Twelve College Transfer Tips

If you are a college student with plans to transfer, here are twelve tips from the Higher Education Consultants Association Conference session on understanding the transfer process.

Do:

1.  Stay for at least a year at a college, before transferring.
2. Save the syllabus, not just the course description, from each class you take. This will improve the chance that the college you are transferring to will accept your credits.
3. Get involved at your current school and develop a relationship with your professors.
4. Establish a relationship with the transfer advisor. 
5. Work with your academic advisor to evaluate your level of performance relative to your current college and the college you want to transfer to.
6. Get a sense about transfer student life, by talking with other students who transferred to the colleges you are considering.
7. Become familiar with the requirements (e.g., minimum and maximum number of credits, as well as test requirements) for transfer student applicants at the colleges you are considering. They vary considerably from college to college. Make sure that you meet more than the minimum standards, because entrance may be selective. 
8. Check out http://www.njtransfer.org/, if you are transferring from a NJ community college.

Know that: 

1. Some colleges may reserve a certain number of seats for students transferring from other particular colleges.
2. Some schools don’t have merit aid for transfer students.
3. Less money, less housing and fewer seats are generally available for a mid-year transfer, than for a fall transfer.

Don’t:

1. Write, “I’m transferring because my current college stinks,” in your application essay about why you want to transfer to College X.

What are your transfer experiences? What do you wish someone told you about transferring? What tips would you add to this list?

College Trends and Hot Topics - Part 3

The admissions personnel on the Higher Education Consultants Association college admissions panel answered the following questions on current trends and hot topics.

How do you know a student wrote the college essay? 

• The prose style of a 17-year old is different than a 40-year old. 
• Essays written by committee loose their force. 
• The main essay and supplement essays are consistent.  If they are in doubt, they compare the essays to the SAT writing sample.

What gender issues are colleges facing?

• Liberal arts colleges are becoming increasingly female.  Some liberal arts colleges are looking to keep the percent of men at greater than 40%.
• There are too few women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

How should high school students spend their summer?

• Do something constructive.
• Test some idea, like "what is it like to work?" or "what is field x like?"

What is the role of the interview in the admissions decision?

• The Muhlenberg College representative indicated that 75% of students are interviewed by their admissions staff on campus or off-site.  Their interview is both evaluative and informational.  The college wants to get at intangibles like what is the student hoping for and whether the student is kind and civil.
• The Dartmouth College representative said that alumni conduct the interviews and score the prospective students on a 1 - 5 rating score.  41% of the students interviewed received a score of 4 or 5.  Dartmouth is interested in learning why the students want to attend their college.
• At Rutgers University, students from the Pharmacy School and the Mason Gross School have interviews.

How are you using social media?

• Rutgers University does not read the student's Facebook page.
• After students were accepted to Dartmouth College, they could participate in a Class of 2016 page.  High school students could video chat with current Dartmouth College students.

What's happening with Spring admits?

• Brandeis University has been accepting students who applied for the Fall term as Spring admits for seven or eight years.  This allows then to fill the space made available because students are studying abroad.  The students who are Spring admits have their own orientation, make a good transition to Brandeis University, and turn out well.

Do any of these answers surprise you?  Are there other questions that you wish they discussed?

College Trends and Hot Topics - Part 2

The panel of admissions personnel at the Higher Education Consultants Association Conference discussed "What intangible factors make a student stand out?"

Chris Hooker-Haring, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Muhlenberg College, valued energy, sustained commitment, intellectual curiosity, and authenticity.

Lou Hirsch, Director of Admissions at the University of Delaware, indicated that he didn't expect applicants to be Olympic Gold Medalists.  He wanted to know who the student is and how did he get that way.  He wants to learn how the student's activities shaped them.  When the letters of recommendation and student's essays mesh, he found it compelling.

Mark Spencer, Director of Admissions  at Brandeis University, said that admissions officers sometimes have a bias.  If the admissions officer feels connected to the student because of their story, that student had an advantage.

Brian Estrada, Director of Admissions at Dartmouth College, talked about valuing students who are open to learning from others, as well as students who others can learn from.  Dartmouth College considers moral development and peer recommendations.

Courtney McAnuff, Vice President of Enrollment Management at Rutgers University, said the Rutgers admissions office does not see race, gender or high school when evaluating applications.  Rutgers University is concerned about how students work with diverse situations and want to have a well-rounded class. 

What intangible factors do you think make a student stand out?

College Trends and Hot Topics - Part 1

I attended the Higher Education Consultants Association Conference this week.  Here’s what’s happening in college admissions, according to key admissions personnel who participated in a panel entitled "College Trends and Hot Topics: Admissions 2012."

Courtney McAnuff, Vice President of Enrollment Management for Rutgers University indicated that he was looking at a proposal to merge UMDNJ with Rutgers, which now seems likely. He was also looking into the merger of Rowan and Rutgers Camden. The size of the Rutgers freshmen class will be reduced for the next three years, because retention is up.

Brian Estrada, Director of Admissions at Dartmouth College said, with the April nomination of their college president to lead the World Bank, Dartmouth is looking for a new college president. This year Dartmouth had 23,000 applicants and accepted 2200 of them. 1104 students will be attending, and Dartmouth may accept 5 more students from the wait list.

Mark Spencer, Director of Admissions at Brandeis University said parents are becoming more concerned about college costs. This year a lower percent of students stayed on the wait list and a lower percent of students are accepting a spot off of the wait list.

Lou Hirsch, Director of Admissions at the University of Delaware indicated that his school had the same situation with the wait list as Brandeis. Parents seemed more concerned with college cost and “have gotten over if their child doesn’t get into their first choice school.”

Chris Hooker-Haring, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Muhlenberg College told the independent counselors that Muhlenberg had over 5000 applicants this year. They admitted about 50% of their incoming class through Early Decision. It took longer to get to their target class size this spring and there were more conversations with parents about money and value.

In a future blog post, I will cover the panel’s input on college essays, gender imbalance at college, how high school students should spend the summer, college interviews, college use of social media, and spring admits.

Update on Landmark College

Earlier this month, Landmark College, a college serving students with language-based learning disabilities, announced three new academic programs would be starting this Fall:

1. BA in Liberal Studies
2. Associate of Science in Life Sciences
3. Associate of Science in Computer Science/Gaming.

For more information on Landmark College, see my original blog post on this school.

What's your experience with Landmark College and how do you view these new academic programs?

Fordham University (Bronx, NY)

Fordham University is the Jesuit University of New York, one of 28 Jesuit universities in the United States, with three undergraduate colleges and two New York campuses. The Fordham mission is to care for the entire person, strive for greatness, and to develop men and women for others by providing community service, locally and abroad.

I visited the Rose Hill campus in a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx, which houses the Fordham College at Rose Hill and the Gabelli School of Business. In 2010, the College of Business Administration was renamed the Gabelli School of Business after Mario Gabelli made a 25 million dollar gift to Fordham. You might know my tour guide, a young woman from Basking Ridge. She is a triplet who graduated from Ridge High School, is studying at the Gabelli School, studied abroad in Italy, is a member of the crew team, and has had internships.

The other campus is the 8-acre Lincoln Center campus in the heart of Manhattan, which houses the Fordham College at Lincoln Center. Both the Fordham College at Rose Hill and the Fordham College in Lincoln Center offer majors in the Liberal Arts and Sciences. There are a few majors that are only offered at one of these two colleges. Some sciences are only offered in Rose Hill and dance, theatre and social work are only offered in Lincoln Center.

The Rose Hill campus is home to 5000 undergraduates, 80% who live on campus and 20% who commute. The campus covers 85 green acres in the middle of a city neighborhood in the Bronx. It is a green, Gothic oasis close to the Metro-North train, bus and subway transportation, which provides students an opportunity to intern or take advantage of the arts/nightlife in Manhattan. The school runs a shuttle service, the Ram Van, between the two campuses, as well as a late-night Rose Hill Off-campus shuttle. The school is also close to the sights of the Bronx, and is across the street from the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden.

The Fordham College at Rose Hill has 3300 undergraduates majoring in the liberal arts and sciences. The Gabelli School has 1700 undergraduate students majoring in business; a new business building with expanded, new capabilities will be opening in the Fall. The Rose Hill campus also has five year BS/MBA programs and 5 year Bachelor’s/Masters programs.

The Lincoln Center campus has 1750 undergraduate. Half are residential and half are commuters.

Housing is guaranteed all four years at both campuses.

The school has a large core curriculum and a small average class size of 22 students. The core curriculum includes two theology classes, but these are not limited to Catholic theology.

The Division I athletics are housed in the Bronx campus. There are 143 clubs and organizations. Internships, community service, campus ministry, and study abroad are popular. Fordham provides access to over 2600 internships and three quarters of Fordham students have had at least one internship by graduation. There are over 165 study abroad programs.

Fordham University accepts the Common Application and the SAT or ACT. They admitted 42% of applicants with an average GPA of 3.7 and the mid-50% score on the SAT of 1830 – 2050. They provide both merit and need-based financial aid. They have both Early Action and regular admission. Early Action applications, as well as all Dance/Theatre applications, are due on 11/1. Regular admission applications are due on 1/15. Students can receive credit for AP exams.

If you are a student looking to study liberal arts and sciences, or business at a private Catholic college with a campus in a city environment, the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University may be for you. If you have visited or recently attended the Fordham University Rose Hill campus, what did you think of the school?

It's Not Too Late

Some of you are suffering because you didn't get into the college of your dream or even worse, you didn't get into any college that you want to attend this Fall.  Don't despair, because it is not too late!  Over 375 colleges are still accepting Freshmen and/or transfer students for the Fall, and some of these have financial aid money left.