorities without having this show up. For example, maybe they want to admit more students who are full pay, but they also want to proclaim they are “need blind” for admission. This would allow them to do so because most “need blind” schools admit in tiny print that they are not need blind for transfers, and these students are technically transfers.
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