<p>How so,emeraldkity? I was the first in my family to get a 4 year college degree. I definitely did not have the “luxury” of doing much at all. However, I see kids all the time making decisions to start at community college, go to one school and possibly transfer later. There are many paths to education. Neither of my kids have transferred but they got lucky and ended up at schools that have worked out very well for them.</p>
<p>Some kids did not get into their “dream school” and went to their second choice, all the while determined to transfer second year if they got in. They never tried to fit in, be happy, make do, because the goal was to take easier classes, work hard and get a really high GPA, and then transfer. Some schools are (or used to be) easier to transfer into as sophomores than get accepted to as freshmen.</p>
<p>Last year, 3 friends’ kids transferred successfully to Georgetown as sophomores.</p>
<p>What is a DC? Is it a distant cousin?</p>
<p>A mulligan is a very old-fashioned term that I remember was used playing marbles. It is sometimes used in friendly games of golf. It basically means a “do-over”. I don’t think its definition comes from one’s ancestry.</p>
<p>it’s 4 years out of your life…not liking the city or too isolated are kind of weak excuses IMO. Many kids are spoiled these days, the “me first” generation.</p>
<p>The 60’s? You guys are parents of current college students and you yourselves went to college in the 60’s? Good grief, I was born in the 60’s! Ha ha.</p>
<p>I certainly remember kids transferring in and out of my school in the mid 80s. It wasn’t a huge number in the absolute, but it wasn’t beyond the pale like some of you are envisioning. People have different personal reasons for things, and things that may be non-deal breakers to some are deal-breakers to others.</p>
<p>^^ ha ha yourself
I didnt go to college during the 60’s but thanks anyway… The wisdom to refrain from making unnecessary comments does seem to come with age …</p>
<p>Brava to Meloparkmom in Post 32. In the 70s most people went to the local college and made it through our not. The only reasons I can see to transfer are financially related. Students today are spoiled and expect a perfect college. Guess what - there is no perfect college.</p>
<p>re: post #47
thank you!!
I was just trying to present some perspective . It is very different these days than in the “olden” days, when kids had fewer choices to make. For most HS students then, going to college was not an option nor a necessity.</p>
<p>Wow ek4- I just don’t understand why NOT transfer? I don’t see any great negative in cutting losses, going for a better situation, or changing direction. It isn’t a virtue to stick something out if it really isn’t a good situation. That’s not good for anyone. Granted there are probably some reasons for transfer that aren’t as good as others, but as we see in the “stupidest reason” thread, that applies at many stages along the way.
Despite being careful and being at a good school, DS may transfer because he thinks the place is too isolated, cold and far from home, and he can’t relate to the prevailing social scene. When he chose the place, he really didn’t know how it would all play out or how he would feel about it. He could stick it out, and he may, but if its not a good experience I think life is too short to be unhappy when he doesn’t have to be. I just don’t understand why anyone would think that was a bad thing.</p>
<p>I didn’t transfer, despite being deeply dissatisfied with some of my college experience. I sort of wish I would have.</p>
<p>You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. It’s difficult to judge when you aren’t in someone else’s shoes.</p>
<p>People have different personal reasons for things, and things that may be non-deal breakers to some are deal-breakers to others</p>
<p>I agree & as I mentioned in my original post I understand that there are some very good reasons to change schools. But what confuses me is the motivation behind intending to transfer when the school year has barely begun or even when you have barely sent in your letter of acceptance.</p>
<p>How much effort are you going to put into where you are, if you are always thinking about where you wish you were?</p>
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<p>Not yet. Come August, I will be the parent of a current college student.</p>
<p>Ditto to everybody who said kids transfer for lots of reasons. Transferring is also way more common than it was even in the very early 90s, when I started working in higher ed. </p>
<p>I think one thing it should mean for us as parents is that we stop looking askance at a school’s retention rate between freshman and sophomore years when it isn’t as high as a top super-hard-to-get-into-meets-full need school. When kids discover they want to be closer to/farther from home, when kids discover they want a different major, when kids discover they really need to go to cc to save money, when a kid discovers that college sports are brutal and time-consuming and not worth the scholarship money, they move on.</p>
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<p>Maybe those kids were unable to get into a higher academic tier of schools that would match their capabilities than their state/city flagships(sometimes even with honors programs) because they attended a highly rigorous public magnet high school where the rigor/grading was such that their GPAs were in the toilet. </p>
<p>That was the situation with several high school classmates who were C/D average students at my high school in the early-mid '90s and yet…were hamstrung by their state/city university bureaucracies from taking more advanced courses. As a result, they were bored to tears in the mandated intro/intermediate classes that were so dumbed down that they managed A/A+ without opening their textbooks while the vast majority of their classmates struggled to pass or even flunked. They all felt the lack of academic rigor was such that they were wasting their time if they stayed there. One of them even likened it to going from rigorous high school to being dropped back to lackluster junior high. </p>
<p>It was only after they ended up transferring up to elite LACs/universities like Reed, CMU, Brown, Columbia, etc that they finally felt they were with a critical mass of students who matched their academic capabilities. All ended up being far happier…and still managed to graduate with 3.5+ GPAs at their new institutions despite being mostly STEM majors.</p>
<p>Maybe those kids were unable to get into a higher academic tier of schools that would match their capabilities than their state/city flagships(sometimes even with honors programs) because they attended a highly rigorous public magnet high school where the rigor/grading was such that their GPAs were in the toilet.</p>
<p>Both my kids attended rigorous urban schools ( one private one public) neither had weighting, but every year students go on to top colleges because the school profile states the average SATs & grades as well as what schools grads attend.
If the school profile in your area isn’t accurate, how are the colleges supposed to know this? </p>
<p>Rigorous schools go by more than grades or even test scores to admit students- I know because my oldest graduated in STEM from one of the above schools yet her GPA/SAT scores were well below the average admitted student.
( she entered as a freshman)</p>
<p>Can one get financial aid at the next school if one transfers???
What about merit scholarships???</p>
<p>^^Yes to both at a few select U’s such as USC. In general, most colleges offer only FA to transfer students and Merit scholarships are generally offered to Freshman applicants only .</p>
<p>While several schools have scholarships identified for transfer students coming out of a community college, otherwise they might be difficult to find.</p>
<p>Programs like the WUE which gives students in the Western region a chance to attend schools out of state for about 150% of the cost of instate, may restrict applicants to freshmen.</p>
<p>Here are a couple threads related to money for transfers.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/transfer-students/983014-merit-scholarships-transfer-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/transfer-students/983014-merit-scholarships-transfer-students.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/729768-best-transfer-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/729768-best-transfer-scholarships.html</a></p>
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<p>Actually, most of the respectable and elite LACs/universities are quite familiar with my high school’s profile/reputation. Despite the great reputation, each of their respective admissions officers could only take so many kids from one given high school*. Moreover, once you go into the low C and D ranges…one’s still shut out because low Cs and Ds are still horrid grades…even if those students would probably have been at least top 1/3 at a more average high school rather graduating in the bottom quarter. </p>
<p>However, because of the high school’s rep and the combination of intellect and rigorous preparation…transferring up is quite doable and many kids in prior graduating classes and my own availed themselves of this opportunity after 1 or 2 years and ended up having the college experience they would not have had if they had remained at the lower-tiered schools they initially started out at after high school graduation. </p>
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<li>In my graduating class, Cornell A & S/Engineering admitted around 1/6 of my graduating class of around 700.</li>
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<p>Does this include the numerous community college transfers to four year schools? Such students must transfer if they want to complete their bachelor’s degrees, so that is a rather different type of situation from a student transferring from one four year school to another four year school.</p>