<p>I’m enterring Columbia as a transfer in the fall and just have a few questions that I hope other transfer students may know the answers to.</p>
<li><p>Are the summer advising sessions also for transfer students? I got a note about it in one of the packets and sent in my RSVP, but today when I called a woman who answered the phone said it was for First Year students. Is she just mis-informed? Why would they send me info on it if it wasn’t for me?</p></li>
<li><p>When are we supposed to be informed of our housing placement? When I sent in my housing application, I never received an email confirmation. Should I have received something in an email confirming they had received my housing application?</p></li>
<li><p>And finally, are we supposed to read the Illiad before school starts? I’ve heard that freshmen are, and that they receive a free copy over the summer, but are transfers also supposed to get a free copy and read it? I’ve received nothing in the mailings mentioning that, so this is just something I’ve heard from other people who enterred as freshmen.</p></li>
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<p>Hi, I'm an incoming transfer as well. I do believe we'll get a copy of the Illiad a couple of weeks before the semester starts...No rush in reading it; only about a 100 pgs comprise the part we have to read.</p>
<p>Housing should go out in a few weeks...and the advising sessions are for freshmen (coincidentally, I've heard that there is where they give out free copies of the Illiad).</p>
<p>Do any my fellow transfer students have a facebook? I think it'd be cool if we could get to know each other a bit before we actually got to school!</p>
<p>incoming transfers are the bottom of the barrel for housing. you're not living in the first-year dorms, and you didn't take part in the upperclass room selection, so you get what people transfer out of.</p>
<p>hmm, what would be a good group name?? In the meantime, PM me with your names or something I can use to add you as a friend in facebook, if you want.</p>
<p>Yea :/ I e-mailed housing just to check for application confirmation. That's what I got in a reply e-mail. Of course the staff member could have been a month off and said August instead of July. :P</p>
<p>Well, welcome to Columbia--a fabulous education in the best city in the U.S., but something of a bureaucratic nightmare. I wanted to recount something that I witnessed last year for you all to keep in mind. There were two days for new students to arrive, Saunday for those from generally far-away places and Monday for those closer. I took my son on Sunday, since he was in the first group. While he was taking care of everything, and I was not doing much of anything, I witnessed several transfer students trying to check in because they were also from those far-away places and had been notified that they could come on Sunday. They were turned away and told that transfers were not eligible to come early, and would have to wait until Monday for their rooms, in spite of having received an e-mail from the housing office telling them to come on Sunday. I do not know what happened ultimately, but I would advise you to double-check on your arrival arrangements. Good luck to all of you.</p>