U Mich Ross vs Wash U vs Tufts vs Cornell TO

Hi I am a current high school senior and I only have 8 days left to put in a deposit.

I have narrowed down my college option to U Mich Ross ( instate & preadmit), Wash U, and Tufts for my first year.
I have been also fortunate enough to be offered a transfer option to Cornell.

Since Cornell was my ED school (I was deferred in December), I am 70% sure I will transfer.
I am having a hard time choosing between Ross, Wash U, and Tufts since I will likely be only going there for a year (My parents want me to transfer)

For Ross, since the freshmen year is not “Ross,” I feel that it will feel more like going to LSA rather than Ross. Also, since I have been attending a private school since middle school, I think the environment will be too big (regarding class sizes etc).

Personally, Wash U and Tufts are my favorites since I loved the campus, class sizes, and basically everything.
However, I would have to pay almost $50,000 more (compared to UMich instate) in order to attend and I do not know if it is worth the price difference. I feel that if I don’t take the TO option from Cornell, I would go to Wash U since I loved the environment and really saw myself there.

Also, for Cornell TO, I have to fulfill requirements (3.0 gpa, required courses) in order to transfer.
Which school is the easiest/ best to transfer from?

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

So how did it all turn out?

I hope umich or community college. Wash u and tufts for 50k just to leave. Good grief and what a waste of a spot at these fine schools. Sorry that’s my feeling.

@privatebanker Cornell guaranteed transfer requires the student to enroll in a 4 year college freshman year.

It is nothing more than poaching students from other colleges to improve Cornell’s freshman stats. And they claim that Northeastern games the ranking system!

Wow. such great schools and all those hardworking students dying on a waitlist. This would be disheartening. I would go with the least expensive 4 year option if it’s is guaranteed transfer. And one where the students and classes aren’t as competitive. One I would be glad to be leaving after year one.

re #3: It does have that effect, but that isn’t why they instituted it. They did it for revenue enhancement and internal reasons, not competitive cosmetics. From what I recall of what I read quite some time ago. And surmised.

The State of New York was continually reducing funding to the contract (ie state-affiliated) colleges. So those colleges needed to replace that revenue. For that reason they wanted to add more tuition-paying bodies.

They had infrastructural capacity to add more students after freshman year, in their own colleges.

But adding freshman was not a good option or several reasons:

  • The university was capacity constrained in the freshman dorms. There are only so many beds in North Campus which is where the university deliberately puts all the freshmen, so they can more easily mingle with each other.
    • The university has been generally trying to reduce, not increase, the enrollment in their freshman survey courses. Expanding freshman enrollment would be contrary to this objective.

-Perhaps very significantly, internally the contract colleges pay the endowed colleges, and vica versa, for courses their students take at each other’s colleges. A lot of the survey courses and seminars that freshman enrolled in the contract colleges tend to take are actually taught in the endowed colleges. So freshmen are not as profitable for the contract colleges as upperclassmen are.

So their goal was to add bodies in the upperclassman years, not freshman. And one way to help get there is by issuing these guaranteed transfers. With requirements that the students wishing to transfer take a lot of these unprofitable intro courses at their first college, so almost all their credits thereafter will need to be taken at their own contract college. ($$$$)

It’s about the money. Not the freshman stats or somebody’s ranking system. The stats would change if those additional students entered as freshmen. But the colleges don’t want them as freshmen. Due to their monetary needs, internal accounting, and capacity constraints. Not due to somebody’s rankings.

@monydad While the guaranteed sophomore transfer benefits Cornell it results in many students essentially “wasting” their freshman year elsewhere. By wasting I mean entering a college with the intention of transferring out. Students will tend not to make the connections and friends they would otherwise make freshman year. The OP is an example. He wants to use one of three fantastic colleges: WUSTL, Tufts and Michigan, as a temporary home so that he can go on to get a degree from what some call the UC Merced of the Ivy League. And his parents are encouraging this.

And this practice lowers the retention and graduation rates at the freshman college.

I agree with @TomSrOfBoston

Going to one of these colleges freshman year with the intention to later transfer to Cornell will not only put you in the wrong headspace, but will cause you to miss out on the great connections and experiences made freshman year. I would choose Tufts or WashU over Cornell any day, and same with UMich if you get in-state tuition. Don’t waste your time with transferring — it will only make your whole college experience worse.

I would vote for umich straight up against all three others. Great school great, great atmosphere. Great town and better name recognition than tufts or wash u if youre not on college confidential.

@privatebanker, I just want to say…Go Blue!

The OP had to deposit by 5/1,

@TomSrOfBoston :
I don’t disagree with your post #6.

However that has nothing to do with the second paragraph of your post #3.
Where you wrote, and I quote:
"It is nothing more than poaching students from other colleges to improve Cornell’s freshman stats. And they claim that Northeastern games the ranking system! "

This is what I was addressing in my post #5. Where I explained that improving freshman stats to game the ranking system, which was your clear assertion, was actually not a main motivation, rather the main motivation was revenue enhancement.

Re #6 : Clearly Cornell is not doing this because it is in the interest of the other colleges students may attend for their freshman year. And it may or may not be in the interest of the actual students themselves, that is for each of them to individually evaluate. My own opinion is that in most cases students should not take the guaranteed transfer, though they may keep it around as an option if their initial choice proves suboptimal.

Cornell offers these options for the benefit of Cornell.

What a shock.

My D was offered the guaranteed transfer a few years ago. There was no possible way she would want to transfer after her freshman year. She “accepted” it – meaning she indicated she wanted to stay on the list – in case she ended up hating where she went freshman year and would have wanted to transfer anyway. But of course that did not happen, and at the end of freshman year she politely declined the Cornell transfer option.

I think the Cornell transfer option is really lousy, especially for the ED deferred candidates. I bet when they are deferred the admissions office knows that many of these students will be offered the TO, but they don’t tell them until end of March.

My only point is the op with the schools she was accepted to, taking one of those wonderful and life changing positions with the intention of transferring and parental pressure to do so is a sin. And it’s the height of hubris. I have no problem with the transfer option and them wanting to access the program. But go to one of the needier and less expensive NECAC list schools nearby. There’s plenty. It would be good parenting and being a good human.

BTW in #14 the option I am referring to is the option to graduate from Wash U or Tufts.

Whereas it is likely usually the case that, if the initial choice is an appropriate one, the student does not exercise the option ultimately.

Another thing I might mention, if OP has this transfer option it is probably to one of the contract colleges.
These are not liberal arts colleges, they each have specialized majors, courses, particular programs of study, which are usually geared to more “applied” areas than a typical liberal arts college covers.

OP does not say, but it may be that the program of studies and courses he/she would take if at Cornell (after freshman year) are substantially different than what he/she would be taking at Wash U or Tufts. In which case, if still wants that more specialized education, these other schools would not be perfect substitutes and he/she may be more likely to exercise the transfer option. On the other hand, it may be that OP had little or no understanding of the implications of undertaking this specialized program of studies, actually does not want it so much once he/she understands, if not now then by the time he /she would need to exercise this option. In which case it would be less likely to be exercised. Aside from the various other factors than enter into such decision.