Wondering about Transferring? Expert Insights on the Transfer Application Process
Should I Transfer Colleges?
Making the decision to transfer from one college to another is brave. It requires that a student walk away from their first college home and take a leap of faith amidst many unknowns as they try to find a new college home. It is an active, bold choice. Transfer students typically arrive at their new institution with direction, commitment, and a sense of purpose. As a result, transfer students may be among the most extraordinary members of their new college community. In my career, I’ve worked with transfer students from all angles.
A Board of Admissions Member’s Lens
I served on the Board of Admissions at Wellesley College for eight years, reading, evaluating, and voting in committee on approximately one hundred transfer student applications each year. These experiences taught me the role that transfer students play in enrollment management. The transfer student application cycle lags the regular decision cycle in time for a reason. Once the incoming class has taken shape, and its composition is clear, transfer students can then be admitted to meet specific institutional needs and priorities and fill in financial, academic, or other gaps. Schools often have different financial aid policies for transfer students. For instance, they may meet the demonstrated need of and offer merit aid to first-year students but not transfer students. Generally, transfer students cannot expect the same type of financial aid options they may have had when they applied to college their first time. At many institutions, the transfer applicant pool may help a school balance its budget, and full-pay transfer students may have an admission advantage over those who need financial aid. The transfer pool may also be used to address enrollment shortfalls in a specific academic discipline or other desired applicant characteristics.
For these reasons, the transfer application process can be highly unpredictable and vary from year to year for any given institution. Some years the target incoming transfer class at Wellesley was less than a handful of students. In other years it was up to 30 students. One year there was a midyear transfer class, but that was unusual. Institutions contemplating whether to include a midyear transfer option may consider how many students are studying abroad in the spring and how many open beds there will be in the dorms.
With respect to academic considerations, during my time on the Board of Admissions at Wellesley, the computer science (CS) department asked the Dean of Admissions not to admit any transfer students who indicated an interest in computer science. At the time, too many students were already studying CS at the College, resulting in frustratingly long wait lists for required classes each semester. Transfer students with less common academic interests and intended majors that are under-enrolled may have better chances of admission than saturated majors.
Other institutional priorities include ensuring a diverse student body and providing opportunity and access to students for whom a college education could be life-changing. On many occasions, at Wellesley, strong students from other liberal arts colleges, including historical women’s colleges, were passed over for admission in favor of community college students who had reached the end of the road at their institution with an Associate’s degree or students who had experienced difficulty at their prior institution. For instance, some students applied to transfer to Wellesley because they felt lost at a larger institution and sought a higher touch, smaller environment. Others desired a fresh start at a new and safer community after experiencing trauma or assault at their prior institution. Still, others realized they could better meet their academic interests at Wellesley.
What do Admissions Officers look for in transfer applications?
Outstanding college grades
Strong professor and instructor references
The rigor of the student’s college record - has the student taken courses demonstrating readiness for their intended college program?
High school record - especially for students transferring after only one or two semesters of college work. The more college-level work a student has had, the less important the high school record is.
Standardized test scores - when required or, if not required, the student chooses to send them.
Essay(s). Often students are asked to write an essay about why they want to transfer, such as: “Please provide a statement that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve.” In their response, students must be clear about what drives their dissatisfaction and how transferring to a particular school will address it. Otherwise, admissions officers will not find the applicant compelling, and they may also worry that the problems that the student experienced will follow them to their new institution.
A Dean’s Lens on Transferring Colleges
As a dean at Wellesley College and Tufts University, I’ve supported countless students who aren’t happy and wonder about applying to transfer elsewhere. I help them sort through and identify their reasons for wanting to transfer. I also help them understand their options which may include transferring elsewhere or staying while trying to address the factors contributing to their desire to transfer out. Sometimes steps such as joining extracurricular clubs on campus, engaging with activities off campus and in the surrounding community, making new connections with faculty, students, and staff, and taking advantage of the resources at neighboring institutions can make all the difference in a student’s experience and happiness. At Wellesley College, my students often expanded their experiences at Olin College of Engineering, Babson College, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology through coursework, clubs, and activities. My students would regularly join the MIT Ballroom Dancing Team, for instance. And hundreds of Wellesley College students took classes at MIT every semester, spending time on its campus and as part of its community.
As their dean, sometimes students hesitate to come to me to express that they want to transfer. They worry I will take it personally on behalf of the institution or it will reflect poorly on them. However, I know that not every institution is a good match for every student. I also know that sometimes it takes time for a student to find their footing at their school and that feeling at home and building community can be a process. Indeed, sometimes a student goes through the transfer application process and achieves excellent outcomes yet chooses to stay at their original institution, essentially choosing their school again. I’ve even worked with students who transferred out and back to their institution. People always find it fascinating to hear that four Wellesley students who I worked with who transferred out of and back to the College did so to only two institutions. And people are even more fascinated to hear that these two institutions are members of the Ivy League: Brown University and Cornell University. To generalize, the students found that they had underappreciated the undergraduate focus of Wellesley’s small liberal arts college environment. Likewise, I have supported students who transferred out of and back to Tufts, one to Claremont McKenna College, another to Wesleyan University, and a third to the University of Virginia.
At Wellesley, I ran transfer student orientation, helping students transition to the College. I also supported students in applying to the double-degree programs I created at Olin and MIT, a process requiring a transfer application to these schools. At Tufts, I serve as each incoming transfer student’s pre-major advisor guiding them through registration until they have declared a major and been assigned a faculty major advisor.
The Role of Transfer Credit Evaluation
One of my responsibilities as a dean is to help students who take courses at other institutions navigate the transfer of credit process. I help them understand how these courses may or may not transfer to their academic record and apply to their degree requirements. I do this work regularly when I support students who’ve taken classes at home over the summer or during a semester of leave of absence and when studying abroad. I also evaluate other institutions’ curricula for course mapping when designing and establishing new academic programs, such as the MIT and Olin double-degree and certificate programs at Wellesley and the University of Pavia and Centrale Supélec study abroad programs at Tufts. Within the context of transfer students, I determine the provisional transfer of credit reports sent to incoming transfer students upon their acceptance. I review transfer applicants' college transcripts and make an estimate of how their prior coursework may translate to their degree requirements. I also determine applicants' approximate class standing so that they have some sense of what their remaining time would look like if they chose to enroll. Note that some schools have a transfer of credit database available so students can do this type of analysis themselves. Other schools provide little information about transfer of credit and class standing. For students who enroll, I work closely with them to ensure the courses from their other institution are on their transcript and count towards their degree requirements correctly, positioning them to register for appropriate coursework moving forward.
A College Counselor’s Lens
As a college counselor at Lantern College Counseling®, I work with several transfer students each application cycle, and my insights from my board of admissions and dean work inform my guidance of them. I work with students to build their college lists, identify programs that match their academic interests, and decide among their options. As I do so, I also help them think through how their prior coursework may map to various degree programs and schools’ degree requirements so that they avoid wasting time and money when they transfer.
How does the transfer student process differ from the first-year application process?
Usually, a transfer student’s list is shorter than when they applied during the regular admissions process because they often have a clearer idea of what they are looking for.
The work may be less intensive because the student has already prepared application materials in the past.
Transfer student admissions probabilities are highly unpredictable. No school is considered “likely” for admission. After all, a school may be overenrolled that year and not have space for any transfer students.
As with regular admissions, the chances of transfer admission vary from institution to institution. However, there is more variability across institutions for transfer admissions, with some highly selective institutions being easier to gain admission to as a transfer student than others and easier to gain admission to than during the first-year admission process. Further, the admission probabilities can vary significantly for a particular school, even year to year.
Schools provide varying levels of administrative support for transfer students. Some have a large transfer student cohort, an organized orientation, clear communication about the potential credit transfer, and guaranteed housing. Other schools may not offer all or any such support.
Transferring at the beginning of the academic year, when the first-year class also is arriving, will often typically afford a more robust orientation experience and positive transition. It may be challenging to transfer to an institution in the middle of the academic year, particularly if the transfer cohort is small. Also, it can be hard to move in January to a school in a part of the country where the days are short and the weather is cold, such as New England.
Even more so for transfer students, a student’s chances of acceptance will be shaped by institutional priorities, which are often unknown.
A student’s chances of acceptance will be increased if they have a compelling reason to transfer vs. wishing to “trade up.” At Lantern, I worked with one student who found that his interests in urban studies weren’t being met adequately at suburban Vassar College. He sought a more urban environment to develop his academic interests and a more robust urban studies program. He applied to five schools that met these criteria: New York University, Tufts University, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. He gained admission to two of these five schools, UPenn and Columbia, ultimately choosing to attend Columbia, where he thrived. He experienced excellent outcomes because, beyond the other strong components of his application, he authentically articulated compelling reasons for wanting to transfer.
Students should expect to have to do half or more of a degree at an institution to earn a degree from the institution. As such, students should consider transferring in the first or second year of college and not later.
More rigid degree programs, such as engineering, require particularly close academic advising and attention to how courses will transfer. Additionally, it is important to consider when required foundational and sequential courses are offered (spring vs. fall) relative to a student’s start at an institution. Similarly, if a student got AP, IB, A-level, or other prematriculation credits at their prior institution, will they likewise receive them at their new institution? If not, they may take a step backward in their class standing. One year I supported a student who lost all of her AP credits when transferring from Villanova to Tufts because Villanova awarded her credits for scores of 3, but Tufts did not.
The transfer student process is institution-specific, and some aspects vary from year to year:
Application deadlines for fall transfer are usually around March.
There is not one standard notification date across schools, and a given school may release transfer outcomes on more than one day and over time.
The size of the admitted class
Mid-year vs. only fall semester option
Transfer of credit data base vs. provisional estimate report vs. no information about transfer credits
Housing availability
Type and quality of orientation
Financial aid policies for transfer students
What questions should I ask about a school’s transfer process?
Is there an orientation for transfer students?
Is there a dedicated academic advisor for transfer students who can guide me about credit mapping and prematriculation equivalencies? If not, who can help me obtain accurate information about how my prior college coursework and high school exams (AP, for instance) will apply to my new degree program?
What is the anticipated size of the incoming student cohort?
What are your financial aid policies (merit or need-based) for transfer students? Can I expect any aid?
Do you provide housing for incoming transfer students? Where? With whom? Other transfer students? Non-transfer students?
Can I speak to a recent transfer student?
Note - Many community colleges have guaranteed transfer pathways to four-year institutions. For instance, Massachusetts Bay Community College’s MassTransfer program is a guaranteed transfer pathway to the University of Massachusetts state system. This particular type of transfer is not addressed in this article.
