The Transfer Essay
I’ll help you find the best way to present your decision to transfer. We’ll craft an explanation that avoids sounding whiny, and concisely explains why your current institution cannot meet your needs.
The Transfer Essay is not set up like the Common App essay: you can’t reuse it (but you can recycle parts of it). Both the prompt and the word count will vary from school to school.
Schools ask variations of the same question:
Why are you transferring? (What’s wrong with your current college?)
Why are you transferring to our school? (How will our institution serve you better than your current institution? What do we offer that your current college doesn’t offer?)
What do you hope to achieve by transferring? (What opportunities are you unable to create for yourself at your current college?)
You will need to make sure that your reason(s) for transferring do not point to you as the problem. If you claim that you don’t like the community at your school, you must prove that you exhausted every avenue of seeking out community. If you claim that the arts program at your school is inadequate, this should be substantiated by efforts that you made that were unsupported by your college. Don’t make the mistake of saying that you want to transfer from School A to School B because School B has a great psych program—but you’ve failed to do your research and School A (your current school) is actually world-renowned for their psych program.
Transferring also requires:
The amount of material required for transferring is exhaustive so you should aim to begin the process as early as possible. Reach out to your high school’s college counseling department and your college’s dean of students office right away. There are sometimes documents that can only be sent in the mail (like high school transcripts) so you must find the correct mailing address for transfer admissions, which can require emailing back and forth for days/weeks. Be proactive about asking questions and don’t hesitate to email the transfer admissions officer (in fact, it’s good to have some one-on-one contact so they know who you are when your application arrives.)
College Report (a form filled out by the dean of students office at your current college)
Letters of Recommendation (from college professors)
High School college counselor’s report
Mid-term report (an official form signed by your professors that includes your mid-term grades from the most recent semester)
All transcripts from high school and college
Interviews (highly recommended at some schools)
Syllabi from all of your college courses (this is required at select schools, eg Boston University)
Most schools are test optional for transfer applicants (but some are not, like Babson) so double-check the policy