4-year students' attitudes towards transfer students

jonjon03
Sun, 27 Jul 2014 08:33:46 +0000

=== 2012-2013 ===
Time to graduate for Freshman (with average GPA of 3.21 upon graduation)
Within 4 years: 73%
Within 5 years: 88%
Within 6 years: 92%
Time to graduate for Transfer (with average GPA of 3.14 upon graduation)
Within 2 years: 60%
Within 3 years: 85%
Within 4 years: 91%

=== 2011-2012 ===
Time to graduate for Freshman (with average GPA of 3.25 upon graduation)
Within 4 years: 60%
Within 5 years: 88%
Within 6 years: 90%
Time to graduate for Transfer (with average GPA of 3.17 upon graduation)
Within 2 years: 58%
Within 3 years: 86%
Within 4 years: 89%

=== 2010-2011 ===
Time to graduate for Freshman (with average GPA of ??? upon graduation)
Within 4 years: 70%
Within 5 years: 87%
Within 6 years: 90%
Time to graduate for Transfer (with average GPA of ??? upon graduation)
Within 2 years: 58%
Within 3 years: 83%
Within 4 years: 90%

Sources: http://www.aim.ucla.edu/pdf/UGProfile12-13.pdf
http://www.aim.ucla.edu/pdf/UGProfile11-12.pdf
http://www.aim.ucla.edu/pdf/UGProfile10-11.pdf

Another source to consider (but not used): http://www.aim.ucla.edu/progress.aspx
*Interesting to note that there is a discrepancy with UCLA’s data for number of admits when compared to equivalent year for their data on number of graduates for transfer students. An example is 2010 number enrolled transfer admits were 3425, but for their graduation statistic its only 3221 students. This discrepancy did not exist for freshman admitted students (well there were 10ish students missing, but not as much as transfer students).

I’m not positive, but I believe for transfer students gpa resets upon entering UCLA. If the gpa for transfer students resets and it’s the only gpa considered for their “completion gpa,” then the difference between freshman and transfer student’s completion gpa could be attributed to difficulty of upper division course compared to lower division (an assumption though).

The greatest difference for graduation is at the 4-year mark for freshmen and 2-year mark for transfers. I can speak of only from personal experience, but even after completing nearly all the required courses for ucla to transfer it still feels like I need to catch up. By looking at a sample 4-year plan for my major it looks like I’m already behind about a quarter and a half (about 20 units). Again, this is just a guess as to why there is discrepancy based on my experience.

Overall, upon face value it does seem freshman entrants does slightly better than transfer students, but I don’t think it’s a meaningful difference. So it maybe true that transfer students had an easier time getting in, all in all it seems like the admission staff did an excellent job of picking out transfers that could perform similarly to it’s freshman entrants.

Side note: I’m not sure why certain freshman entrant students get the impression that transfer students are less capable academically, but let them think whatever they want. I’m more concerned that roughly only 60% of transfer students graduate within 2 years.