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Archive for: Transfer Students

Guaranteed Transfer College Admission


In a letter to the editor in today’s “New York Times” from Monica Inzer, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Hamilton College, Ms. Inzer stands by her previous statement in which she stated that guaranteed transfer college admission is “borderline unethical.” We happen to agree with Ms. Inzer and applaud her for standing up for a selfish practice used by many colleges that is counter to students’ best interests.

College Transfer Students, College Transfer Admissions, Guaranteed Transfer, University Transfer Admissions

Cornell University offers guaranteed transfer admission and it's just not right.

What is guaranteed transfer college admission? It’s when universities write letters to applicants that say they didn’t get in this year but if they maintain a certain GPA at another university, they’ll be guaranteed admission the following year.  Students then have to attend a different university, one that they have no intention of ever graduating from because they intend to take the college that offered them the guaranteed transfer up on their offer. So in turn, the guarantee transfer not only hurts the student who may be hesitant to get involved or make friends at the university he/she only intends to stay at for a year but it also hurts the college they attend for that one year. When students choose to transfer this has a detrimental effect on that college’s rankings.

The practice is essentially putting students into yet another type of limbo predicament. Ms. Inzer also clarified that her comments do not apply to deferred admission: “While I stand by my statement, the article also addressed the practice of deferred admission, an entirely different and widely accepted practice used by Hamilton and many of our respected peer institutions, including Middlebury College and others mentioned in the article. A student offered a deferred-admission option simply matriculates a semester later without taking a spot at another institution from which he or she has no intention of graduating.” We again agree with Ms. Inzler. Deferred admission doesn’t force students to enroll at other colleges. It doesn’t force students to transfer. And so, unlike guaranteed transfer college admission, there’s nothing wrong with this tactic.

Check out the letter to the editor in the “New York Times” here.

And check out our related blog: Guaranteed Transfer Admission and College Transfer Students.

Guaranteed College Admission


There is an article in the “New York Times” today that describes the plight of students who are offered what is known in the world of college admissions as “deferred admission” or “guaranteed transfer admission.” A university that is well known for offering this option happens to be an Ivy League college…Cornell University. Are there other colleges that offer this option? Yes. Middlebury College is one of them. But Cornell offers this option in significant numbers.

So what is guaranteed transfer admission or deferred admission? Well, some students choose to defer their admission to travel the world or to save up money for college. That’s not the deferred admission that we’re speaking of, though. We’re talking about a college such as Cornell University that tells an applicant that they don’t have room for them this year but if they go to another college for their freshman year and earn, say, a 3.3 GPA, then they will be guaranteed admission to Cornell for their sophomore year.

This practice allows colleges to manage their enrollment and it invariably puts students in quite an awkward position. Should they make friends at Tulane University when they know they’re just going to transfer to their dream college, Cornell University, at the end of the year? Should they even bother to experience campus life at Tulane? While the practice of guaranteed transfer admission may well allow students to attend their dream school after their second year, we find that these students often find happiness their first year in college and become reluctant to transfer…even to an Ivy League University such as Cornell.

Check out the “New York Times” article here.

Harvard College, Shame on You!


The administrators at Harvard College should take a course in business planning at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business because obviously they haven’t learned anything from what’s being taught at HBS.

The deadline for applications for transfer students for fall 2008 was February 15th but a few days before the 15th, it was announced that the deadline was extended to February 16th. Now, over a month after applications were due, it has been announced that the college is not accepting transfer students for the next two years. Just yesterday, March 20th, Harvard’s Director of Transfer Admissions, Marlene Vergara Rotner, e-mailed applicants with this news.

Harvard administrators attribute this decision to a lack of available housing. While the college doesn’t require students who enter as freshmen to live on campus for all four years, they do require transfer students to reside on campus for the entire period of their undergraduate studies. Since the stock of available dorm space has not changed for some time, we wonder how Harvard administrators could not have come to this decision before they made transfer applications available for the upcoming 2008-2009 school year.

Students invest their hearts, minds, and scores of hours in writing essays for a Harvard application. If these administrators had to come to this conclusion so late in the process, couldn’t they have at least continued to accept transfers for one more year? Then, when they made public their decision to not accept transfer applications for the subsequent year or two, there would have been fewer casualties. This would have been the kinder and more responsible thing to do, and much more in line with what one would expect from an institution such as Harvard.

The following is Harvard’s Transfer Admission Announcement posted on March 20, 2008:

“Harvard College will be unable to enroll any transfer students for the next two academic years, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. Following the most thorough examination of its residential housing in Harvard’s history, the Dean of Harvard College, Professor David Pilbeam, has concluded that the Harvard Houses cannot successfully accommodate any new transfer students. Instead, the College has embarked on a planning process for substantial capital investment to renovate and revitalize its residential spaces.

In important respects, undergraduate education at Harvard College is residential in character. Students learn a great deal from the residential experience and contact with one another, complementing the experience of classrooms and laboratories. Harvard does not admit transfer students to non-residential status.

The College offers a Visiting Undergraduate Program, which enables students to enroll in Harvard College for academic credit at their home institutions. Visiting Undergraduates are not ordinarily offered College housing, and they are not permitted subsequently to transfer to Harvard as degree candidates.”