Strategy Transferring

it's still a good-percentage bet at most colleges. But the ivies? forget it.

The New York Times
By Tom Connor
April 19, 2009

BACKSTORY

When Harvard abruptly announced last spring that it would not accept transfer students for 2008-9 – a suspension that admissions officers now say is indefinite – it closed a side door to the world's most selective college. The decision was a response to overcrowding in residential houses, thanks to room renovations and a bulging enrollment (four years ago, Harvard began admitting more students in anticipation of a record number of upperclassmen going abroad, vacancies that didn't materialize). Because the house system is integral to a Harvard education, officials say, transfer students must live on campus.

No room, no transfers.

Princeton closed its doors to transfers in 1990, citing a 98 percent retention rate and desire to avoid the situation its Cambridge rival is now in.

O.K., Harvard and Princeton are out. What about the rest?

 

THE REALITY

It has long been assumed that it's easier to be accepted as a transfer. That still holds true for most campuses. But at the Ivies and highly competitive campuses like Stanford and Amherst, transfer rates have dropped by roughly 50 percent since 2000.

"The transfer process is all but impossible," says Sean Abbott, director of admissions at Stanford, which admits 1 to 2 percent of transfer applicants a year. At the University of Pennsylvania, 2,000 students from other colleges competed last spring for 175 slots. Yale and Dartmouth admitted 4 percent and 7 percent, half the percentage of freshmen admitted.

The reasons: pressure to attend a top school, more rejected quality applicants who want a second chance, and higher retention rates.

"We don't have a lot of students who come to Yale as freshmen and really don't like it and leave," says Patricia Wei, associate director of admissions. "So we're not a school that's trying to fill space." Yale fills less than two dozen places a year.

 

BETTER SHOTS

Transfer applicants get their verdict in May, after a bed count of sorts. But don't expect an economic mass exodus that will open up spots; wealthier colleges provide enough aid to cover the cost of going there.

Of course, space does open up at competitive colleges. Transfer hopefuls last fall did better than freshmen applicants at Cornell, M.I.T., Georgetown and Notre Dame, but by only a few percentage points. Vanderbilt – by design, it says – admitted 55 percent of transfer applicants compared to 25 percent of the freshman pool.

One new route into top schools leads straight from community colleges. At Amherst, 12 of the 21 transfers admitted last year came from community colleges. (Transfer admit rate: 5 percent.) With a $7 million grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Amherst and seven other elite institutions are actively seeking high-achieving transfers from two-year colleges.

 

WHAT THEY WANT

In transfer candidates, colleges look for qualities that can enrich classes composed largely of students straight from high school, like experience, maturity and diversity. "With the transfer program we can admit some very interesting students that normally don't show up in our freshman pool," Ms. Wei says. "They generally bring a different perspective to the campus."

Deans say the constant at the transfer level is academic success. "To be even in the game, you've got to have a 3.5," says Tom Parker, dean of admissions at Amherst. "And the essay on why you want to transfer is absolutely critical. It's not your freshman essay." Alissa Wassong, now a Yale junior, made a case in her essay for why New Haven was the right place for her: course offerings in art and political science fitted her career goals. She had an associate's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and had danced with the American Ballet Theater in high school. "I was home-schooled, I had worked since I was 16,1 was a nontraditional student," says Ms. Wassong, 26. "I just tried to state that as honestly as possible."