Union Student Looking to Transfer

EarthPig
Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:59:53 +0000

I wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to the rankings, and certainly wouldn’t transfer because Union’s Forbes rankings falls or the US News ranking doesn’t go up.

I won’t go into the details, but anyone with any training in statistics would laugh at the methodology used to determine those rankings. Among countless other problems, they are comparing unlike institutions and unlike student populations. With US News, West Point is in the same category as is Union. RPI is in the same category as Harvard (and Clarkson is called a national university, when a better description would be a technical college). I could go on and on, but the ranking systems they use has the same flaws that created the Dewey Wins By a Landslide headlines.

Wesleyan, Vassar and Hamilton are more prestigious than are Union, and will be somewhat better known nationally. All three have a somewhat more national student body, but will will have many rich kids from the Northeast. Each will have a different flavor (especially Vassar – the residue of being a former women’s college makes it much more strongly aimed at the arts and gives it a bit of a different feel).

I’m not a Union grad, but grew up near the campus. I’ve seen many successful alumni emerge from that school. One high school friend / Union alum is now one of the senior executives with one of the major TV networks. Another friend’s son, a Union alum, recently got his job with a major law firm because of a Union alumni contact. Union students fare well in professional school admissions.

As for transferring, if you don’t like the school, you can certainly consider doing so. Most liberal arts schools have some type of general education requirements; most of the time, the areas in which you’re required to take courses are pretty broad (Union’s are) and you wind up taking courses in most of those areas anyway, even without the requirements. There are good reasons to broaden your scope, anyway.

To sum it up, I would transfer if you really don’t like the location, the kids, the professors or the overall atmosphere. I wouldn’t transfer because of some loose general education requirements, and especially wouldn’t do so because of something as meaningless as rankings.