What do students need to know about transferring?
Short Answer:
Money+Time+ScrewedUpCredits=Debt+Debt+Debt+Debt+Debt+MaybeNotEvenFinishing.
Transferring is potentially (likely) an expensive can of worms. If you open it without being prepared for what comes out, you can’t complain. But if you are utterly, completely, miserably miserable where you are, or you have explored enough of academia to understand the degree program (and career) you want (in other words, it’s no longer a fantasy and you are prepared to do the hard work required of the collegiate upper level), go ahead and transfer. Just understand that there will probably be many roadblocks along the way.
Detailed Answer:
Here’s a load of info you need to know about transferring…
1. Colleges don’t want any more dings in their grad rate stats than they already have. More than two former colleges listed on your applications to other colleges make you look like a bad bet. If you can’t commit to completing a degree where you’ve been, chances are you won’t finish up at any other college, either. Moving around from college to college makes you appear to be aimless and/or trouble. You make a lot of extra work for the registrar who must try to finesse your messy credit history – and you don’t want to be a pain and make an enemy of the registrar. In addition, admissions staff may think that there are hidden concerns (addictions or illegal activity) you have not dealt with appropriately, issues that may negatively affect the college social community.
2. There is a code of honor among colleges and universities: If you have not settled your entire bill at your previous institution– and I mean “paid in full” — you will not be admitted to another college. In fact, the college from which you trying to transfer will not release your transcript to another college until the bill is paid. And colleges will not admit you without an “official” transcript sent directly from the registrar’s office.
Here’s an example: A family I worked with a few years ago was trying to transfer their son from a Midwest institution to a college out East. The son and his roommate had trashed their dorm room, damage to the walls, furniture, etc. Turns out the son had a serous – but previously unrecognized — addiction issue which blossomed fully when he got to campus.
The original college would not release the student’s transcript until the cost of the damage had been paid, and the college to which he was applying could not – would not — admit him until they had the official transcript. The other roommate would not accept his part of the blame for the damage, although the son I was working with owned up to his addiction and was already in recovery.
It took a year for the student and his family to work out the problem and get his transcript released. In the meantime, the student was in limbo. His freshman college work, not surprisingly, had been poor, so because he had no way to matriculate at another institution, the academic damage lingered, also. The behavior of this student added at least a year of college to his degree-completion time and cost his family dearly — costs they will be paying off for a looooooong time. The great part of this story is that a few years later, out of the blue I received an email from the father telling me that his son had graduated with honors and was accepted to grad school – AND he is still sober.
The moral to this story from a college’s point of view is, “If they don’t want you, we don’t want you.” But what a happy ending! He grew up fast and is a huge success story. But there was a lot of pain getting there.
3. Transferring credits is a headache – for everyone, including you.
Transferring from college to college costs money and time. The average number of times an undergraduate student changes his/her major is 3-4. The average number of times a college-degree holding individual changes jobs in a lifetime is 10. Unless you are one of those rare individuals who knew at the age of 4 that they want to be an astrophysicist, you need a college that will offer you a solid grounding in the liberal arts combined with enough variety in “majors” to enable you to switch majors and concentrations seamlessly…and you need a guarantee of the “seamless” part.
Each academic department believes they are special, therefore they insist you take the fundamental discipline-related courses they offer at their own institution. In some cases, this is understandable, particularly when an upper-level program features a specific approach to research, generation of knowledge, and contribution to the field. But unless you enter a college having a savvy understanding of curriculum and how it relates to your education and career goals, you won’t have a clue.
The fact is, curriculums are incredibly complicated things to read and understand. Meet with a registrar sometime and try to get straight talk – despite their best intentions to try to help you, they struggle and often get it wrong, because it’s just too complicated, and often the departments have a completely different idea of what is expected of a student. In all the years I have tried to work with registrars and academic departments and advisers to get a solid answer on what my families can expect when they transfer, it has been a nightmare every time.
The general rule is that the catalog is the final word on graduation requirements. The problem is that every department writes their own catalog text and curriculum, and sometimes it’s incomprehensible. Get the registrar and the department to agree on paper to what it is that is required of you if you transfer. And never mind what the academic/transfer adviser says. They try, but often they have the wrong information. You are paying/going to pay a lot of money for this education. They owe it to you to make it clear what you need to do to get their degree.
It is heartbreaking when a transfer student (and this can happen even when you remain at an institution) gets to the end of their degree program, is promised a graduation date, then finds out in the middle of their “final” semester that they are missing a mere two credits or they won’t get credit for their internship after all, but “maybe” they will be allowed to walk (which means they can go through the graduation ceremony, but they won’t get their degree until they have completed their credits.) It is shocking the number of students who decide in the middle of their senior year that they can’t complete their degree program, either because they’ve run out of money, or it’s just too frustrating to get it done. Senior year is the second highest dropout rate after freshman year.
If you transfer under these circumstances, you will likely be faced with a semester or two – or worse, a year or two – of lost credits, which means astronomical frustration and wasted money.
Now, I am of the attitude that there is no such thing as a lost credit. Knowledge and education is useful throughout life. You never know when that Science for Artists class in Dinosaurs is going to matter – such as when you have kids and they think you are the bombdiggity because you know all about dinosaurs.
But you need to know that if you decide to transfer, that Dinosaur class might only count as an elective – or nothing. If you have too many electives, they end up being extra courses that are that – just extra. Extra time, extra money. And unless you are in the approximately 18% of the population that can pay out-of-pocket, you will be paying that off for decades.
4. Sometimes transferring is a relief and a joy. I worked with a brilliant student who had attended a major New England research university in the coolest, most happenin’, hippest college town ever. His high school grades had been all AP, all A+, and his SATs were as close to perfect as you can get without being perfect. But he was so shy, he felt completely alone, couldn’t make friends, and failed almost every class because he was so depressed. He transferred to a small college in a rural area and blossomed. He was prepared to take his entire first-year over again, just to be happy.
5. If you decide to attend community college first because at a community college you can get a solid core education without the cost of a major institution, keep in mind that many colleges and universities will accept your Associate’s degree whole, without picking apart your credits. They will accept you as a college Junior. If you go this route, make sure the college you are transferring into tells you exactly what will be expected of you to receive the degree you are seeking.
So the bottom line on time and money for transfers is this: Get it in writing. If you are transferring to another institution, and you are transferring a substantial number of credits, get in writing exactly what will be expected of you in order to get your degree.
Then determine the long-term cost of transferring. Then decide if it’s better to transfer as an undergrad, or finish up where you are with a solid liberal arts or degree program and save your money and time for a Master’s degree.