Transfer Students - Feature Story 2019

Amanda Geraghty Regan
Apr 14, 2020
10 min read

Updated: Aug 20, 2020

Amanda Regan

Dr. Peters

Feature Story

14 November 2019

Lexie Keffer, a sophomore at the University of North Georgia Oconee, had the original plan to attend Georgia College and State University after she graduated high school in 2018. This was a comfortable option for her that she had always planned for. She said she decided to go to KSU in the end because she had a friend going who she would plan to live with. At the time of the decision she was excited to be living with a friend and didn't think about how she would feel living at KSU, she said.

A lot of students will pick college for superficial reason, often times relationships. These decisions are made without visiting in a lot of cases, which leads to dissatisfaction.

Keffer said that within the first two weeks of school that she hated where she was. “I didn’t like the area, it didn't feel like the kind of college experience I wanted,” she said. She said she was finding herself unhappy and lnew that no matter what she did, as long as she stayed she’d be unhappy.

Keffer spent one semester at KSU and transferred to UNG Oconee the following semester. She said she filled out the transfer application for UNG Oconee and signed a new lease in Athens within a couple months of being at KSU, and never changed her mind about staying. Keffer illustrates the dangers of picking a school without doing the proper research on whether or not she'd be truly happy there.

Transferring is a way college students can correct their mistakes, whether that be from a quick decision based on a relationship, or a rough beginning with pitfalls and failures.

She said she was nervous about moving to Athens because she was going to be living with two random roommates at the time. “The school part wasn't really that bad because it's such a small school,” she said. She said although it was scary to move to a new city only knowing a few people was scary, but she would rather transfer than stay at KSU. “I never thought I’d be aiming to go to UGA, it's never something I really cared about until now,” she said.

Transferring can hold a certain connotation to it, which is not always seen positively. Having to transfer from school to school can be seen as a failure, or a last resort option.

Roommates Keffer and Savannah Mansel, a sophomore at UNG Oconee, started their college career at Kennesaw State University, and are now enrolled at UNG Oconee. According to the NSC Signature Report, “ just over half of transfers (51.3 percent) from four-year public institutions went to two-year public institutions.”

Keffer and Mansel said the most frustrating part of transferring was losing course credits. “Transfer Credit is generally accepted from regionally accredited institutions,” according to the UNG Registrar. Not all courses will transfer from one school to another as the same course or in some cases transfer at a credit at all. Keffer and Mansel said they did their best to make sure the classes they signed up for would transfer from the beginning, but that it doesn't always work out exactly right. Transferring course credits is another factor that students have to take into

Mansel graduated highschool with the intent to transfer to UGA from the beginning. She said she knew she coulndt get into UGA right out of high school and knew that transferring was an easier way to get there. Mansel spent one year at KSU before she decided to transfer to UNG. “I just didn't love it all that much,” she said. Sse said she didn't like living in Cobb county. Mansel could have stayed at KSU for longer getting more credits to transfer straight to UGA, but she wanted to leave KSU sooner and live in Athens. “At least I’ll be in Athens, like that where I wanted to be,” she said.

“I ended up making a lot of good friends and towards the end of my last semester so it was harder than I thought to leave, but it was already signed on the dotted line that I was coming here, I mean i signed a lease, and I had to remember why I was leaving in the first place,” she said. She said the thought of starting over was scary, but knowing people who were here, like her current roommate, Keffer, made the transition easier.

consideration when transferring because credit hours will determine when they will graduate.

Many students graduate high school with an idea in mind of what college is going to be like. Students expect to get to college and stay on a steady path for four years, loving every minute of it. The idea of finding life long friends, a dream career path, and new found freedom from home is what drives a graduating senior in highschool. This is an idea that prospective college students get in their head when nostalgic graduates tell them about their experience.

Finding happiness at college does not always come easily, or in the way that people think. Lots of first year students struggle making their way through a new place and finding where they fit in. With a little trial and error, those new students eventually find their place and start figuring out who they want to be.

A student may go into college thinking they’ve made the right choice and had every intention of staying for the standard four years. Deciding where to go for college is a big life decision which is being made at 18 years old. Sometimes students make the decision where to go to school based on the excitement of getting accepted somewhere, and they may not take into consideration how they’re really going to feel living in that new place.

For some students, they find this with their first choice of school, whereas others take a different path. There are many pathways to take when it comes to getting a degree and they’re not always a straight line. It is common for students to decide to transfer, whether that be for financial reasons, grades, or the need for a change of location, every transfer student has their own unique story.

According to the most recent National Student Clearinghouse Signature Report for Transfer and Mobility, “more than one-third of students who started in four-year public institutions (36.5 percent) changed their institution at least once within six years.” Transferring schools can sound like a foriegn, scary idea for some students, but a stepping stool for others.

Some people take transferring into consideration when they start applying to colleges. They realize they may not have the grades to get into their dream school, so they start a little smaller until they can build up enough class credits to transfer into their next school.

Most students who plan this path expect to stay two years at their first college, and then transfer. They may attend a community college, or an easier school that is even in the same city as their dream school.

According to the UGA Factbook of 2018, 76% of students who applied to UGA were accepted in 2018. In total 2,757 students applied to transfer and 2,085 were accepted. The NSC Signature Report says that the timing of transfers reveals a pattern of full-time students transferring in the first three years of enrollment.

In Athens, Georgia, students have options when it comes to universities. The University of Georgia has become increasingly difficult to be accepted into over the years, having a 49% acceptance rate for incoming freshmen according to UGA Admissions, so a lot of students decide to transfer in. According to CollegeTransfer.net, 5% of UGA’s student population is transfer made up of students.

Nearing colleges include The University of North Georgia Oconee Campus, as well as Athens Technical College. UNG Oconnee is a two year school, so this is a popular option for people wanting to enroll at UGA. ATC is a four year college but some students choose to attend temporarily to get enough course credits.

UGA’s requirements to transfer are either acquiring “30-59 completed hours of transferable credit by the application deadline, graduated from high school at least 12 months prior to the term of intended enrollment, completed at least one year of college by the term of intended enrollment, and a 3.30 or higher calculated transfer GPA,” according to UGA admissions. There is another tier of acceptance of transfer credits which are, “60 or more completed hours of transferable credit by the application deadline, graduated from high school at least 12 months prior to the term of intended enrollment, completed at least one year of college by the term of intended enrollment, and a 2.8 or higher calculated transfer GPA.”

Not every student who lives in Athens necessarily dreams of attending UGA. Some students come to Athens because of the love for the city, while still pursuing an education. Kevin Gray, 23, attends UNG Gainesville, campus, a 4 year university, and lives in Athens, Georgia. Gray started at Georgia Southern University in 2015 and has made the decision to transfer many times.

Gray went to GSU and said he didn't take it seriously. “I was going out too much and I just kept falling more and more behind before I completely gave up.” He said he tried to do what he could to salvage his GPA, but by his second semester, it was a lost cause. Gray said he made the decision to move back home and attend the local community college in hopes to redeem his GPA. Along this reasoning, he said he also chose to move back home for a girl. When things didn't work out, moving away to Athens was a way for a fresh start, he said.

Gray had to intent to UGA, but was unable to get in. He decided to stay in Athens and pursue a degree from UNG Gainesville. Gray will be graduating this December, 2019.

Other students, like Riley Ostwoski, a fifth year student at UGA, did not go to college with the intent to transfer. Ostrowski attended the University of Mississippi, or as it is better known as, “Ole’ Miss,” for two and a half years after he graduated high school. He went with an intended major of Geological Engineering. Ostrowski, he has been using the ability to transfer to better his future. He has used transferring to his advantage to reach his career goals he said.

Ostowski is from Georgia, so going to college in Mississippi would have meant out-of-state tuition if it wasn’t for the Georgia Academic Common Market Program Scholarship. This offered him in-state tuition at Ole’ Miss because there is no school in the state of Georgia offers it.

As many students come to find out, keeping a scholarship is harder than getting it. In his case, he neglected filling out required paperwork to maintain the scholarship, and it was rescinded. Ostwoski said he made the decision to come to UGA because didn’t want to make his parents pay the more expensive out of state tuition. “UGA sounded like a good idea at that time,” he said.

He said the decision was easy for him because he had friends who were living in Athens. “I had an easy transition coming here because I moved straight in with Kevin [Gray] who was already a close friend,” he said.

Otrowski planned to come to UGA and graduate with a degree in Civil Engineering. According to UGA College of Engineering admissions, students are required to take specific classes and pass for acceptance. Ostowski was unable to pass his statics course, and after two attempts at the class, students are no longer eligible to try again.

Ostrowski said he didn't want to stay at UGA and graduate with a different major because it would have been a waste of nearly 20 credit hours that were going towards his Civil Engineering degree. He said he would rather graduate from a different university if it meant getting the degree he wanted.

The NSC Signature Report says, “overall, students who started in four-year private nonprofit institutions were more likely to have a lateral transfer to another four-year institution than those who began at four-year public institutions (57.0 percent vs. 48.3 percent).”

Ostrowski's decision to come to UGA was not exactly a dream but more so a stepping stone to get him to his desired career path. He has made the decision to transfer to Kennesaw State University where he will finish a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

This semester will be his last at UGA.

Lucie Belvin, a sophomore, has been at Athens Technical College since her freshman year in fall of 2018. Lucie chose to attend ATC because she wanted to be in Athens and have the feel of an SEC University, while working on finishing enough course credits to transfer to UGA. She said her dad went to UGAand growing up visiting Athens is when she became interested in going here.

Belvin says she's been working with her advisor since her first semester to make sure she doesn't lose and course credit so she can graduate in 4 years. She will apply to UGA in fall of 2020 which will keep her on track to graduate in 2022. She wants to graduate with a degree from UGA in Real Estate and Finance.

Lucie has not yet experienced what it is like to transfer but she says she isn't too nervous because she won’t be moving. She said it's comforting to have started school in the same city as UGA because she won't have to start over in a new place. Belvin says all of her current roommates also transferred from other schools, like University of West Georgia, into UGA and she's gotten a good idea of what to expect.

“I’m getting myself ready for much bigger classes, since ATC is way smaller than UGA, and I know its going to be a lot harder,” she said.

Belvin said her back up school in the event that she does not get accepted into UGA will be Georgia State University. According to Georgia State University Admissions, “Have a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.5 for all college-level coursework attempted at previously attended regionally accredited institutions and have completed 30 semester credit hours or 45 quarter credit hours of college-level coursework.”

Your name: Amanda Regan

Interview date:11/10/19