What Are They Looking For...

_42
Sun, 17 Apr 2005 17:09:27 +0000

nspeds, I have heard that colleges look for compelling reason to transfer over and over again and I really dont buy it

Stanford has published the schools that the most transfers came from and for the years I looked at one was havard (4) and the other year was northwestern(7).

Now if the colleges wanted the best reasons we would see alot from ccs and perhaps really specialized schools like caltech, not from these similiar schools. I dont think reasons play any part beyond a minor role in assessing a students character, perhaps understanding what they value. I would say the main reason colleges have the “why do you want to transfer?” question on the apps is because they know transfer students want to talk about that and they dont want it filling up the other essays.

If you are accepted to a top school they think you are a smart movativated kid and therefore if you choose to go to the trouble of transferring it must be a good reason, why would they try to use their own standerds for deciding if it is good?

I think all transfers (including myself) are tempted to put great weight on reasons because this is a huge step, especially for cc transfers, and we have probably started the process and come up with reasoning for entirely it by ourselves (no expectation like there was for college after hs) but I see no reason for it to be a major role in admissions.