Transfer Students at the Undergraduate Level Or The Power of Choice
Community-College Students Succeed at Elite Schools—When They’re Admitted
A new report finds that these students graduate from selective colleges at higher rates than first-time freshmen.
(Dated January 2019)
Response post to: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/01/community-college-transfers-elite-schools/580411/
Transfer students are a different animal in the zoo and I must admit that I have a particular affinity for them because, like a secret membership card you don't know you have until you need it, I've been one.
It didn't even start in 1994 but I'll get there.
It actually starts around 1988 and 11th grade.
Thinking about it now, the key was realizing that I had choice. I was an "A" student but I had the choice to choose, even in my very small Central school, to pick between 2 different math and science teachers that year. The math and science classes were basically tracked:
- "A" students were college track - they were put into a class with a notoriously hard teacher. His reputation was to over teach. We'll call this teacher, Teacher A.
- "B" students were state-diploma tracked - they were put into a class with a good teacher but in general, it was the "everyone is just here to pass high school" class. We'll call this teacher, Teacher B.
It was hard to do. I had to push at the Guidance Counselor's Office (a place where I never, ever found guidance, only fights) to opt to take both math and science with Teachers Bs for the next two years. Why did I want Teacher Bs? I thought Teacher Bs were better teachers. Period.
I did well and enjoyed my classes. I didn't feel out of place in any way. I aced all of my courses and exams (translation = did just as well as my "A"student classmates, but just in easier classes).
Hindsight is a bitch, isn't it?
I can write now that:
- Teacher A in science was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of raping high school girls from science classes. Basically, one of the girls had gone to college, took a rape-awareness class in a dorm, realized that what Teacher A had done to her back in high school constituted rape and she called the cops. His jerky career was over.
- Teacher A in math class was always suspected of doing exactly the same modus operandi. Stories of girls and stories of grades that didn't seem to match performance kept circulating.
I escaped those lecherous teachers by choosing Teacher Bs.
~~
Now, fast forward to 1994. I had applied for Cornell University as a transfer (translation: entering as a Junior) and got in.
Indeed, I don't know how much the wider community knows that transfers into elite institutions is a much, much narrower gate to get through than for freshmen. When I got into Cornell as a transfer, I was one of 365 transfer slots they had that year. The application process is different, though, and it was rather nice to garner recommendation letters from professors/classes where one was *already* successful in *college*, rather than letters from high school teachers.
FWIW, I did not attend
Cornell.
Why? Oh a few reasons. I was heavily into my boyfriend-become-husband at the time and Cornell as a campus had remarkably few public displays of affection (PDAs) when I visited. That just seemed--weird. I could not make that compute.
Also, the cost of living in Ithaca was gasping for my financial aid budget; a basement, chicken-wire-over-the-windows-God-help-me-if-there-is-a-fire apartment was $400 a month. There was no money outside of financial aid, so getting that to work was going to be really difficult.
The drive towards academics also just didn't feel right for me; I was always more interested in systemic (multivariate) problems, not singular, research problems. I would have gone more for plant botany because of their majors than for general biology/chemistry like I ended up studying. Translation: I don't think I would have ended up eventually in Education, that's for sure. So really, the transfer process directly lead me to my Education career.
~~
One of the best training videos I ever made at WGU was when, spontaneously, myself and my co-presenter talked about being transfer students when WE went to college and how we had that in common (the stress of it). The magic of that moment-- and talking about the fact that we shared that characteristic-- having been through the transfer process INSIDE of a 4 year degree-- which is what many of our WGU students have gone through (being degree unfinishers) - made that video something that new employees would come up to me later and talk about as being remarkable. We took a nebulous process - helping students through their online degrees - and made it real by describing life stories of own, pre-online degrees.
I'm ever so thankful to God for that spontaneous moment in training.
~~
Even today I feel the choices. Just last month, I finished an "academic" event where I have the calling card to get in, sit down, and participate fully. However, I choose not to. I chose to take it relaxed and easy despite the whirlwind of anxiety around me. Indeed, 10 minutes before I took the floor for my very own session, there was a behind-the-scences fight about who would introduce me because 'I could not introduce myself' [that would not be academically appropriate] and Workshop Chairs were dropping like flies. In the end, my co-presenter swept in and started talking, so no one introduced us. Ha!
And it rankles people.
It bothers them. I get harassed. I get maligned, put down. That very same day I referred to just above, I was, on camera, insulted and called a [slave] House Elf (from Harry Potter). Magically, my title "Dr." gets forgotten in my introduction, if I'm even introduced at all. I realized it's not about me when I'm treated that way--the people doing these behaviors are "saying more about themselves than about me" (a kind friend once advised me) and therefore, these people are really upset that I'm opting for choice.
I have the ability to reach out and touch the laurel crown and I chose not to.
It bugs the fuck out of them.
LOL. Good.
