If you’re here, this is your sign that you should apply to transfer. If you have even one sliver of doubt at your current school, or you’re unhappy, or you just want a bigger and better challenge, you should think about transferring. But, you need to know more about how transferring works in order to have the most success.
Here’s the deal – first-year applications are a lot like a hard puzzle. It takes some finessing, some trying, but ultimately there are ways to beat the puzzle that others may have missed. Transfer applications are not puzzles. They are waaaay more art than science – and not classic renaissance paintings either. Big, messy, confusing modern art pieces. Those are transfer applications.
Transfer acceptance rates are low. Lower than general acceptance rates, often by a mile. Some schools famously accept less than 50 of their transfer applicants, while others (like Cornell), take hundreds of students on as transfers. You also need to remember that transfer acceptances are directly tied to their retention rates, so a high-quality school with students who love that college more than anything (namely, a school people want to go to) is going to pose a harder challenge. This means your application needs to be twice, triple, maybe quadruple as compelling as your first-year applications. You have to cut the chaff, dig deep into your interests, and prove that the school you’re applying to is the only school you can accomplish your academic goals at. And then you have to tell that to ten other schools.
So how can you make something intelligible (and compelling) out of the mess? It’s not too hard, but it can be very overwhelming. Thankfully, we can be your guides through the swaths of college applications.
STARTING OUT
When you get paired with your counselor, they will take the time to get to know you and your goals. If starting before you enter your first year of college, they might go over your previous applications to help identify areas to expand on. They’ll help you get a feel for schools you might be interested in applying to and how to target programs at these schools that let your interests really shine.
The next step is helping you strategize your first year of college. If you stated an interest in chemistry, then we will help you find classes, labs, and extracurriculars you could get involved with. Another important part of this is helping you get plugged into the school you’re attending – transferring is messy, like we said, and in case you don’t get into your dream school, we want to make sure you can have the most success possible anywhere you’re at.
You need to think of this period as conditioning. You may have been president of the recycling club in high school, but now you need to get even more niche and narrow with your interests. Now you’re taking classes in Environmental Science and working with a professor who works in environmental policy with a focus on the oceans. That’s what you’ll want to shine through in your application.
WRITING THE ESSAYS
While most of your time during this process is going to be you acing your classes and getting deep into your interests to develop that resume, the bulk of the transfer process happens when we help you put pen to paper. We not only go through all the application portals with you (shoutout to Columbia and Georgetown for being difficult), but we help you figure out what to say in your supplemental essays to really stand out.
You may remember the “Why X School” essay from your last round of applications, but this round is going to get a lot more detailed. You have to convince them that their school is the only place you can meet your goals at. What labs do they offer that will launch you into a career in biomedical engineering? Do they have a language immersion house so you can become fluent in German to meet your goal of becoming a translator for the UN? Get specific.
Other supplements might ask about things like how you express yourself creatively, a story about your community, your traditions, a reflection on a quote – and we can help guide you through the best way to write these too.
SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS
Every application you produce will be checked, double-checked, and checked again. Every essay will be edited for grammar and content, and we’ll make sure all the punctuation in your resume is consistent. We will make sure every word is spelled right and that you didn’t accidentally put in the wrong address. We help shoulder some of your anxiety, so when it comes to submit all those applications, you’ll be confident that you have everything in its right place. You can be sure that we’ll enable you to submit the best application possible.
Like we said at the beginning, if you’re even flirting with the idea of the concept of transferring, then you should do it. Applying as a transfer is a lot like throwing darts with a blindfold on. You might miss a ton, but you could score big. It’s worth it to try and see, if only to learn more about what you might be interested in and what your goals are.
If you’re thinking about transferring and don’t know where to start, or feel like you need a better strategy than your first round, reach out to us. Our counselors are experts at the transfer process – especially to top tier schools, and they have the experience with the process to guide you through it with minimal stress.
Talk to us today if you’d like to get started.