College is a rigorous endeavor, and having the right fit with your institution is of paramount importance. Knowing that the school you’re at isn’t right for you can leave you feeling trapped and overwhelmed. Don’t worry, you can transfer to a new college to find a new academic home and get a new lease on your education. The right college will afford you new opportunities, and set you up well for the future you’re working towards.
Ivy Scholars can help you find the right college.
The first step is knowing that you need a change; the second is determining what characteristics, location, and programs best fit your unique needs. Our transfer admissions coaching takes place over 5 distinct phases:
The first phase in our transfer coaching process is to determine why your current program doesn’t work for you, and what kind of an institution you truly need to succeed in college. We help you build a list of colleges that will fully serve your educational, social, and professional needs.
Sam came to us while attending a great liberal arts college. While the curriculum was fulfilling and interesting, Sam wanted a career on Wall Street, and the top firms there only recruit students from a select handful of colleges. While Sam could get a great job with his current university, to achieve his goals he would need to attend a different institution.
We helped Sam craft a list, based on the top feeder schools for business.
Next, we will assist you in filling out the transfer application, and give you advice on crafting the perfect resume. Transfer apps are different from how you applied to undergrad, and we guide you through the pitfalls that trip up many new transfer students, such as showcasing your growth post high school or drafting an essay worthy of a current college student. We also help you identify the perfect professors to ask for letters of recommendation.
Finally, we help you organize your applications and submit them on time. This is a unique challenge to transfer applicants as many universities use institution-specific portals rather than the Common App. Our application tracker will keep you on top of the process, and make sure you don’t miss any important deadlines.
Sam decided to go for a very competitive application strategy, as many transfer students do. After all, there’s no point in applying to transfer to a worse school than the one you’re in currently. We helped him track the varying due dates of each of the applications, and the differing requirements between them.
We further advised Sam on getting great letters of recommendation from his current professors. These are key in the transfer process, as they demonstrate your ability to do work at the collegiate level.
Next, we help you craft your transfer essay. This serves a similar purpose to the personal statement, in that it introduces you to each school, and shows them who you are as a student and person. Unlike the personal statement, this essay needs to be individually tailored to each school you apply to. We’ll help you tell your story, and demonstrate to these schools that you’re a great fit for them.
We helped a student, Jane, transfer from a small liberal arts college to a more urban campus, with more multidisciplinary options. Her essay needed to show why she wanted to transfer, and what a new college could offer her that her current school did not. We are including this essay because it does an exemplary job showing how to describe why a new school is the right choice for you, without unfairly denigrating your current institution.
Please explain your reasons for transferring from your current institution and what you hope to gain by transferring into another institution. (4,150 characters max)
My favorite holiday is the night before Eid. The entire house is in chaos: aunties are scurrying, preparing aromatic dishes for the next day’s festivities, uncles are discussing the logistics of the Eid prayer, and little cousins are running around, squealing and giggling. To an outside observer it may seem like mayhem, but to me, it defines Eid.
My version of the ideal college setting used to be a tranquil and calm one, much like the serene ambience of my school. Yet, after spending a few months in such an environment, it became apparent that the quiet was often too secluding and monotonous for me. I began to daydream about the comforting disorder of Eid: getting lost in a sea of pedestrians while walking to grab a cappuccino, going out on adventures in the city, striking up conversations with a random stranger. I wished I could go to a bustling downtown, and enjoy the presence of people. In Philadelphia, one of the most walkable cities in the US, I hope to do just that. During my visit, I fell for the city’s richly historical, yet down-to-earth vibe.
Penn’s Environmental Studies major also calls to me: it spans both the humanities and the sciences, will equip me with all the knowledge needed to pursue a career in the environmental field, and will allow me to choose from an array of concentrations so that I can focus on deepening my understanding of a topic that matters most to me. Whether I am researching ways to implement the climate model of RCP 2.6 or conducting fieldwork on the different communities affected by climate change, I am certain that studying at Penn will nurture my goals.
One thing about me is that I’m a huge foodie, and nothing excites me more than a buffet: the endless amount of choices, the ability to try new dishes, and the extensive post-meal deliberations about what the best and worst item was. Penn’s General Education curriculum is the ultimate academic buffet: its flexibility will encourage me to explore a completely new field outside my comfort zone, and help me decide what disciplines I enjoy and which ones are not my cup of tea.
The overarching themes in the collage of my life are clear: protecting the environment, empowering women, and standing up against injustice. Recently, I have become fascinated by the topic of Sexuality, Women and Gender Studies, analyzing the role of sex and gender within world cultures and political systems – it helps make sense of the extreme disparities prominent globally today. Penn’s Center for Research in Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies is incomparable. The fact that I might get the opportunity to work with a group of impressive faculty, such as Ania Loomba and Dorothy Roberts, fills me with excitement!
In phase 4, we fill in the cracks that often arise during transfer applications. We’ll help you apply (or, in this case, reapply) for financial aid, prep for college interviews, and coach you on how to thrive in your new environment.
Sam was receiving a combination of merit and need based aid from his present school. After getting into an Ivy League institution, he was informed that he was not eligible for aid. No Ivy League schools provide merit aid, and they can be selective with how they apportion need-based aid.
We helped Sam appeal this decision. This required composing a letter explaining how his financial circumstances differed from what the school assumed, and showing that he did not have the financial resources they believed. This came down to a mixture of retirement accounts, and property held in a foreign country. With our assistance, Sam was able to receive the aid he needed to attend his new school.
We’ve helped transfer students get into a number of top universities. Here’s a case study of one of our transfer students:
Sam was attending a great liberal arts college, but wasn’t able to get the kind of practical and analytic business education he desired. He knew he needed to transfer to a school with the support and resources necessary to properly further his goals. He got in touch with Ivy Scholars to help make his dreams a reality.
Sam had a great background in business, but also had a strong interest in and talent for philosophy. We helped him craft stellar essays describing his philosophical views, and how they helped shape his outlook and his approach to his studies. This showed a deeper and more analytic side of his personality, and showed off his intellectual vitality, and how he could contribute to the academic climate on campus.
We helped him tailor his applications to fit each school he applied to, covering the nuances and benefits of each business program, and how the resources it offered would support his grander goals. He worked one on one with a mentor to tell his story, and our editor made sure each essay was perfectly polished in message and language.
Once he was admitted, we helped him appeal his financial aid decisions, to make sure he got the support he needed while attending college. Sam was admitted to Dartmouth, an Ivy League institution, where he is poised to pursue his long term business aspirations.
Jane was attending a top-20 college when she came to us during her freshman year, but she knew she needed a change for two reasons. The first was that she was unsatisfied with her current program’s interdisciplinary options in environmental science. Jane wanted to explore the intersection of remedying the current crisis through scientifically backed policy, and the human impacts of those policies, and how best to craft them in a way that helped those they were meant to help.
In addition, she wanted a school with a campus more integrated into an urban center, with all the hustle and bustle that entails. While her current institution was staid and stately, a grand affair for pursuing academics in peace, it did not have the energy she needed, and was not positioning her to succeed.
Jane came to us with a clear idea of which schools she wanted to go to, but needed help crafting essays which clearly depicted what she wanted and needed, and showed off the breadth of her accomplishments. Jane had participated in a broad range of extracurriculars, in both high school and college, and we knew that helping her display those fluidly would greatly increase her chances of acceptance.
Working with our mentors, she crafted essays which explained her dual love of humanities and sciences, and how only through their union she could truly explore the depths of her interests. She spoke of how her past, seeing first hand the impacts of climate catastrophe brought about her current interests, and how this turned into a love for the methods and theory which brought understanding of the deeper issues.
With strong recommendation letters from her professors, and a final round of polish on her essays, Jane was able to apply to a number of top schools with confidence. Jane was accepted into UPenn, and is currently studying environmental science there, enjoying the cosmopolitan atmosphere and active community.
Here is how Jane answered one of Penn’s essay questions. We are including this essay because it does an exemplary job showing how to describe why a new school is the right choice for you, without unfairly denigrating your current institution.
Please explain your reasons for transferring from your current institution and what you hope to gain by transferring into another institution. (4,150 characters max)
My favorite holiday is the night before Eid. The entire house is in chaos: aunties are scurrying, preparing aromatic dishes for the next day’s festivities, uncles are discussing the logistics of the Eid prayer, and little cousins are running around, squealing and giggling. To an outside observer it may seem like mayhem, but to me, it defines Eid.
My version of the ideal college setting used to be a tranquil and calm one, much like the serene ambience of my school. Yet, after spending a few months in such an environment, it became apparent that the quiet was often too secluding and monotonous for me. I began to daydream about the comforting disorder of Eid: getting lost in a sea of pedestrians while walking to grab a cappuccino, going out on adventures in the city, striking up conversations with a random stranger. I wished I could go to a bustling downtown, and enjoy the presence of people. In Philadelphia, one of the most walkable cities in the US, I hope to do just that. During my visit, I fell for the city’s richly historical, yet down-to-earth vibe.
Penn’s Environmental Studies major also calls to me: it spans both the humanities and the sciences, will equip me with all the knowledge needed to pursue a career in the environmental field, and will allow me to choose from an array of concentrations so that I can focus on deepening my understanding of a topic that matters most to me. Whether I am researching ways to implement the climate model of RCP 2.6 or conducting fieldwork on the different communities affected by climate change, I am certain that studying at Penn will nurture my goals.
One thing about me is that I’m a huge foodie, and nothing excites me more than a buffet: the endless amount of choices, the ability to try new dishes, and the extensive post-meal deliberations about what the best and worst item was. Penn’s General Education curriculum is the ultimate academic buffet: its flexibility will encourage me to explore a completely new field outside my comfort zone, and help me decide what disciplines I enjoy and which ones are not my cup of tea.
The overarching themes in the collage of my life are clear: protecting the environment, empowering women, and standing up against injustice. Recently, I have become fascinated by the topic of Sexuality, Women and Gender Studies, analyzing the role of sex and gender within world cultures and political systems – it helps make sense of the extreme disparities prominent globally today. Penn’s Center for Research in Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies is incomparable. The fact that I might get the opportunity to work with a group of impressive faculty, such as Ania Loomba and Dorothy Roberts, fills me with excitement!
more likely to get into their top-choice school.
Ivy Scholars is the leading educational consultant in Sugar Land, Texas, providing admissions coaching, test prep, and more to help students enroll at top tier schools.
Call us now: +1 (281) 215-5148
.
