{"id":54410,"date":"2020-10-15T00:00:07","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=54410"},"modified":"2020-10-14T17:20:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T00:20:00","slug":"doing-this-one-thing-helps-community-college-students-transfer-to-a-4-year-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/doing-this-one-thing-helps-community-college-students-transfer-to-a-4-year-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing this one thing helps community college students transfer to a 4-year university"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Elizabeth has always wanted to be a doctor. While a high school senior, she was hoping to achieve her dream through attending the state\u2019s main university campus, but she was put on a waiting list.<\/p>\n

A friend talked her into taking a path less traveled, by starting out at a local two-year college and then transferring to the state university.<\/p>\n

She spoke with her academic adviser at her community college about the ins and outs of transferring and explored options through her dream university\u2019s transfer connections program. What really made a key difference, though, was a meeting with an adviser from her dream university during her first year at her two-year college.<\/p>\n

The adviser was from the psychology department, the major into which she was hoping to transfer.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me about what I\u2019m doing so far and what I have to do yet before transfer,\u201d said Elizabeth, who was already struggling to manage diabetes and a hectic schedule. Elizabeth left that meeting and worked hard to improve her GPA based on the adviser\u2019s recommendation.<\/p>\n

Dominic, an aspiring engineer, did something similar. While enrolled at a two-year school, he met with some of the professors at the four-year school that he hoped to attend. He met with them during periods when they didn\u2019t have classes. A cousin who attended the university introduced him to the professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really helped get me familiarized with what life is like over there and what classes will be like,\u201d Dominic said.<\/p>\n

Two years after they started at their two-year colleges, both Elizabeth and Dominic \u2013 whose names have been changed to protect their identity \u2013 successfully transferred into their desired majors at a four-year university. Their experiences are not just anecdotes. They exemplify the larger findings from\u00a0my study on community college students who hope to transfer<\/a>\u00a0to a four-year university.<\/p>\n

Reaching out early matters<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I worked with my research team to follow about 1,670 first-year students who started at two-year colleges in fall 2014 in a Midwestern state. Seventy-three percent of those students wanted to transfer to a four-year university. We kept in touch with these students through 2019 as they shared with us their experiences and stories of being drawn closer to or pushed away from their dreams of transferring to a four-year university.<\/p>\n

Part of what we found is that when students connected during their first term with advisers or professors at the school where they wanted to transfer, they were more likely to transfer eventually.<\/p>\n

In fact, the probability of transferring for students in my study who do this is 38%, compared with 23% for students who don\u2019t connect with anyone at the school where they want to transfer.<\/p>\n

This finding is important because, nationally, while nearly 80% of community college students set out to transfer to four-year schools,\u00a0only 25% actually do<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And for years, community colleges carried\u00a0most of the burden, or blame<\/a>, when it comes to advising prospective transfer students, and four-year institutions have been left out of this discussion, as if supporting pre-transfer students was solely a community college issue.<\/p>\n

It is not, because whether a student ultimately transfers or not is shaped by both community colleges and four-year institutions. This finding drives home the importance of community colleges and four-year colleges\u00a0working together<\/a>\u00a0to improve transfer access. I make this point in a book I wrote, \u201cOn My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways<\/a>,\u201d which is based on my study.<\/p>\n

What it means for colleges<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Some may think these findings show the importance of students taking the initiative to reach out to the college they want to attend. But I would argue that my findings show the importance of four-year colleges being more intentional about helping community college students transfer. Specifically, I think that officials at four-year colleges should treat community college students as prospective four-year college students. I also believe that they should reward advisers and faculty who take a more active role in the transfer process. In addition to in-person opportunities, community college students should also be enabled to connect with advisers and faculty online to make it easier for all parties involved.<\/p>\n

It needs to be the new normal to make sure transfer students are seen as individuals with talent and a contribution to make through the transfer pathway. They are more than numbers. Elizabeth\u2019s and Dominic\u2019s stories illustrate the difference that genuine personal relationships with advisers and faculty at four-year colleges can make to chart a successful transfer.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Xueli Wang is a Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth has always wanted to be a doctor. While a high school senior, she was hoping to achieve her dream through attending the state\u2019s main university campus, but she was put on a waiting list. A friend talked her into taking a path less traveled, by starting out at a local two-year college and then […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":54411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[357444],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-54410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-students-transfer-t"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDoing this one thing helps community college students transfer to a 4-year university - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/doing-this-one-thing-helps-community-college-students-transfer-to-a-4-year-university\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Doing this one thing helps community college students transfer to a 4-year university - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Elizabeth has always wanted to be a doctor. 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