Earlier this summer, we wrote this blog post as part of our Coronavirus Question series. And because we’ve been getting emails and questions about transferring during Covid-19, we wanted to update our readers and provide more context.
To back up, this was (and perhaps still is) the line of thinking: Due to the uncertainty of the world, the glumness of it all, and paying full price tuition for distance learning – can I just go to a local or state college for the next year and then transfer to a college that I like more?
We get it, and we understand your desire to try and game the system. But we have to step in here and let you know that the idea of “transferring up” after a year, even during a global pandemic, is not a good application strategy.
Most students who want to transfer come to us with a grand plan: attend a local college, do very well, and then transfer to an Ivy League school or another top-tier institution at the start of their sophomore year. This blog post is not for the student who wants to transfer from a Penn State satellite campus to main campus, this is for those who have a plan to try to transfer from say, Arizona State University, to Brown.
For the record, there’s nothing wrong with ASU! But there is a common misconception that as long as you do well for the first year, it’s easy to transfer. This is firmly not the case. Take a look at this blog post, where we broke down the transfer acceptance rates across the Ivy’s, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. If you’re too lazy to look: Brown’s transfer acceptance hovers around 5%, and Yale’s is closer to 2%.
So what does this mean? Keep reading for an overview:
Transferring colleges will not be any easier in light of Coronavirus.
You can’t “trick” the system by doing well just your freshman year of college. If you want to transfer into a top-tier school, you need the high school numbers to align with what they’ve always been looking for.
Colleges only look to replace the exact number of students who left. So, the higher the retention rate, the harder it is to transfer to the school. Most students tend not to leave schools like Stanford, so when you apply as a transfer, you’re vying for a spot on a list of VERY few people.
We’re posting this now so that you can take advantage of this information, and create a transfer application strategy that will work in your favor. If your grand plan was just shattered, don’t lose faith. Look for schools that have what you’re looking for, get organized, and figure out why you need to transfer.
We’re pros at helping students find transfer schools that are realistic. Get in touch with us here if you want to start today.