IVORY TOWERS: Switching schools: By the Book

Two years ago, Brown University students Jennifer Wilcha and David Smith went looking -- unsuccessfully -- for a guide to transferring colleges for a friend. Although U.S. Department of Labor statistics say that one out of five college students changes schools during their college career, Wilcha and Smith could not find a book on the subject. Rather than continuing their search, Wilcha, then a junior, and Smith, then a sophomore, decided to write their own. In The College Student's Guide to Transferring Schools, published this year, Wilcha and Smith present a "Six-Step Plan" to help students get through the application process the second time around. The plan features the "6 Rs": Reevaluation, Renegotiation, Research, Reapplication, Revision and Readjustment. But the authors liven up the book by comparing the student-college relationship to human relationships. Common dating expressions are used to transform the "6 R's" into Breaking Up, Telling the Folks, Playing the Field, Making the First Move, Writing the Love Letter, and Starting Over. Smith said Sunday that the metaphor is appropriate because college is "an intimate four-year relationship." The book includes a large number of personal interviews with students who transferred. The authors obtained their information from questionnaires and interviews with admissions officers, transfer students, and college advisers. Wilcha said she was surprised that so few transfer students had done research on the transferring process before they began reapplying. She said students should have a clear picture of what they are getting into before they begin the process. One of the things the authors say transfer students should prepare for is the fight for transfer credits. David Yudis, a College junior at the University who transferred last year from Temple University, said he was glad that he had kept his course syllabi and exams. The material helped him prove the level of work he had done at Temple, he said. · Russell Klein, the former co-chairperson of Ivy Transfers, said he presided over a fall orientation of approximately 350 students. The group's main goal, said the College senior, is to help "expedite the transition into the Penn environment and Philadelphia." Approximately 60 peer advisers answer questions and plan programs ranging from meetings with administrators to social events such as barbecues, parties, and the annual scavenger hunt. The College Student's Guide To Transferring Schools authors offer nine suggestions for easing the transition to a new school. Number one is "plan ahead," but almost as important as that advice is number two: "don't be shy." Stan Schuldiner, a College sophomore who transferred from the State University of New York at Binghamton, said that transfers should "try to meet as many people as you can early on." College sophomore Lisa Reinherz, who described her transfer from Brandeis University as "the best move ]she[ ever made," said that it is important to make the extra effort to "get involved" and take advantage of school activities. · The book ends with an appendix which details the qualifications a student needs to transfer to 99 United States colleges. The statistics given for the University say that each fall 400 to 450 transfer students are accepted out of 1000 applicants. In the spring, 100 out of 300 are accepted. The book also says that although the University does not have a minimum GPA requirement, it "strongly recommends" a 3.4. Shelley Krause, the assistant director of the University's transfer program, said the transfer acceptance rate ranges from 33 to 37 percent. This is roughly the same percentage of freshmen accepted for each class, Krause said. But she noted that transfers are "much more heterogeneous in terms of age and generally tend to be more focused" than to first-year students. The large amount of work which goes into transferring tends to limit the number of schools to which each student applies. As a result, Krause said, the percentage of accepted transfers who choose to attend -- about 75 percent -- is higher than the matriculation rate for freshmen, around 50 percent.

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