<p>This is just an issue that I've had in the back of my mind. My D is applying to a variety of colleges, but doesn't currenlty want to apply to the ones (state unis) that are closest to home. I have read stories of students who go to their choice of college, but then, for various reasons, end up transferring; going somewhere closer to home. She has had some medical issues that make me worry about her going so far away. It will probably be fine, but, ya know...I'm a mom that worries...
Just as a sort of insurance, in case that were to happen, would it be helpful if she did apply and get accepted now to the college close to home, but then decline the offer -if she still doesn't want that when it is decision time? If she then later wanted to transfer to that college, would having had an acceptance make that more likely, or would it not really matter?</p>
Is it easier to transfer to a college that originally accepted you but you chose a different school?
<p>Two of my neighbors kids from different family did end up transferring back home. Two more kids from NYU transferred to Rice and NYU. So I didn’t force my kids to go OOS, I let them decide. Luckily it was in state.</p>
<p>But to answer your question I don’t think it matter about likely acceptance if your kid was accepted earlier. For UCs, the two kids in my neighborhood went to CC before transfer to UCLA.</p>
<p>Often colleges won’t make kids re-do the whole application process, especially if they want to transfer after just one year. I asked my kids to please apply to at least one college close to home in case they change their mind at the last minute about going away or there was some major family reason they might want to be closer to home at the last minutes (I could always get hit by a bus, for example!). I just liked having them keep their options open (not just on location, but we did the same with true financial safeties) just in case…</p>
<p>Gotta say, though, D2 did pick one of her most expensive options and the one farthest from home, and wouldn’t dream of transferring. So it really wasn’t necessary… :)</p>
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Oops, I meant Rice and USC.</p>
<p>intparent, I wonder if the nice weather in California helps. Because I have the opposite problem. California kids go to school somewhere in the Midwest or East Coast with weather problem.</p>
<p>Well, yeah. During our brutal winter in Minnesota last year, D2 in Southern California texted me a picture of a palm tree with the message, “I hear you are running out of road salt up there.”. And on an 80 degree day there when it was 20 below here, she sent: “I see there is a 100 degree difference in our temperatures today”. No question that coming home would mean coming home to worse weather. Although she misses autumn, and I plan to snap some leaf-peeping photos and text those along this weekend. :)</p>
<p>Emphatically no. It’s a silly, demoralizing and wasteful approach.</p>
<p>for a large school, it won’t matter. For a small school, it could be detrimental since they’ll remember she turned them down.</p>
<p>I don’t see it as a bad thing. D1 applied to 4 colleges and got into all 4. The 3 that she turned down all sent letters stating that they would keep her file active for 1 year in case things didn’t work out. I found that reassuring.</p>
<p>I don’t think that is necessarily true. After my D2 turned down Macalester, for example, they sent her a letter specifically saying that if she decided to transfer that she would not have to fill out the whole application and they hoped she would keep them in mind if her initial choice did not end up working out. Colleges aren’t people, they are in a business. Their feelings aren’t hurt if you turn them down (heck, they turn down students all the time). They already made the (often hard given their pile of applications) decision to accept a student. So I think that actually could give an edge in the re-admission process.</p>
<p>Remember that many re-applications will be coming in as transfer students. They need some transfers to fill for their own students who leave for various reasons. And colleges know that there are a lot of reasons students transfer. Family reasons, financial reasons, academic reasons. There certainly are some situations where they wouldn’t want to readmit. If a student washes out academically from a comparable college, then they will think twice. But if a kid goes off to a harder school and doesn’t cut it, that could be okay. Of course behavioral dismissals might not play well, and they may be wary of mental health issues bringing a kid home.</p>
<p>I think every student should have the courtesy to respond to the form that comes with acceptances saying whether they are attending or not, though. Be polite when you turn them down. My kids did feel genuinely bad about turning down a lot of their schools. I think they wrote a few notes on the turn down cards about how hard it was to decide. I know D2 told one school on their card that she wished she could attend more than one college because it was so hard to decide!</p>