Transfer students find their niches

Author: Tom Brant

The college application bug has bitten high school students across the country once again this fall as they decide which of more than 4,000 of the nation's colleges and universities fit them best. For most, the college they choose will be their happy home for the next four years. But a small number of students will choose a school that simply does not fit and will wind up doing something that makes most students shudder - apply to college all over again.

The paths that transfer students follow to arrive at the right school is undeniably long and circuitous. In applying for transfer admission, students have to relive the dreaded college application process, which is further soured by the fact that colleges typically accept far fewer transfer students than those who apply for regular admission. Middlebury alone received 230 applications for transfer enrollment in 2005 and accepted only one of those, according to a College Board survey.

Reasons abound as to why students may find themselves dissatisfied with their current college. They may decide that they do not like the social scene on campus, or that the social opportunities are too limited. Some may attend a well-regarded and academically robust college, only to discover that they do not have anything in common with their fellow students. Perhaps it is bad food or crummy weather that makes college life less than desirable. In short, a whole host of problems can cause students to migrate to greener pastures.

For Britain Hopkins '09, a Barnard sophomore who began her college career at Middlebury last fall, it was not immediately apparent that the College was not a good fit for her.

"I had my first semester at Middlebury and I was absolutely in love with it," Hopkins said. "I felt like there was a great focus on community among the students, and everyone seemed to get along really well."

The same sense of community that drew Hopkins to the College ended up being one of the reasons she left. "One night when I was watching 'Boondock Saints' with some friends, I realized that there was really not that much to do for fun," she said. "All we did when we weren't going out was sit in someone's room and watch a movie."

The College's location in rural Vermont felt limiting to Hopkins, and she found herself yearning for diversions that only a city could provide. She also felt confined by the attitudes of the students, who, she said, too often behaved as though they did not care about what was happening in the world around them.

"The international community at Middlebury was great, but I felt like there was a lack of political activism and that the students were pretty far removed from the outside world, that they weren't really engaged in social affairs," Hopkins explained.

To make matters worse, the drinking scene on campus also disgruntled her. "I found the alcohol issue very alienating - either you had to drink all the time or you didn't drink at all," she said.

When Barnard accepted her as a transfer student, Hopkins decided to attend. Grateful for the college's location in New York City, she has since taken advantage of the many cultural opportunities that the city has to offer. Gradually, she describes, she began to feel more at home there than she had at Middlebury.

While Hopkins ultimately found happiness at Barnard, transferring to another college sometimes causes more problems than it solves, as Ana Cristina Orlando '09 discovered when she transferred to the University of Virginia (UVA) this fall.

She heard about Middlebury from a high school teacher who knew Orlando wanted to study Arabic. The teacher told her that Middlebury has a great language program, which ended up contributing to her decision to enroll.

"I went to Midd because it had one of the best language programs in the country, because it gave me a better financial aid package so it was cheaper to go there than to go to a state school and because I really liked the campus and the school when I visited," explained Orlando about her decision.

Unfortunately, things did not pan out as she had hoped in her first few months at the College. Before the fall semester was over, Orlando was feeling homesick and she was sure she wanted to leave. She made up her mind to transfer to UVA. But her second semester at Middlebury went much more smoothly.

"I ended up liking Midd a lot my second semester, but I still thought that I should give transferring a try since I had been planning on doing it since I got there," Orlando said. "So I left."

The move turned out to be a mistake, explained Orlando. UVA made her miss everything that she liked about Middlebury - so much that Orlando has since decided to switch yet again and will be returning to Middlebury this spring.

"At big universities, the professors are limited in the time they can devote to their students, and view us as a whole, instead of as individual faces and people," Orlando said. But at Middlebury, she continued, "I was able to get to know my teachers and they were always willing to help in any way possible."

Orlando's sense of place is undoubtedly what all budding college students are searching for the first time around.

For students like Orlando and Hopkins, who ultimately found the schools that they liked best, the transfer process was well worth it. By transfering, Hopkins found a setting and community that was better suited to her extracurricular interests, and, in Orlando's case, transferring made her realize that the grass was greener in her own backyard.