Eddie Puente/Associate Editor
On Tuesday 20, Del Mar College hosted Transfer Day at the Harvin Student Center.
Over 40 universities were represented to help students make the transition from community college to a four-year university an easier process. This event is held every fall semester in the hopes of encouraging students with plans to transfer to another school to begin the process before deadlines are missed.
Sara J. King, Outreach Specialist at Del Mar College, offers “the first thing you want to do is contact the college or university you plan to transfer to and you need to speak to a transfer counselor on that campus and that counselor will let you know what the steps are needed to transfer.” Most colleges and universities in Texas have staff on hand whose sole purpose on campus is to help students complete the transfer process. Students will need to complete a transfer admissions application, which you can do at www.applytexas.org.
You need to find out if you meet all of the requirements needed to become a student at that particular university. Knowing when the application is due is also a major point of interest in your life. Some universities will charge you a fee that must be submitted with your application. It is usually a non-refundable fee. If you need housing it is essential to discuss this with a transition specialist at your choice of university, hence the need to contact the school as early as possible. The university should inform you of any security deposits necessary.
You will need to provide an official transcript from any college or university you have attended. Any military transcripts should also be provided if applicable. A core residency questionnaire is usually also required, this is proof of your Texas residency. King says “If you do not have 30 credit hours then you are still going to be considered a freshman, so you will need to submit a high school transcript and SAT or ACT scores. You will want to submit your Texas Higher Education Assessment, THEA, exam scores. Most universities, that’s all they require, those three things; The Admissions application, their transcripts, and their THEA cores.
Each university has different requirements for acceptable G.P.A., grade point averages, in order for students to be accepted. That is why it is important to contact a representative from the school to find out what is acceptable and what is necessary.
When should a student start the process? According to King ”students usually want to start the transfer process the semester before they are planning to transfer, for example if a student wants to transfer in the spring they will need to start the transfer process in the fall. Many universities have late transfer deadlines, for instance if you plan on going to Texas A&M Corpus Christi, they usually do not require a student to apply until December.”
How can you find out if all of your credits will transfer with you? Easy, each course you take has a TCCN number, Texas Common Course Number, you can find it on the DMC website. You can also use the website www.collegefortexans.com and you can compare universities across Texas with Del Mar. King states “Of course the best thing to do is always use your transfer guides here on campus. You can speak with one of our enrollment specialists; you can speak to one of the transfer counselors at the university that you plan on attending.” The counselors will go over your transcript and make sure that your credits will transfer over. Most of the credits you complete here at Del Mar will transfer to a four-year university in the state of Texas. Most trade programs such as culinary arts and cosmetology do not transfer. In addition all development class credits will not transfer.
Should you get letters of recommendation? King says “ Some universities like letters of recommendation for students who are planning on getting scholarships. Most of the time if you are a transfer student really the only thing they look at is your G.P.A., that is it. If you know your G.P.A. is low, it might not be a bad idea to get recommendation letters together to send with your transcript, because that might be able to help them balance out their decision.”
Letters of recommendation should come from your advisor or one of your professors. Letters from members of the general public are acceptable but you want a letter from someone from the campus you are attending, someone that knows what you are like as a student.
Kings states, “ You are lucky to attend Del Mar because all of your credits from DMC will transfer to a four-year university. Many of the trade schools in Corpus Christi do not offer the same thing so all the credits you earned at their campus will not go anywhere. Many students do not know that DMC has transfer agreements with Texas A&M College Station and Texas A&M Corpus Christi, so you would be able to transfer pretty easily if you wanted to attend their schools.”
So if you plan on transferring soon, visit a transition coordinator at the Student Enrollment Center and find all the answers to your transfer questions. Take advantage of these websites also.
www.collegefortexans.com
www.transfer101.org
www.applytexas.org