Ep.3/ transfer applications
so you want to transfer? in this episode we discuss what it takes to transfer, when to apply, and what to consider to make yourself stand out.
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There are lots of reasons why you might want to transfer schools. Maybe you got into a school that was not high on your list. Maybe you got into a school you really wanted to go to, but you didn't like the experience. There are times when circumstances change - you want to move closer to family, or you don't like the weather where you study.
In this episode, Thomas will talk about how transferring works, what to consider when you've made the decision to transfer, what to look for in each school's requirements, and more. Thomas discusses what to avoid when applying to a new school, what admissions at your new school will look for when considering you, and how to prepare for transferring.
The transfer process is different from applying to college initially. It's important to understand these differences because transferring can be a lot of work, and you don't want to be scrambling at the last minute. The purpose of this episode is to help you better understand the transfer process so that you can be prepared for this next big step in your life.
Key Highlights
Admissions requirements to pay attention to at the schools you're applying to
Questions to ask yourself about your reasons for changing schools
Taking stock of your experience at your current school
What you need to consider when writing your essay
Why transferring is different from applying to college for the first time
What colleges will want to know about you
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Hello, and welcome to the third episode of the admittedly podcast. My name is Thomas Caleel. And today we're going to be talking about transfer applications. Students come to me asking about a transfer from university to another university for several reasons. Sometimes, the senior year admissions process didn't go the way they hoped they were admitted to a school that was not high up on their list, and they're anxious to change. Sometimes they did get admitted to a school that they thought they wanted to go to was high on their list. But once they got there, they realize that something about that experience did not resonate with them.
Maybe the classes were different than they had hoped. Maybe the school is too large, too small too remote to urban. Sometimes, sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes students want to be closer to family, sometimes they want to be on a different coast. Sometimes they realize that the weather is not in their favor, the location that they're at. So there are a lot of different reasons for a transfer. And what we really want to do is talk about now, how this process works. The first thing I would tell you is to pay attention to deadlines, because while in general, most transfer applications are due on March 15. Schools vary, and you don't want to make assumptions.
So I would urge you to go to the school and see what application they accept. Hopefully, they're all on something like a common app, which makes your life a lot easier because everything is centralized in one place. But if not, you are going to have to set up different accounts for the different schools. You want to look at what their requirements are. And a lot of this is kind of nuts and bolts, it's things that are very easy to get started. Or there are forms that need to be sent to your school registrar to sign, what kind of recommenders Are you going to need to line up, some schools don't require any recommenders. Some schools require multiple recommenders, some schools give you an opportunity for personal recommenders and professional recommenders. And these are all things that we need to keep in mind and plan ahead.
Alright. So once we get through setting up your account, doing some of the data entry, and figuring out what needs to be sent where and by when we want to look at our reasons for transferring, right? And we want to think about, again, much in the same way we do as a junior are planning ahead, we want to think about our thesis, right? Why do we want to change schools? How and why have your goals changed? And how is this new school going to give you a different experience?
Now in some cases, that can be a little bit easier. Perhaps you went to a small school out in the country, and you realize that it's just not the right environment for you. Maybe for personal reasons, for social reasons for access to internships, for diversity, you want to be near a city? Okay, that's fine. Now, the question though, as an admissions officer really becomes you knew that going in that you are going to be remote and that you're going to be at a small school. So why did you make that initial decision? What was that based on? Alright, perhaps you went to a particular school to study with a certain professor, and they left, right. So through no fault of your own, your research arc as an undergrad has changed significantly. That might be a reason.
But really, what we want to do is think about why we made the initial decision. What's changed in these first few months at school, and why you're looking to transfer out? Now I'm assuming that you're transferring out as a freshman, certainly, you can transfer out as a sophomore, rarely as a junior. But what we want to see is how we are articulating our path without trashing your current school, right? an admissions officer for the new school definitely does not want to read about how much you hate your current school, because that's going to reflect poorly on you. I think that's self-evident.
But you would be surprised sometimes at what people write in essays, thinking that they need to denigrate their current school as a way to appeal to the new school, and like many things, many other situations in life, that's always a bad idea.
So as we're forming our thesis as we're thinking about our academic and social journey, we want to think about how we've spent the last few months at your current school, have you been active on campus? Have you taken advantage of the opportunities presented? Right. So if you're talking about a lack of social life and club life, and you haven't joined any clubs or tried to get involved in any activities, the schools that you're applying to transfer to are going to be a little bit skeptical of that, right?
But if you have gotten involved in one or two things you've been, you've been active, either in research, or clubs, or sports, or anything, just showing that you are integrating yourself into the fabric of your current school. But there's just not a fit for some reason. And sometimes you might love the social environment of your school, you might be thriving there. But academically, you might be in classes, let's say, of 650 students, and that's just not working for you, you really want a much more intimate approach, where you're taught in smaller group classes by professors not teaching assistants. And so that is certainly going to be an element of your thesis to change. We also want to look at your grades. Academics are critically important here because there's not much to go on.
Generally, if you're trying to apply for transfer after your freshman year, you're not going to have leadership positions in clubs, you're probably not going to be a starter on a varsity athletic team. It's just too soon. So really, grades are the one thing that universities can look at and say, Okay, have they challenged themselves with course selection? And how have they done in those classes? Grades are also important because you do need to ask for recommendations.
And one of the things that we always hear from transfer students is, that my professors barely know me. Right? Maybe you have large format lectures, and then breakout sessions with teaching assistants, in some classes that you may not have ever even met your professor. And universities realize that this is a challenge. That's why many of them might only ask for one recommendation or even no recommendations. I think though, if you find that if you approach your professors and you say, Listen, I really enjoyed your class, my grade reflects that. I think if you speak with the TA, they'll tell you I was an active participant in the breakout sessions. And, you know, I'm thinking of transferring, and I would really like to schedule a meeting with you. Because I'd like to ask you for a recommendation.
And many times the professor if you've done well in their class, they'll talk to them, they might say for example, ask the TA because they know you better, they might say, Sure, let me talk with the TA Let me talk with you and I will see what I can do. But also, if you go into the school year knowing I think I might want to transfer, I would go out of my way to attend office hours, and get to know your professors. There's no downside to that. Right. Professors generally love to teach, they love interacting with students, they love to share their knowledge, they love intellectually curious students.
And so even if you decide not to transfer, the worst thing that happens is that you've developed an interesting working relationship with your professors, you've gotten to know them, and you probably will have done better in their class, because they've explained things to you, you've had an opportunity to interact with them and ask them questions about the material. So none of that is bad for you in your development as a student and a human being.
Now, as we think about it, we're going to talk about the common app, for example, I know there are other modalities to apply. But the common app generally covers a great majority of the schools you'll be transferring to. It's very tempting because you're busy because you've just slogged through this generally as a senior to recycle a lot of your essays. And I really would caution you not to do that. You have changed over the past year you are older, you're hopefully wiser. You've had a very different set of experiences, being in university.
So I really would encourage you if this is something that you're taking seriously, this transfer process, don't recycle. You certainly can look at your old essays if you want for motivation or inspiration just to kind of check in where you were a year ago. But we do need to think about our different thesis or different strategy and we're going to talk on different podcasts and different episodes about strategy and how important being strategic in this process truly is.
But as we're narrating our story, as we're telling our story as we're talking to the universities about why they're a better fit for you. We really need a friend set of writing that captures that. Okay, we've already definitely talked about planning ahead and how important it is to get ahead of the game. university registrar offices are notoriously slow because a lot of this work needs to be done by hand forms need to be generated, and they need to be stamped, signed, and mailed. It's an archaic system, I understand that, but it's the one we're working with.
So please don't go rushing into your registrar's office two days before the deadline and say, Oh, this is an emergency, I need this done right now. Because they're going to have very, very little sympathy for you. And rightly so there's very easy to plan ahead. If you need to request score reports, if you've taken standardized testing, you absolutely need to get ahead of that you need to put in your request, you need to order the reports, some schools ask for actual reports. Others want to save you money. And so they will ask you to self-report, and then send in if you're admitted and you intend to matriculate, then you can send in your official scores later as many schools do for regular freshman-year admissions.
And then I would say, be thoughtful about your school list. Alright, so transferring is a lot of work. It's not something that you're going to want to build a 20-school list maybe the way you did for regular admissions. Be thoughtful, think about where you are, and think about, okay, I have one chance to change direction here. And so what am I going to do? So I want you to be thoughtful about your school list, you have generally one chance to transfer. So don't generate a list of schools, you might think you might want to go to, okay, this shouldn't be a school list that has, you know, safety schools on it, for lack of a better sense, lack of a better term, what you really want to do is think about schools, I really, really want to uproot my current life for and transfer.
So I would say ideally, you're looking at maybe five to 10 programs, and you have a clear and compelling reason why each of those programs is unique, different, and better for you than your current program. And when you think back to your senior year of high school, applying to schools, and universities, all of them asked us some version of the question, why us?
Why is our school the right place for you to achieve your goals? And the transfer schools are going to ask you the same thing, right? How do we fit your needs? Why do we better serve you than the school you're currently at? How will you take advantage of the opportunities that we are able to offer you? So once we have formulated that thesis, then yes, then we can sit down, can think about how we are mapping that out across the entirety of the application. And you can get ahead of the process, so you're not scrambling.
In the end, I would urge you to listen to our episodes on writing essays on formulating your strategy because many of the things that apply to your senior year in high school applied to transfer applications. It's really about being smart in terms of picking the right school, in terms of how we're targeting that school, our awareness of the process, our reflection and maturity, and how we are best positioning ourselves to take this important next step in our life. Thank you.
