how to write a transfer essay

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Often you're writing your transfer application in the thick of a college semester. It's often hard to carve out enough time to revise and polish your transfer application. Also, it's often awkward asking for help on your essay from your professors, peers or tutors. After all, you're considering leaving their school. Nevertheless, a sloppy essay that's riddled with errors is not going to impress anyone. The best transfer essays always go through multiple rounds of revision, and your peers and professors will want to help you with the process if you have good reasons to transfer.
by Emily DauenhauerDirector of Undergraduate Enrollment Marketing, Sacred Heart University Before sitting down to write your transfer college application essay, use this one simple question as a guideline to your future: why are you applying to this particular college? A clear, concrete answer to this question should be a large part of a college transfer student’s application essay. “Why do you want to come to this school? That’s the primary thing transfer admissions officers want to know,” says Cara Jordan, Director of Transfer Admissions at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. The application essay also provides transfer students with the opportunity to take responsibility for less-than-perfect grades, recognize academic challenges, and explain the steps they have taken to conquer them. “Certainly, you don’t want to use your essay to spotlight weaknesses, criticize another school, or in any way be defensive or negative,” Jordan says. “But when appropriate, the essay can be an effective way to show your character, your ability to take ownership of your actions, and your determination to succeed. The essay is a wonderful tool, because it allows you to tell your own story in your own words.” And like a first-time, fresh-out-of-high-school college application essay, it should paint a picture of who you are, Jordan adds. For most transfer students, this picture is significantly different from what it was just one or two years before. “Transfer students generally have a clearer, more concrete picture of what they want out of their lives and where they want to be,” Jordan says. “They’re older and have experienced more, and they’ve had the chance to find out what college is like and whether a certain type of institution works or doesn’t.” What admission counselors look for “Transfer students generally have a very specific reason for wanting to leave one.
Many applicants see the Common Application transfer essay in much the same way they see the regular Common Application essay -- an opportunity to wow the admissions officers, impress them with the fascinating things you've done, giving them every reason in the world to accept you. And while these things are important and necessary, it isn't all you should aspire to accomplish with it. Here are three things you absolutely, positively must do in your transfer essay to get yourself out of your current college or university and into your new one.1) CLEARLY ARTICULATE WHY YOU WISH TO TRANSFER SCHOOLS -- Be specific where did the school you attend falls short. It's not enough just to say you didn't like the campus or the other students. That's too easy an excuse. Did you decide to change your major? Maybe when you were accepted there you had one idea about what you wanted from your education and now that you're a year older, you want something else. Maybe the culture of the school wasn't a good fit. Whatever the reason is, be clear and concise.2) NEVER, EVER, SPEAK NEGATIVELY ABOUT YOUR OLD SCHOOL! -- Look at it like this -- you're trying to impress your new boyfriend/girlfriend and the last thing you want to do is bad-mouth your ex. This will leave a bad taste in the admissions counselor's mouth. Don't be mean. Don't be vindictive. Don't be anything other than diplomatic. The tone should be, it just didn't work out. 3) LOOK AHEAD -- Once you have adequately explained why you wish to transfer, let them know what you wish to get our of your new school. Since you can't be school specific this is where you have to carefully and thoughtfully express what you want now out of your education.I, myself actually enjoy working with applicats on this essay even more than the regular undergraduate Common Application essay. Generally, a freshman or sophomore in college has a better.