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If you're thinking
about transferring to another school after freshman year,
we recommend planning your course load very carefully and trying
to find out if the schools to which you would like
to apply...will even accept those classes at all. In
general, try to take only basic, "core" classes
during your first year at the school you plan on leaving.
Generic math, writing, and competency courses are more likely
to have similar counterparts at other schools and
thus, they make for an easier transfer. Unique, specialty
courses are not always going to be available in other
schools and are less likely to earn you any credit. Too
many students wait too long to find this out and wind up
taking a few courses during their freshman year that
cannot be transferred--and thus, were taken in vain!
Consider the time, money, and effort that might be
involved in transferring and ask yourself if it's really
worth it. If you started taking classes at a typical state
college because your first choice of schools rejected you and
you're trying to work up a respectable GPA for the purpose
of transferring, that's fine. If your current school is
too expensive and you need to transfer to a school with
much lower tuition costs, that's another great rationale for
switching the college you attend! But if you're just looking for
a change of scenery or even interested in a school with
only a little bit of a better name, it's probably not
worth it! In the grand scheme of things, most state &
local colleges are going to be regarded with about the
same level of respect (or even lack thereof) by
employers. Unless you're transferring to an Ivy league
school, the change might not really make enough of a difference in
your future to compensate for all the time and effort you're
going to put into transferring.
Many students decide to spend a year or so at their local community
college before transferring to a 4 year school. At the
very least, we advise these students to do some extra
research before making such a decision as community
college credits are sometimes the LEAST transferable of all!
You may wind up spending an extra year in school with so
little of that first year even being counted towards your
graduation. It's simply not worth it! When asked why they
decided to go to a community college first, a good number
of these students report that they didn't believe their
grades in high school were strong enough to get them into
a 4 year school. In our opinion, these students are
unfortunate victims of the pre-college curriculum's lesson
that university coursework is going to be excruciatingly difficult.
As described in our "freshmen issues" section,
such is simply not always the case! Many college students
actually prefer the "higher education"
curriculum to that of the more rule-intensive, stringent
lower-level curricula! And the course content delivered at
most community colleges really isn't that much different
than the course content delivered by the typical four year
college anyway! But the grades you'll receive from
community colleges are less frequently honored as transfer
credits than the grades you'll earn by taking similar
courses at 4 year schools! So why waste your time at a
community college first when you know you want to go 'all
the way' to the end of a 4 year program? Our advice is to
go right for the 4 your school and skip over community
college if you can. You'd be surprised how many schools
WILL accept you despite what some teachers may have led you to
believe to the contrary while you were in high school. At
the very least, give it a shot: you'll never know 'till you
try!
Recommended
Reading : Although rules,
regulations, and procedures will vary in other locales,
the Maryland State Higher Education Commission offers an
excellent website featuring important details concerning the student
transfer process. Click
here to read it!
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