Transfer Students: Help with Common App Essay

 

My son is a junior at The University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. He’s doing what’s called a 3:2 engineering program, where students spend their first three years at a liberal arts college and get an undergraduate degree (my son: Chemistry)–and then transfer into a larger university for two more years to get a second undergraduate degree (my son: Chemical Engineering).

So guess what he gets to do this holiday season? You guessed it. Write a college application essay.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to explore the main Transfer Essay required by schools that use The Common Application.  My son, though with great reluctance, agreed to be my guinea pig. I told him, “Just pretend you are one of my tutoring students.” I wanted to walk through the steps and chronicle the brainstorming/planning process so I could share them.

A couple days after Christmas, we sat down together. I could tell this was a form of torture for him. Writing a college app essay with your mom. Ouch.

We started by reviewing the prompt:  “Please provide a statement that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve.” (250-650 words) There are two main questions they want students to answer:

1. What are your reasons for transferring?

2. What objectives (goals) do you hope to achieve?

We agreed that the first part would take up most of the essay, about three-quarters. Unlike the regular Common App prompt for incoming freshman, this prompt was less open-ended, and wasn’t looking for a classic “personal statement” essay. It’s a direct question: Why do you want to change schools and attend this new school? Not a: “Who are you?” question.

The essay should try to answer the questions as directly as possible, and back up the main points with specific examples. Still, I believe students should still use this essay as an opportunity to reveal their personality and individuality as much as possible. Students don’t need to use a narrative style, but I believe a story-telling format makes the best essays.

 

 

In a way, you are telling the “story” of your educational journey, and explaining a shift in your path. You describe where you started and why, how it went so far (current school), what changed and why, where you want to go now (new school) and what what you hope to accomplish there and in the future.  

Unlike incoming freshman, transfer students have a pretty clear idea of what they want to study. Most are required to select a major at this juncture. That in itself gives these a strong focus. I thought it would be a good idea to start the session with my son by flushing out some of his core or defining qualities that he thinks would make him effective in his chosen major: chemical engineering. Even if he didn’t include any of these ideas in his essay, I believe it’s helpful for students to have a sense of who they are and articulate those before starting to write.

 

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It is so helpful to have someone ask students questions like this in person, because it gives them a chance to reflect and share their ideas and insights in everyday language. This approach works so well for all my students. When they speak their answers to me directly, they are so much different than what they would write down. They use language that is direct and real, rather than drawing on words they think sound impressive.

One trick I use is to try to help students capture some of their own language by stopping them when I hear something good, repeating the words and phrases back to them, or jot them down on paper for them to use later. If you have a college admissions counselor, tutor, parent, teacher or friend who could help you do this, it works wonders.

My son told me things, such as, “I find that I can get my head around complex ideas relatively quickly” and “I like to see how things work, but also want to know more, how they can be used in other ways.” I wrote down some of his statements, which he could refer back to later when he started writing.

My thinking with the “why transfer” question is that you need to talk about what inspired your interest in your field, and how it evolved and you developed that over the years, and what eventually led you to wanting to continue at this new school. So I asked my son to think about some specific touch points in his life that sparked his interest in sciences, and specifically chemistry and engineering.

You don’t need to include all of these, but it helps to compile a short list. If your essay traces this progression, it will have a natural order that makes it simple to write: chronologically! My son remembered different experiments he did with various teachers over the years in both high school and college.

 

 

I also thought it was important to highlight the positive experiences he had at his current school, and then use those as a springboard to explain why he wanted more of those at his future school. Or maybe he wanted something different. The last thing you want to do is diss your current school. Keep it upbeat. List about 3-5 features of your current school. Then list a similar number of features that the new school will have.

Coming up with the positive parts of his current school was easy. The second part took a little more work. We started at the Web site and looked for specific programs, opportunities, and qualities it has to offer. Most colleges will highlight specific ideas they are proud of, and it doesn’t hurt to reflect those in your essay if they link to your interests, personality and goals. The first school we looked at mentioned things like “innovation” and “entrepreneurship” and “professional network,” so we tried to think of activities that lined up with those concepts.

Finally, we fished around for an anecdote (mini-story) that my son could use to start his essay. The idea was to find an incident, moment or experience that would SHOW the reader a key quality about my son, which he would then go onto explain how that drove his path toward his new school. His main theme turned out to be how he was the type of student who loved to learn new concepts, but was also eager to find “innovative” way to use them.

In his introduction, he describe an experiment one of his chemistry teachers did in class where students made mini-clouds using water bottles, hot water and a match. My son relayed that experiment, and went on to say how he did not feel satisfied just learning how clouds worked, but wanted to know how this process could be used in things like fighting droughts or even global warming.

 

 

This is just one way to approach this essay. It might not work for everyone. My son was unique in that he knew he would transfer when he started at his current school. But I think the approach of explaining the inspiration for your path–whether it’s art or business or biology-could work the same way. Even if you are making a radical shift, just explain why and go from there. As in all these essays, the admissions officers mainly want to hear how you think, what you value and that you have a plan.

Here’s What a Sample Outline Might Look Like

1. Introduction: An anecdote showing what inspired your interest in your subject–what fired it up, or if it changed, what caused that shift.

2. Background: Take the reader back to some of your earlier experiences with your subject. Use specific examples.

3. Talk about your current school and what you got out of it. Give specific examples: focus on academics, but you could also mention other interests, social skills, etc.

4. Transition into the main reason you are ready to move on and into the new school. Maybe you liked certain things at your old school, but it had limitations and you wanted more. Maybe you changed, your interests changed, and the new school can serve those better than the first one. Back up your points with specific examples.

5. Talk about what you like in the new school. The more specifics you can give, the better: programs, professors, internships, courses, location, future jobs, networking, etc.

6. Objectives (this is the second part of that prompt): Talk about what you hope to do both at the new school and after. What do you want to learn? What do you see yourself doing with your degree? (You don’t have to know; just mention a couple possibilities.) This is your conclusion. Never hurts to end with a sentence or two that project your goals and dreams into the future.

 More help for transfer students and their college application essays:

Allen Grove, a college essay expert, provided these tips on writing transfer essays. And Rebecca Johnson, a college admissions counselor, wrote this helpful piece on the transfer process for the Huffington Post.