<p>I typed this and lost it. So I will try again.
I want to post our experience going through the transfer process.Having survived 2 freshmen application seasons I thought I had a good grasp of what needed to be done. I was totally wrong. It is a whole different ball game.
MERIT AID-since someone brought up merit aid in another thread I will address this first. MOST schools give NO merit aid for transfer students. It is hard to find the information on most of the college websites. There is also no good internet source listing merit aid schools for transfers. This is true even at schools that give generous aid to freshmen. Of 12 schools in our case only 2 were clear on their websites that they gave merit scholarships to transfer students. In our case 1 school gave a generous merit award and one other gave the offer of instate tuition. The rest none.
APPLICATION TIMETABLE- absolutely no common dates. App due dates varied from Jan 15 to June 15. Decision dates were not easy to figure out. Most don't list them. Acceptances came in as early as mid Feb and 2 in mid June. 3 schools have not yet sent out decisions. Adding to that 4 of the early schools had reply dates of May 1. In several cases good transfer housing was hard to find and waiting around to hear from several schools made the decision more difficult. My child had housing and registration appointment at one school before she had even heard back from 5 schools. If you wait to long you will not get the courses you need. Plus with some schools starting as early as Mid August it is anxiety producing to be waiting till July to make your final decision.
WHAT TO SEND- some schools wanted everything. SAT scores, HS grades, transcripts. Others just wanted college grades. In our case everything was sent since they were strong.
COURSE SELECTION-unless you know what school and major it can be hard to figure out what classes to take. Some schools wanted 2 semesters of language post HS, some none. Some had large number of required GE classes others few. Some wanted college Algebra while others Calculus. In our case we listed the GE and major requirements at all the schools and tried to take things that were required at multiple schools.
SPECIAL CASES-I know several CCers have kids whose freshmen year did not go as well as planned. In our case the application had some bumps,including being suspended 1/2 quarter for mental health reasons. Also several semesters full of W's.Transcripts from multiple schools. Also gaps of time with no school. The grades in our case were all A's which might have helped. Plus great recs from present professors.
Due to this the net was cast wide. 12 applications sent, from Top 20 to Tier 4. To give some hope of the 12 only 3 asked for more information. The others were fine with the answer that it was health related with no specifics at all. No school asked about the gaps in time.
RESULTS and what we learned. You cannot predict how things will turn out. Acceptances came to reaches and rejections and a deferral from a school that we all thought was going to be a slam dunk.
1 deferral and request for more information from the Tier 4
1 No from a school that we thought was a strong match. Did not account for the fact that the application was to an impacted major. Missing a required course for the major.
1 admittance to a Top 20 ranked school.
5 admittances to Tier 1 schools
1 yes to another Tier 4
3 schools that we have not yet heard from.
This is not where we thought we would be 4 or 5 yrs ago. The road has been rocky but we have all learned that there is not only one path. Each person makes the journey in his and her own way and pace.
Good Luck.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing this.
The “reply dates” are awful! I didn’t know that schools were so variable with this. And three with no decision yet? Terrible for making decisions and planning housing.</p>
<p>All too true. As I always say, transferring is not for sissies. I keep trying to tell that to all of the incoming college fr who are already planning their transfer to an Ivy. Heck, on the Transfer Students forum we even get rising HS srs who know they’re not going to make it into their ‘dream’ school as a fr but are sure that they’re going to be able to transfer after a year.</p>
<p>Mom60-What a wonderful post for someone with another child, now a rising junior, in the same transfer limbo. I have spent hours perusing the transfer forum run so ably by entomom. Reading the "short story"version of your journey thus far, prompts some questions that you might be willing to answer or the other wise parents on this thread. How did your child come up with the new list of schools to apply to-did they bear any resemblance to his initial college application list? Did he visit each school or attend local information session on each one? Is he clear about a a major and thus was able to narrow his focus to schools that are strong in that area or did his selection of schools revolve more around other factors? DD has been struggling with many of these issues for over a year now-even spent a semester at a top 20 national research university and decided she does love the collegial feel of a smaller LAC. Beyond that, though things seem stuck, so I truly ( as I am sure are others) am appreciate of all the information you have shared.</p>
<p>My daughter’s transfer experience was pretty straightforward.</p>
<p>She spent her freshman year at the University of South Carolina. She thought it was okay, but she wanted to try and find a place where she could really be happy.</p>
<p>She thought she wanted the classic state university experience and to enjoy the warm weather of the South. She found that she preferred the culture of the North and that Greek life in South Carolina had a more significant presence than she liked.</p>
<p>So she applied to Northeastern, UMass-Amherst and Ithaca College.</p>
<p>She was accepted at all three, and is all set to head off as a sophmore to the Park School at Ithaca.</p>
<p>Ithaca reserves spots in courses for transfer students and so d is enrolled in the courses she needs to be on track for completing her major in four years. It also looks like she will be getting the single room she was hoping for, so it’s looking good at this point!</p>
<p>Adding a couple of other things- Acceptance rates for transfers at some schools vary greatly. Several schools that had high acceptance rates for freshmen had low rates for transfer and vice versa. You can’t look at freshmen rates. Search out the transfer rates and if some of the colleges are public universites you have to take in to consideration that must of the transfer are probably from an instate CC.
Finding the address to send materials to also was challenging. Sometimes the transfer address was different and had to searched out. Also for transfer applications the teacher rec had to be sent by mail and not electronically.
Georgiatwins- the list the 2nd time beared little resemblance to the first. The needs were clearer and different. The student older and more mature. Only 1 school appeared on both lists. I am not sure why it was left on the 2nd since it was never going to be a good fit. I don’t want to make out that deciding on the schools was easy. Stuck is a good word. When you have made the wrong choice once and you already have high anxiety trying again is painful.
The 2nd list had two different groups of schools. One set of schools had a strong program in the major regardless of location. The 2nd set were selected almost exclusively due to location. School size ranged from 2000-30,000+. The first time around no school over 8000 students made the cut. My student spent part of the time off from school exploring work in the desired field. That made the decision to apply to schools all over easier because the end result would be education in the field of choice.
First time around we visited many schools pre application. We were not willing to do that again. One was visited on an interested student day as it was driving distance from her current location. Several others were visited prior to application or decision based on being in the area on a trip.My child did the campus visits alone this time. Since the schools were all over the US some of them never got visited. When acceptance came in through a process of elimination some got axed so no visit.
She did not wait for all the decisions before deciding. At a point that felt right she took all the information she had at that date and made her decision. Is the location her first choice? Absolutely not. But with all the information she has it is a solid choice. One that will provide her with a strong education. What was the right fit at 18 is not the same as the right fit at 22. At 22 she knows the school is what you make it. She is not looking for her social life to revolve around the school. She is looking for a program that will help her end up where she wants to be.</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>Just wanted to chime in here. My D attended UNCG in her freshman year and decided to apply to transfer UNC CH because she wanted to be challenged more. She told me she was going to apply, she did with no involvement from us, and told us when she was accepted and that she wanted to go there. She had a very successful freshman year at UNCG and ended up being on the Chancellor’s list which recognizes students who achieve a 3.75 or higher GPA. My assumption has been that this is what helped her to be accepted.
The point I want to make is that I had no idea what a big achievment this was until I started reading the threads here! Dont get me wrong, I know its hard to get into UNC CH but it was probably a good thing I didnt know more and wasn’t really involved in the process! I would have lost lots of sleep over it i’m sure!
My son was accepted at UNC CH as an incoming freshman this fall and I did lose sleep over that process!
I appreciate all the insights from those who post here!</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>My D spent freshman year at a small LAC, and she knew early in the year that she wanted to transfer. She had switched her academic focus & wanted a school with a wider variety of courses in her intended major. She applied to 3 schools - one was a school she had been accepted to & turned down the first time around. By the time spring rolled around, she had decided that she really wanted the school to which she had previously been admitted, a top 20 school. The one she wanted had the earliest transfer response date (April). When transfer acceptances were going out, she still hadn’t heard. She emailed the adcom for her area, but he never responded. Growing nervous, she called the admissions office and just happened to reach the assistant director. He told her he would look into it, and he contacted her soon afterward. It seems her high school transcript didn’t make it into her file - he told her to have it faxed to his attention, and the admissions packet came a few days later. She immediately contacted the other two colleges - one of which would have notified her in late May, the other in June - and withdrew her application. 2 years later my D is VERY happy that she went through the hassle of transfer apps. In her transfer essay, she wrote about why she wanted to transfer, focusing on the unique things this particular college offered for her — and she has taken advantage of everything she said she planned to do if accepted. Transferring was absolutely the right move for my D. As a side note, her need based aid is actually better than her generous merit scholarship at the LAC.</p>