Good morning. Our freshman daughter is investigating schools to transfer to for the fall of 2025. Attended University of Alabama for the first semester and did not love the sorority situation there. She’s currently home taking local college classes. She’s a very fun, loving, happy kid and is looking for schools in the northeast or mid Atlantic. Medium sized. Good student with good ACT scores.
The question is, can you recommend any schools that have a great orientation program for new transfers coming into the school. Not looking for schools that will not guarantee on campus housing for a transfer. Ideally would have transfer housing where the transfer students have the opportunity to house together And good orientation programs to get them acclimated and on the right path to new friendships.
If this rings, any bells feel free to pass it along.
We are located in New York and our budget will be up to 50K per year
I’d approach this another way – first come up with some schools she is interested in (consider things like size, location, availability of major, Greek Life, big time sports, etc.) and that fit in your budget (merit aid is typically less available as a transfer) and then research transfer acceptance rates and how transfers are handled.
I would also consider other (affordable) schools she was accepted to last year. Plus one on considering SUNYs.
One point about housing…even though some schools don’t guarantee housing for transfers, they typically/often have it…U Delaware is one example like this.
I was actually going to suggest the SUNY schools, and University of Delaware. She might also look at University of New Hampshire, another smaller state flagship.
I agree with others that the various SUNY schools might be your best bet.
One wild idea is McGill. One issue is that large universities in Canada are generally welcoming to transfer students. However, there is another issue. The Quebec education system is different from the system in the rest of Canada and the US. Students in Quebec only do 11 years of elementary/middle/high school, then go to CEGEP (basically junior college) for two years. After two years of CEGEP they then apply to university. This means that many of the students at McGill are entering as U0 students (coming from high schools in the US or the rest of Canada) but many others are coming in as U1 students from CEGEP’s in Quebec. Thus entering with one year worth of university in the US or the rest of Canada would put a student as entering at the same age, typically with similar credits, as half of the other students who are arriving on campus.
The cost for international students at McGill has increased quite a bit over the last few years. It is not as much of a bargain as it used to be for students from the US. I think that it does however still fit a US$50,000 budget as long as you remember to translate CDN$ into US$. Some ability to speak French might be required to graduate.
Saint Joseph’s (St. Joe’s) in Philadelphia has a reputation as being very transfer friendly. It has about 4800 undergrads and I suspect would come into budget after merit aid.