Multimedia Reporting by Erin Valentine and Preston Willett
Students transfer for multiple reasons. For students looking to transfer to Elon University, there’s an essay component that asks why a student is motivated to become an Elon Phoenix.
“Some transfer students who intentionally have gone to a local community college, and know from day one, ‘I want to transfer out,’ or ‘I want to go to Elon,’” said Kevin Napp, associate director of admissions and director of transfers and special admissions. “You have other students that have gone to a state school, to other private schools, and for a variety of reasons have decided they want to transfer. It could be a family situation. It might be a financial situation. It might be they are looking for a change of climate or just scenery.”
The transfer population at Elon is typically a smaller population. In the fall, often 90 to 100 students are enrolled as transfers, which is small compared to a freshmen class size of about 1450.
To apply to Elon, a prospective transfer student must have a minimum grade point average of 2.7, have completed at least one full-time semester of coursework, have official transcripts from attended institutions, an evaluation form from their past institution’s dean of student life, and a completed transfer application.
“For our transfer student population, it’s on a rolling process, meaning that when they complete their application they can get a decision quickly and kind of go from there,” Napp said.
While high school work is still important, a student’s academic record at their previous college or university is one of the most essential parts of their application to Elon. According to Napp, this allows for the university to know if they can achieve and function at the collegiate level.
The transfer process can have a few hiccups.
According to an academic report released by Elon University on the fall 2014 transfer students, GPAs tend to decrease after a transfer’s first semester at Elon.
The report said, “Students attending a Community College prior to arrival at Elon University earned a 2.75 GPA during the fall semester compared to the 3.14 GPA earned by students transferring from a Four-Year institution.”
Another issue that some transfers come across when applying to come to Elon is the lack of availability of merit-based scholarship.
According to US News, most schools grant merit-based scholarships to students, yet Elon does not. There are need-based awards available; however, merit-based scholarships are not offered due to not having the necessary funding available.
“The limited funding that Elon currently has is tending to be directed towards our first year students who are going to be here hopefully for four years, compared to a transfer student, who could be here anywhere from one to three,” Napp said. “Obviously, for someone who is going to be here less time, their total out-of-pocket expense is going to be less. They still can earn need-based awards, outside scholarships.”
Another problem that admitted transfers come across is not having guaranteed on-campus housing. On-campus housing for transfer students is limited, and assignments are based on the date deposits are received. Once on-campus housing is full, students can continue to apply as commuter students and live off-campus.
“Because all first years and sophomores are required to live on-campus, that’s kind of the priority right now,” Napp said. “And so, when space is available, we’ll do our absolute best to house as may as possible. And some don’t want on-campus housing. Some are intentionally looking to live off-campus.”
Elon was able to house 60 percent of students in the fall of 2014. In the spring of the same year, all of the transfer students who requested to be on-campus were housed.
To address these concerns, the transfer atmosphere at Elon is continuously trying to change and improve.
One addition is the newly formed Transfer Student Organization (TSO) on-campus that offers a variety of sessions and social activities for transfer students. “They do a wonderful job of helping transfer students acclimate to campus, giving them just familiar faces and resources,” Napp said.
There is also a mentor program that has been recently introduced. A new transfer student is paired with a current Elon student to try to make the new student’s transition smoother.
For Napp, this is a helpful addition to his work. “I can answer questions, but I think there’s a little bit more weight sometimes when it comes from a current Elon student,” Napp said.
In an attempt to have merit-based scholarships, Napp said that Elon has recently set up its very first merit-based scholarship for students transferring from Alamance Community College. The ACC scholarship offers an award of $22,500 from an anonymous donor
Napp said that he has plans to keep trying to improve the transfer experience at Elon. According to Napp, his long-term goals include increasing the merit-based aid if possible, increase the number of transfer students at Elon, raise opportunities for on-campus housing, and to further develop the mentor program.
Thomas Goode
Thomas Goode realized that he wanted an education that gave him choices in his classes. Unfortunately at the University of Colorado — Denver, he wasn’t able to find that. Now a double major in entrepreneurship and music, Goode seems to have found his place.
Once he made the move to Colorado, Goode quickly found that Denver was not too similar to his hometown of Mooresville, NC.
“Part of the reason I didn’t really like it was the people weren’t southernly, like friendly, so that was kind of a culture shock to me,” Goode said.
Goode missed orientation the first week due to an illness, so it felt harder to him to make relationships with people outside of his dorm area.
Another problem that he ran into at Denver was that his class selection was limited. Goode decided he wanted to take a variety of classes, but was told by his advisor that he would only be able to take business classes.
“I wanted to do some film classes and I wanted to do music classes,” Goode said. “I was talking with an advisor, and he was just like, ‘That’s not going to happen.’”
Thus, he began to look at for a new institution.
“Looking for a new school made me focus on kind of getting out of there, so I wasn’t really living in the moment,” Goode said.
Wanting to move closer to home, he looked at Clemson University, Elon University, and the University of Virginia. Elon eventually became the school that Goode chose due to the variety of programs it offered.
“I expressed what I wanted to do, and they said, “Yeah, here’s what classes you can take. Here’s the programs we offer,’” Goode said. “And all these things, FreshTV, and all sorts of programs that they have just really appeal to me.”
The Application process was very different for Goode then applying for college right out of high school. He ran into some issues, including problems with transcripts and initially being denied to Elon. However, he was able to petition the denial and was eventually accepted.
“It would have been a lot more difficult if I hadn’t been in constant contact with people here,” Goode said. “And that’s another really big thing that confirmed my desire to be here, was the communication that I had with the deans and trying to figure this out. They really worked with me and helped me out as much as they could.”
According to Goode, once he knew he didn’t want to be at the University of Colorado, he knew that transferring anywhere was going to be a risk, but it was one that he was willing to take.
“There’s definitely the fear that when you transfer it will be the same, in that you won’t fit in anywhere else,” Goode said.
Goode said that he was pleased overall with Elon’s transfer process and orientation, especially finding help and advice from the newly formed Transfer Student Organization. However, he noted that sometimes transfers were mixed together with the freshmen and he found some of the information redundant.
According to Goode, he found that transferring to Elon was a good fit, specifically because of the smaller class sizes and better relationships with professors and students at Elon.
“I feel like I fit in better here and that I can express myself how I want to and do everything I want to do,” Goode said. “So I feel pretty confident with everything I’m doing here.”
Viktoria Chiappa
Elon sophomore Viktoria Chiappa always knew she was going to transfer from Central Connecticut State University.
“I didn’t know where I was going to transfer, but I didn’t really have a lot of time my senior year to pick a school because I had a tragedy happen in my family — my father passed away,” Chiappa said. “So, I knew I didn’t want to be far away from my family.”
Chiappa focused on finding an institution with a strong theater program and promising opportunities, as she hoped to become involved in the theater program and to become a vocal studies major.
Having the few years between first applying for colleges after high school and then applying to transfer, Chiappa found that she had come to know herself better.
“I definitely had different perspectives on things to write essays about,” Chiappa said. “I think it showed more of who I was becoming as a person because at that point I was more developed in my mindset of who I was.”
Chiappa was actually about to choose Montclair State University, except they didn’t quite seem to want her at their institution.
“It was almost like they accepted me because they had to because of who I was, that I looked very good on paper, and that I was good in my interview,” Chiappa said. “But they didn’t necessarily want the transfers. They didn’t want to deal with that.”
Once Chiappa finalized her decision on going to Elon University, she ran into a bit of a hiccup — she had a chance to perform with Disney on Ice for a year. Initially concerned that this additional year may cause a rift in her plans, Elon assured her that she would still have a place with them in the fall of 2014. The university would email her updates about what was going on and Chiappa said that she was assured that they wanted her at Elon.
“From that, I knew it was the right decision because people don’t go above and beyond any more and that’s just how it was here, it was just an easier process,” Chiappa said.
From her previous experience, Chiappa was not looking forward to orientation. Her previous university had been more of a party atmosphere and Chiappa’s knew that that was not her preferred environment. She found Elon’s transfer orientation to be different.
“This orientation [Elon’s] was just better in that sense in that it was just more… they gave you more room,” Chiappa said. “And I don’t know if that was because we were transfers, so they knew that we had stood on our own two feet before. But, there was less hand holding. They were more there to be a friend.”
Chiappa found that Elon was welcoming to transfers, but often did this by not always acknowledging that the transfer students were their own entity at times.
“I think we do what we can by making them [transfers] feel normal by ignoring the fact that they’re different,” Chiappa said. “I think that’s a positive thing and it’s a negative thing.”
Still adjusting and finding her place at Elon, Chiappa is looking forward to her time here at Elon, and is happy to have an instant bond to other transfer students.
“If I meet another student that is a transfer, it’s like you guys are sisters. You come from the same place. You know each other.”
Scott Powell
For Scott Powell, the environment he thought he had wanted in a college turned out not to be the environment that he needed. Currently a sophomore at Elon University, Powell transferred from the University of Georgia — Athens.
“It’s kind of interesting how in high school I had this idea of what I wanted out of college,” Powell said. “And then once I got there, things changed a lot.”
Powell realized that he was not where he wanted to be when he was driving to Athens for his second semester of college and he was not looking forward to it.
“I was like, ‘Well, when is the next time I’m going to be home?’ or ‘When’s the next time I can go visit my friend?’” Powell said. “And those are kind of the moments when you realize, ‘Oh crap. I don’t like being here. I don’t want to be here. I haven’t created a home.’”
Powell decided he need to switch his environment. He began to have to tell people that he was planning to transfer, which turned out to be difficult.
“It was nerve wracking,” Powell said. “It was awkward. It was uncomfortable, and I really struggled with it.”
According to Powell, he found it hard to tell people who are having a great time that he was not, and he knew that they might not understand.
When choosing schools, Powell knew he was looking for somewhere he could create a home. He focused on places with a smaller student body, that were more academically stimulating, with a liberal arts education, and had a less intense social scene.
The institutions he narrowed his choices down to were the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, Denison University, and Elon University.
Powell’s choice of Elon was a slow and gradual process.
“It wasn’t like a lightbulb moment where I said, ‘Oh, Elon is the place for me,’” Powell said. “It was more a process of elimination.”
Once Powell made his way to North Carolina, he found the transfer orientation at Elon to be supportive.
“At Elon, I have a small transfer orientation group — that was big for me,” Powell said. “It was other transfer students who were going through similar things and we had an orientation leader that helped us out alot. There was also a lot of structure in the first three days, which I thought was good because it gave me reason to go out and meet new people.”
Powell, who rooms in Danieley, has met and lived with multiple transfer students.
“I think it’s nice that there’s not a stigma around transfer students,” he said. “There’s four or five transfer students on my hall and sometimes you’ll be asked, ‘Oh, you’re a transfer student?’ People don’t even know sometimes.”
For Powell, he said he respects Elon’s transfer program and the effort they made to make the transfers feel at home when there are 1,450 first year students also at orientation.
“The overall process, I think, Elon University did a very good job of insuring that the student is not left without any resources, as far as transfers,” Powell said.
Lauren Schuessler
Lauren Schuessler knew from her first day at the University of Rhode Island (URI) that it was not meant for her.
“I like my major, but that’s about it that I liked,” Schuessler said. “And I just knew that I wanted to be somewhere that I was in love with.”
Now a senior early childhood education major and Italian minor, Schuessler has found a home at Elon University.
Schuessler found that many students were not happy at URI, but many people never did anything to change their situation.
“A lot of people that go to URI, they hate it,” Schuessler said. “And a lot of people hate it and they don’t leave because they don’t really want to go through that transition again.”
Her search for a new school had her looking at institutions that she previously hadn’t considered or didn’t think she would make it in. After narrowing down her choices to the College of William & Mary, SUNY Geneseo, and Elon University, she finally decided to make her way down to North Carolina.
Schuessler had a couple bumps in the road along the way. The first obstacle was Elon’s lack of merit scholarships available for transfers.
“The only negative thing, and it is kind of a big negative thing, is that they don’t offer any money to transfer students,” Schuessler said.
Leaving a large scholarship at URI, Schuessler found it frustrating to come to Elon with no scholarships and being unable to join any honor programs.
Another issue that Schuessler found was the lack of guaranteed housing for transfers, which almost caused for her to not be able to come to Elon.
Once Schuessler started though, she found that transfer orientation was a different experience from freshman orientation at URI. While not completely satisfied with her transfer orientation at Elon, Schuessler found the process to be good for meeting people.
“Elon made it really easy to meet people, whether they were freshmen or whether they were senior orientation leaders, and everyone was extremely friendly,” Schuessler said. “I never went anywhere alone, that just wouldn’t happen here. It was a huge difference. I felt more at home. I felt comfortable. I was excited to be here. I was more positive. It was the opposite of URI.”
Schuessler knew coming in that she wanted to be involved at Elon, so she made it happen.
“I knew, before I even came, some of the things I wanted to be involved with,” Schuessler said. “And I did. Getting that experience of being a club and having that family and that group of friends, that just changed everything for me.”
After having acclimated to Elon, Schuessler has had three years to look back on Elon and how her experience of being a transfer affected her college experience.
“I just see Elon as like heaven,” Schuessler said. “And I know that most people here, they love it, but they don’t see it in the eyes that I have. I am grateful that I had that experience, even if it was a terrible one, it led me to enjoy Elon and the rest of my college experience much more.”
