What happens when we stop talking about transfer students—and start listening to them?
Recorded live at The Assembly, this special crossover episode brings Transfer Tea and Transfer Nation together for an honest, unfiltered conversation centered on the transfer student experience. Loida González Utley and Heather Adams sit down with transfer students to explore what transfer made possible for them, where institutional processes made their journeys harder, who helped them feel supported and welcomed, and what they want higher education professionals to do differently.
From navigating credit and finding accurate information to belonging, advocacy, and the power of human connection, this conversation challenges us to see transfer beyond policies, processes, and data—and through the eyes of the students experiencing it.
Because transfer students aren’t just participants in our systems. They are experts in how those systems are experienced.
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| 0:00:13.6 | 72.1s | Loida González Utley | Welcome back to Transfer tea, where we talk honestly about transfer, learning mobility, and the systems we build around students. This episode is a little different and a lot of fun. Live from the assembly, we teamed up with Doctor Heather Adams and Transfer Nation for a special podcast mashup called Life and Unfiltered, a transfer team by Transfer Nation podcast Mashup. And for this conversation, we wanted to do something simple but important. Listen. We invited some transfer students to tell us what transfer actually looked like and felt like from their side of the process, the moments that opened doors, the moments that made the journey harder than it needed to be, and the people who made a difference and what they wish those of us working in higher education would do differently, because we can talk about transfer policy, credit mobility, pathways, technology, and data all day long, but behind every process we design is a student who has to navigate it. So grab your tea and join us for a conversation that was live, candid, and completely centered on the student experience. This is Transfer tea and Transfer Nation. Let’s get into it. |
| 0:01:29.62 | 116.6s | John Panzika, CollegeSource | Good morning, everyone. On behalf of College Source, I’d like to welcome you back to day two of the inaugural, the Assembly. It’s truly a pleasure to be here with you and we’re honored to sponsor this morning’s plenary session. Many of us at CollegeSource have been part of this community for years. We’ve proudly supported AACRAO’s Technology and Transfer Summit, and it’s exciting to see that work evolve into the assembly, a convening that reflects where learning mobility is headed and what our profession needs most today. At College Source we believe learning mobility is about creating better opportunities for learners, whether students are transferring between institutions, bringing prior learning to the table, or navigating increasingly complex educational pathways. They deserve systems that are transparent, connected, and designed to help them succeed. Those goals can’t be achieved by any one institution or organization working alone. They require collaboration across higher education, thoughtful use of technology, and partnerships that bring together practitioners, innovators, and leaders from across the country. That’s why we’re proud to support gatherings like the assembly. This isn’t simply a conference, it’s a community working together to improve learning mobility and strengthen outcomes for students. I hope you’ll take some time during the conference to stop by all of the vendor, uh, booths, but particularly ours. Just a little shot there, um, we’d love to hear about the work you’re doing at your institution, the challenges you’re navigating, and the opportunities you see ahead. Most importantly, we’d love to continue the conversation that begins here this week. Thank you for allowing College Source to be part of this important work and now it is my pleasure to welcome back your conference director, Doctor Loida Gonzalez Utley. |
| 0:03:26.96 | 0.6s | Loida González Utley | Mhm |
| 0:03:34.63 | 198.8s | Loida González Utley | Thank you, John, and thank you College Source for your long standing partnership with AACRAO and your continued investment in learning mobility. Well, good morning and welcome to day dos of the assembly. Um, I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s sessions and made some new connections and had a productive first day in your project-based learning pods. We’re excited to continue the conversation and the work today to NASH, the National Association of Higher Education Systems. AACRAO thanks you for your partnership in launching the inaugural Learning Mobility Challenge. To our coaches and participants, I want to publicly congratulate you on the time and the work you put into your time to Decision challenge. We look forward to hearing about your work as it progresses. Before we begin, I have just a few housekeeping reminders. The first, one of the greatest strengths of the assembly is the expertise in this room. Whether you’re new to the profession or whether you’re, you’ve been advancing learning mobility for decades, there’s someone here you can learn from and someone you can inspire. I encourage you to introduce yourself to someone you haven’t met yet, exchange ideas, and continue building the incredible community. I’d also encourage you to spend time with our partners in the exhibit spaces. These organizations are more than exhibitors, they are collaborators in advancing learning mobility. Stop by their booths, learn about the innovative solutions they offer, and explore how they can support the work happening at your institutions. As you attend sessions throughout the conference, please take a few moments to complete the session evaluations in the conference app. Your feedback is incredibly valuable. It helps us to recognize our presenters for their contributions and ensures we continue improving the future assembly programs. Speaking of the app, if you haven’t already, be sure you’ve enabled notifications in whovaor Hova or Hova, whatever. Any schedule updates, room changes, or important announcements will be communicated there throughout the conference. And finally, please remember to wear your conference badge at all times. It helps our staff identify participants, supports the security of the event, and keeps everything running very smoothly. Now let’s turn our attention to this morning’s plenary. One of the guiding principles of learning mobility is that the work. Is that the work should always be learner centered throughout this conference we’ll be taking, we’ll be talking about policies, technology processes and innovation, but none of that matters if we lose sight of the learners who experience that this morning we’re putting together learner voices at the center of our conversation. I’m especially excited because I have the opportunity to trade my conference director hat for another role I enjoy, host of Transfer Tea. Joining me is Doctor Heather Adams, host of the Transfer Nation Talks, as we bring our two podcasts together for a special live conversation with three outstanding representatives. They’ll introduce themselves in just a moment, and we’ll hope you listen not only to their stories, but also to the lessons that they offer all of us as we continue to advance learning mobility. So with that, I am going to leave the podium, grab a seat with Heather and our special guests, and let’s get the conversation |
| 0:06:53.41 | 2.4s | Heather Adams | started. Yay. |
| 0:06:59.51 | 239.5s | Heather Adams | Alright, hi everyone, I’m Heather Adams, thrilled to be here for the mashup live podcast mashup. Um, if you don’t know, the Transfer Nation Talks podcast is just an opportunity to have casual, um, honest conversations about what’s working, what’s not. Um, it’s very much like Transfer tea. We, we trade, uh, episodes often and, uh, trade ideas for episodes as well. Um, but today is really about the open, honest conversation around students, the student experience, the transfer experience, especially, because let’s face it, we’re all transfer champions, uh, in this room, and so we’re really interested to hear, uh, the story of our learners. So I’m gonna have you, oops, sorry about that, I knew I was gonna do it. I’m gonna probably hit this mic like 5 million times, so I’ve worn them in the back. Um, I wanna have you all introduce yourself, um, maybe your name, some of the institutions you’ve transferred to or from, uh, and maybe your favorite thing about your transfer experience. How’s that sound? It’s good. Um, hi everyone, I’m Naomi Long. I am a community college graduate from Brookdale Community College in New Jersey and a current senior. Are they here? Uh, also from New Jersey, New Jersey. I am currently a senior at the George Washington University here in DC. Um, my favorite thing about transferring, I think, is the community that I’ve found. Um, I’m the current president of the Transfer Student Association at George. Washington and it’s been an incredible experience to hear everyone’s stories as they come in from different institutions with different journeys um and to be able to connect them with resources and different people at our school has been just so incredible. Really love it. My name is Daria and thank you so much for having me here everybody. I’m really happy to be here. Um, I currently attend Georgetown University and I transferred from the George Washington University and I’m also really thankful for GWU for setting me up with a good foundation in my coursework. What I’m really grateful for is being able to pursue a unique path of study that is. Tailored to my interest, so I’m studying international politics with a concentration in international law and receiving a certificate in diplomatic studies. Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Dariani Bautista. Uh, I recently just graduated from George Washington University in May. Thank you. Um, I earned a double degree in political science and philosophy, uh, and I transferred from Bergen Community College in New Jersey, so I’m in New Jersey through and through. We got a lot of New Jersey in the house. Yes, a lot of Jersey. Uh, they like to say that like DC is full of people from New Jersey. Um, but I currently serve as the education justice paralegal at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and if I have to say just one thing out of the many things that I loved about my experience at GW and transferring, it was definitely how. Embraced and welcomed, I was, uh, I started my role as the first transfer admissions ambassador at GW on my second day on campus when I went to go complain about the fact that I hadn’t gotten my transfer merit scholarship. They offered me a job. Yeah, it was great and uh I actually was the founder of the Transfer Student Association. GW really um just embraced my experience and my intersecting identities as a transfer student and that paved the way for a lot of the work that we’re doing now, especially the work that Naomi is leading as current president and so I’m just really, really like happy to be here and I’m super proud to be a transfer student. |
| 0:11:00.0 | 14.5s | Loida González Utley | Now because we are live and unfiltered, and we want all the tea, uh, so thank you for sharing what you have so far. We want to know, uh, what were you excited, nervous, or uncertain about? |
| 0:11:16.58 | 208.1s | Heather Adams | Oh, I think for me it was going from such a small like community. I went from a really tiny community college, not that tiny in New Jersey standards, but a relatively small area to going to a college as large as GW. It was really intimidating, um, and I felt uncertain because I felt like I was gonna get lost on campus. I didn’t know how many other transfer students there were gonna be. I didn’t know how many other people like me they were gonna be and. I was really scared about, you know, adapting to the very different lifestyle in DC. I was worried that I was gonna be, you know, left behind, that I wasn’t gonna be able to be academically or professionally competitive, um, and it was really intimidating, um, but I think that finding that community at GW and finding out that everyone else felt the exact same way was really encouraging, um, and it did a lot to make me feel at home. Yeah, for me, I’ve grown up in the DC area so I didn’t really have to worry about having to adapt to a new environment city wise, but for me I was definitely nervous and a little uncertain about maybe the difficulty of the classes and how that would play out as well as I’ve heard that Georgetown has a competitive club culture environment with the school organizations and clubs, so I was kind of nervous about the integration into. To those groups and also about potentially if I could get any leadership positions within those. And then with transfers, there’s also, you get late housing, you get the last selection, and you get a random roommate automatically. So there are also some uncertainties there, but thankfully it all played out well and I was able to get along with my roommate really well, so I’m happy about that. I’m really happy for you. Um, I think for me, Uh, so for reference, I come from a very low income community in New Jersey. I’m from Newark and I’m the first in my family to go to college. Uh, I went to a very low income high school and I actually failed my first year in community college because I just did not have the academic foundation and I struggled a lot and it was thanks to the support services at Bergen that I was able to stay afloat and actually, um, like in January of 2023 I had a 0.625 GPA and in September of 2023 I. Getting ready to transfer as a spring transfer with a 3.78, uh, and so it was thanks to the support that I got at Bergen that I was able to really in nine months, uh, do two years of community college in the span of like a year, uh, and so a big worry of mine was am I going to be able to stay academically afloat, uh, when I transfer at whatever institution that I transfer to, uh, and at GW that was a very, very big concern for me, especially because of how academically rigorous I’d heard that. Institution had been am I going to receive the same support services is my experience as a first generation low income student from my background going to be considered not just in the social and community aspect but also in the aspect of academics and I did receive all of those amazing like support services and my professors were so, so welcoming, um, and just so sensitive and understanding of my circumstances and I did graduate magna cum laude, uh, so it was a great experience. |
| 0:14:47.26 | 244.8s | Heather Adams | So I’m curious, when did transfer first become real to you? How did you understand transfer or come to know that that was something that you Uh, you wanted to, that was a path that you wanted to follow. I think coming from a community college, it makes that path very clear to you because you know that like there is a next step for you, which makes it, um, a lot easier because you have that support built into your classes. So you had advisors or I did tell you that, yes, I had a, I had a political science, um. Director at Brookdale Community College who was definitely a key person in my academic journey, um, I have a really interesting background where I was, I was homeschooled for 14 years, neither of my parents went to college, um, and all of my siblings went to Bible college, um, which I obviously did not do, um, and so coming from that kind of background. I had no idea what it looked like to go to college. I had no idea what it looked like to navigate institutions that frankly my family didn’t really love the idea of me navigating, um, and so having someone at my community college that was in my corner and really believed in me and that I could make these steps and push myself forward and become the person that I really truly wanted to be was life changing for me. Yeah, for me, I’m definitely very grateful for all the support I got in my transfer transition into Georgetown. So right away we got assigned a dean, so kind of like an advisor, and it was a really smooth process with getting all my credits accepted, and she also sent me out a list of recommended classes to take. For the incoming fall, so I found that guidance very helpful, and then of course the moment kind of I guess the process became real was definitely just the start of the school year and the orientation program where we were also placed in a group with other transfers, so it was cool to meet other peers kind of navigating a similar journey. I think for me, um, you know, I went to community college on a whim. I graduated high school in 2021, right after the pandemic, and every single woman in my family, I come from a family of teen moms, and I grew up in a single mom, uh, household, and everyone, all of my sisters, my mom included, um, had gone to attend one semester of community college and had failed out. And so, uh, I was kind of like in that same of like I want to go to college. I’ve heard of what an education can do. Uh, I really wanted, um, to kind of break the cycle in my family and so going into community college, I knew that like the next step is to transfer. I had heard about it, um, in high school. Um, I had chosen community college very intentionally, not only because I didn’t have a stellar academic record in high school. School, but also because I had just come out of the pandemic and so I was like, I don’t know what it’s looking like at universities and colleges. Let me go to a community college and I ended up going to one of the largest and biggest community college in colleges in New Jersey. And so I like, even though I didn’t know exactly what I was doing when I was thinking about transferring, I had no idea what that entailed, didn’t know what any of that looked like. I had to actually switch advisors while at Bergen because, uh, you know, not many of. Advisors that were available were uh really supplying students with consistent information and I ended up finding my advisor Tim Foot love that man he was like he was grounding me and he really supported me um and so for me like I always went in with the intention of I wanna get a bachelor’s degree. I wanna earn my associate’s degree and whoever was willing to give me that information like I was open ears and always open minded to to that opportunity. Awesome. |
| 0:18:52.56 | 23.2s | Loida González Utley | You’re sitting in a room full of people that are changemakers, people that have committed to improving transfer, improving the learner experience. So this next question is really important to us, and the reason why we’re here and working really, really hard to change this whole system for you. Where did the transfer process or system make your journey feel harder than it needed to be? |
| 0:19:17.33 | 477.7s | Heather Adams | Um, one of the biggest struggles that I think I had transferring to GW was at that time I transferred in fall 2024. Um, we didn’t have a transfer student orientation. You had regular orientation. You were in with all these 1718 year olds who were doing college for the first time, and many of us who were transfer students were a little bit older, came from very different backgrounds, and had a lot of experience already navigating college, um, and you felt lost. I mean, you showed up to this huge city campus, my first time on a city campus. I had no idea where to go. I had no one to help me. Um, and I remember sitting in, we had a small group session, and our small group leader was not a transfer student themselves, and they said to us, they were like, you know, transfer students can be so jaded. And I was like, I was like, I really wanted to be there, and I really wanted to become a part of that community and really wanted to dedicate myself to that, and it felt very discouraging that there was really no place for me to go. Um, and I think that GW since then, both Daani and I have worked really closely together, building that community and that home, and we really have since then received a lot of support, um, and I think the biggest thing has been like, GW has been so receptive to us speaking up about it and us saying, you guys are lacking. X, Y, and Z, and really when we were doing that, I felt very scared because it, it felt like it was something that I shouldn’t be saying. It felt like I should be like GW gives me so much money, they give me a place to be. It felt like I was being ungrateful, um, but they were incredible about it, and they heard us and they made those changes. Immediately and that’s not the case anymore. I’m really excited to be a part of the new transfer student orientation, um, which is gonna be happening on the 19th next month, um, and seeing the way that that process has completely changed the transfer experience and how much more encouraged people feel when they’re coming in now has been so important to me. Yeah, building off of that, I’m definitely grateful that for my orientation I was kind of placed within a transfer group so the new student orientation takes place for all students, but then within that we had like smaller discussion groups and where we had, you know, a tour of the school and other activities within smaller subgroups and so there we were placed with. Other transfers and I think also having an older transfer student speak to us about their experience and how they were involved on campus was definitely very great mentorship from there and so I’m very grateful for that. For me, uh, the only kind of issue that I faced was a little bit with the credit transfers, so I think I had a. Pretty smooth experience. Like everything transferred except for at Georgetown, the language credits don’t transfer, and that was a bit unfortunate because I’d taken 9 credits worth of languages my previous year and so that was, that was kind of a lot to lose and so the, the only way that you could get those credits back was to take another language class at Georgetown. And for me I’d gotten to a level of Spanish that I was already kind of pretty happy with like an advanced level, and I hadn’t really intended on pursuing more classes, so the only kind of setback is that then in the fall I had to take a Spanish class again when I didn’t. Necessarily wanna be there and it’s just that I had no option to take any test or place out of it it’s like show my abilities so that’s just kind of one thing I would change in the process is maybe to have the option to do a certain placement test for languages or for any other classes. I think for me I’ve grown very accustomed to understanding that a lot of the systems um when it comes to higher education don’t often and are not designed to consider or center the experiences of uh underserved students and so not only did I not know how to for example do a CSS profile which I did not know what that even. was until December, a month before I was transferring to GW, um, but just not having, like, in addition to the fact that there is, there was no infrastructure before me getting to GW, there was no student association, there was no dedicated, um, orientation team, there was no dedicated staff in the admissions office to transfer students, uh, really we were just kind of it was a free for all and. Kind of sent in into this new institution to this new city, uh, to kind of navigate it on our own and so not only was there the aspect of not having this infrastructure which all students were struggling with, but also being somebody who’s an underserved student, I don’t know how to navigate even my financial aid processes. I don’t know how to necessarily obtain half of the records that I need to obtain. And so a very big issue for me was that because there were no support services at GW for financial literacy, uh, for prospective and incoming students, um, when it came to CSS profiles, when it comes to financial aid, when it comes to applying to transfer scholarships, um, none of those were available and so I actually ended up messing up my CSS profile, um, and again. Come from a single parent home. CSS profile requires you to put in both of your parents. I didn’t have my, my second parent, um, and so it ended up getting very prolonged. I didn’t get my financial aid, uh, offer until a month into being at GW, and then even though I had an estimated family contribution of -15,000-15,000 for my family. Um, I ended up getting charged $20,000 for that semester, and it was extremely scary because my mom, again, we’re very low income. If my mom could have a negative credit score, she would have it, um, and there was no way that we could get any loan, even like a, a plus parent loan. Um, and it was thanks to actually one of the heads of the, um, of the registrar’s office of the Financial aid office. He ended up taking the entire balance out for me. Um, I was again so, so, so grateful, um, because I also didn’t end up getting my Phi Theta Kappa honors scholarship from GW. Uh, GW had done a very. Poor job at communicating that spring transfers were not eligible for the PTK scholarship but fall transfers were, um, and so that was something that I really worked on, uh, throughout my two years at GW is like trying to garner the transparency when it comes to transfer merit scholarships, but truly considering that. A lot of these processes don’t center financial need and the needs of very underserved or more vulnerable students. I think one of the best ways that an institution can really, um, consider and center the intersecting identities of transfer students, especially those that are coming from low income backgrounds, students of color, um. Is to center their experience in financial processes. GW actually in collaboration with me, we started a financial literacy program where students are now able to view videos. They can hop on Zoom throughout each transfer cycle and ask us, ask us questions about the CSS profile. We support them with their CSS profile application and that made all the difference and it was thanks to them listening to me in my experience that that was able to happen and so I, I really do believe that transfer students deserve to be financed and that’s one of the best ways, uh, to kind of bridge that gap. |
| 0:27:15.43 | 22.4s | Loida González Utley | Uh, as a follow up, I wanted to share this, and I’ve shared it on my podcast, um, early on in the beginning stages that one of the first things that I was told in my early in my transfer career was we don’t have these resources because transfer students should already know they’re coming from a, they’re coming from a community college. They already know how to claim their email. They should know how to claim their ID. What is your reaction to that? |
| 0:27:38.63 | 941.7s | Heather Adams | I didn’t know how to do any of that. I actually had to call them. I don’t know how to. I’ll go into my portal. I don’t know how to get into my email. I didn’t know how to even get into like the G website, which is like where you see your courses. I didn’t know how to register for classes. I didn’t register for classes until the week before, and I think honestly it’s insensitive, um, because it’s, it takes. A lot of privilege to know those things. Um, a lot of community colleges are very under-resourced. My last year in community college, uh, the governor of New Jersey had actually proposed a $20 million budget cut towards community colleges in the state. Mind you, we’re one of the states with the highest ranking, uh, for education, uh, and so there. There’s a lot of irony there, um, and so I think there’s this assumption that, oh, you’re going to community college, you have this previous experience, you’ll be better resourced, not the case at all, um, I think in order to be sensitive and understanding of those experiences we can’t make those improper assumptions as to what resources someone may or may not have. All right, so we’ve got a bunch of self-starters here and you’ve advocated for yourself very well. Um, you’ve mentioned a few people. Doctor Foot, was it Tim Foot? Shout out to Tim Footte, um, and, and, uh, maybe organizations or departments that have supported you along the way. Are there other tools or specific individuals or, um, elements of the experience that were super helpful that were like, you know, catalyzed your experience in some way? At GW definitely to give a huge shout out to our associate director of admissions Christine Butler. Christine, she’s my hero. I love her so much. Um, I remember like trying to navigate taking over the transfer student association and feeling really lost. We as an association we’re like one of the. Least funded on campus we had no money, we had no resources, we had no office, um, it was really overwhelming trying to do that with an incoming class we were expecting like 3 or 400 new transfer students and we were expected then to attend the sessions with them and be a resource for them and we didn’t have anything. I was like. I don’t know how to answer these questions because especially at GW we have about um almost an even 50/50 split between horizontal and vertical transfer students and I’m a vertical transfer student. I don’t know anything about being a horizontal transfer. I don’t know what it’s like to be at a four-year institution and navigating to another four-year institution, so it was overwhelming for me, definitely. Um, and I remember reaching out to Chris and being like, I, I’m getting asked all these questions about housing, about financial aid, about things that I don’t, I don’t have resources to. And she was like, let’s get coffee. And she sat down with me for 2 hours and just listened to everything. And as soon as we were done, she turned around and she said, we’re gonna figure this out. She gave us funding, she gave us food to bring to our events, she gave us institutional support that I didn’t even know was possible at GW. And it was because she cared. It was, it was one person made that huge change. And really felt like we could build something at GW and make a home for transfer students, and we have, and I’m so excited now we’re working with advising in 3 of our different schools at GW to work on first year experience classes for transfer students, which is a brand new thing, we never had this before, where transfer students now as they come into GW will be able to take classes that teach you how to register for. Courses, how to navigate applying for graduation, how to navigate appealing your financial aid, things like that that are so relevant specifically for transfer students that other students may not know how to, or other advisers even may not know how to approach, um, and so we have, because of Chris, been able to build this beautiful community, and it was genuinely just her going out of her way and being encouraging to us. For me, I had a lot of opportunities of different types of mentorship in my transfer, uh, transition and that I found really helpful. So there is, for example, in the summer we were paired with a transfer student from a previous year that was most of the time it was a a current senior, and so we got, it was like an email list. There’s around 20 students or so paired to one other older transfer and they held a Zoom. Sessions as well as just email threads where we could talk about any any questions we had or we could learn about the older transfers experiences with their involvement in clubs so that I found helpful. There was also this one time there was an invite. It was actually an informal gathering at uh. Alum’s house and so that was also that was that wasn’t only for transfers that was for all new students but there were also a couple of transfers there. Um, so it was just kind of a gathering and you get to talk to different people. Also there were some current students answering a couple of questions, so the gatherings and informal settings like that prior to the start of the school year, um, definitely made me feel welcomed. Another experience I would highlight is Escape, which is a Georgetown program. For also for first years, but they have a special group dedicated to transfers, so it’s for one weekend and you go on a retreat to the mountains in Virginia and you just do a lot of group activities, um, like hiking and then they have you like sing songs together you’re like, um, kind of like singing together to bond yeah kind of. Like summer camp vibes, um, yeah, but that was great and they were also the leaders of that escape weekend were also older transfers and so they also talked about any challenges they face and also their transition. So I think kind of events like that where it was especially kind of outside of a more formal academic setting that was kind of less pressure and you kind of got to get away from. Any academic stress and just kind of get to know people in a more informal setting was very great for me, yeah. Can I get invited to that? I know it’s really all one. Uh, for me, of course, I mentioned Tim Foote. He was absolutely amazing and like Naomi, Chris Butler is my hero. Uh, I actually just grabbed coffee with her last week. Uh, Chris was the person who I spoke to on my second day on campus when I went to go complain about the fact that I hadn’t gotten my PTK scholarship, and she is the person who offered me my job. Uh, she cornered me into starting my job as a transfer admissions ambassador. Um, she also cornered. Me into starting my role as the first transfer orientation leader, uh, she also cornered me into starting the transfer student association, um, and so I truly like the infrastructure that is in place today that, uh, Naomi and I have been able to pioneer would not be possible if it hadn’t been for Chris really like pushing and, and wanting and desiring and really centering that transfer. Experience she we were talking about it like last week she was like, I, I know I had to push you into it, uh, because I was like I need to like academically stay afloat. I don’t have time to become the transfer student admissions ambassador. Why am I responsible for now creating all this infrastructure and leading this charge, um, but very quickly I found my place in that work. I found my passion in that work and I’m now working in education, justice and. Entirely because of that, and if there’s one more person that’s different that I would have to also credit, uh, it would have to be Professor Seamus Gibbons at Bergen Community College. Um, he was my summer English professor, and he actually dedicated his entire course that summer. It was only 6 weeks long to affirmative action and learning about college admissions from the lens of, uh, an underserved community, and it was the first time I had ever heard. Of affirmative action I had ever heard that, uh, you know, it was different from where I come, where I had come from. I did not know that educational disparities were a broader issue. I had no idea that there was, you know, anything, any patterns beyond what me and my family had gone through, um, in those cycles. I didn’t know that that was a broader issue. I had really started to believe that I was dumb. Uh, and that college was not for me, school was not for me, uh, and that I needed to drop out, and I was, I was really teetering and dropping out, and it was that course, it was Professor Seamus Gibbons pouring into me. It was me learning and having that opportunity to education and learning that I wasn’t the problem and that I was just a product of my environment that really changed my mindset and the way that I looked at at the classroom. I stopped. Stopped internalizing and I started moving away from the idea that I didn’t belong in the classroom to understanding that I was underserved and that just meant that my path was not going to be linear it meant that it wasn’t going to look like the traditional path and that I was gonna have to work harder but it didn’t mean that I didn’t belong in a classroom or that I wasn’t built for an education. It just meant that I needed different support services and I found that at GW. Wow. All right, so, uh, you are in this room, as, uh, Loida said, uh full of change makers and folks who can, um, affect things at their campuses. So we kinda wanna get really direct, um, what would you like folks in this room to know, um, that they can take back to their teams. About what they could do differently we’re gonna talk about the good things we, we talked about a lot of the great stuff, but I wanna kind of do like a start stop keep sort of exercise, right? Is there one thing you would say to folks in the room that you think, uh, institutions should stop doing. I would say the biggest flaw that I see a lot of times that, you know, admissions officers tend to kind of overlook when it comes to transfer orientation is transfer students need a home. Like they can’t just come to your campus and they can’t just get like 2 dozen emails telling them where to go and how to navigate. That can be really overwhelming for people. And a lot of us are first generation students, a lot of us are underserved communities, a lot of us are part-time, we have part-time jobs and we’re handling other things. Many transfer students. Families, there’s a lot to navigate and so when you throw resources at them, it can be done in a helpful sense it can be, I’m trying to give them as much access as I can to this, and it can really easily get completely lost because oftentimes there’s just bigger issues, you know. Um, so what we’re working at GW to do right now is to build somewhere where when you look up transfer students GW, there’s a page, and there’s a page that says transfer students on it, and there’s a page that tells you, here’s where to go for this, here’s where to go for housing, here’s the timeline for financial aid, here’s where you can find resources to this. Do you wanna connect with students? Here’s a. Source for that to answer all of those immediate questions that transfer students are inevitably going to have rather than having them do all these steps to first set up their email and then receive 24 emails from 24 different offices and have to jump between those, having something that is a one stop that gives you, here’s what you need to know, ask us if you need more help. That is so important for transfer students, because, frankly, a lot of times transfer students just. They get so distracted by everything going on. Sometimes they don’t need the social events. Sometimes they don’t need to go to every coffee chat and networking event and meet other students. Sometimes they need to know where the financial aid office is, and that needs to be easily accessible for them, because if I’m running late to work, but my financial aid offer hasn’t come in yet, and I’m stressed about that, like it can. Be a lot and it’s a reason why a lot of transfer students end up stopping out because they feel overwhelmed because they feel like they they don’t have time to go to 6 different offices and look through all these different emails, um, so having something where transfer students can get the answers that they need immediately, even if it’s just a page, even if it’s just a webinar, even something like that, it can really change a lot of. Experiences for transfer students. All right, I like this. So stop so institutions could stop making assumptions about transfers that they’re exactly the same as maybe another student community and start this one stop shop focused working with students to create resources for students. I love that. All right, so start stop keep what are you thinking, Daria? I honestly can’t really think of a specific element for what to stop, but I would definitely second Naomi’s point that institutions should stop assuming that all transfer students are the same and just providing as many opportunities as possible, um, to integrate themselves into the community socially, academically, um, professionally. I think I second both Daria and Naomi, um, and I would say start financing your transfer students. Um, I recently got a grant from an organization called Go Passport that focuses on giving grants, um, to first generation low income students to, uh, do internships over the summers and. If organizations like that can see the investment in first generation low income students and students from different backgrounds, um, and more diverse backgrounds, then I think we as a collective can see the value in having transfer students who are truly such a diverse pool of applicants that come from so many different backgrounds and walks of life. We can see the value in having them at our institutions and having them pursue a higher education, uh. There are not many, uh, merit scholarship, um, opportunities for transfer students. Um, it’s like a historical thing. You have to go get the Jack Kent Cook scholarship if you’re lucky, um, and that’s like a below, I think like 1% acceptance rate. I know I have a couple of friends that are Jack Kent Cook scholars and that’s amazing for them, but I would not have been able to attend GW had it not been for my financial aid offer. I would not have been able to live half of the life that I’ve lived up until this point. My circumstances. have completely changed because I was financed, because I was valued, and I was seen as an investment into the GW community and into the future of higher education and transfer students truly deserved to be financed. So start financing your transfer students, start considering them in your budget, not just the fall transfers, but also your spring transfers, and make sure that they have access to financial aid, access to scholarships, because it’s extremely important. I think maybe we should throw it to the audience. |
| 0:43:20.58 | 1.2s | Loida González Utley | Yeah, let’s get to the fun part. |
| 0:43:21.89 | 79.4s | Heather Adams | Yeah, alright, y’all, pressure’s on. There’s mics, uh, in the middle of the room. What questions do you have for these amazing badass women, powerhouses here? What do you wanna know? What, let’s get into it. Hi, hi, good morning. Um, so surprise, I’m from George Washington University. Oh no, I’m the university registrar, uh, so I just wanna say while I don’t have a specific question, also huge shout out to Chris Butler. She’s fantastic. Pretty sure we all wanna be here when we grow up. All right, we’re gonna get her for a keynote next year, I think. Absolutely fantastic. Um, but I did just want to thank you guys, really all three of you, as to, you know, an alum, a former GW student, and a current GW student for everything that you guys have done for our student population and for our transfer students. Um, I recently have been having the pleasure of writing a portion of our self-study for our re-accreditation, and the, uh, student, um, Transfer Student Association is one of the things in talking with Chris that we are highlighting in my chapter, uh, and really just wanted to thank you guys for the Transfer Nation for our student population, specifically on transfers that you guys have made. Thank you. |
| 0:44:47.68 | 572.9s | Heather Adams | Other questions, thoughts, comments. Good morning. Thanks so much for being here. It’s exciting to hear your stories and learn a little bit more about your experience. Excuse me. My name is Kathy Clark and I serve as registrar at a private school in Pennsylvania. And I am very curious, we’ve not talked a lot about or heard a lot about this this morning. What has your transfer experience been like with credit evaluations? So how did your, um, how did your transfer transcript, how were those courses evaluated and then applied to your program of study? If you can talk a little bit about that. Yeah, um, I had a big problem with the way that GW did transfer credits the first time that I came to GW. Um, uh, the process that it happened, I, I think it’s a little bit different now, but when I went through the transfer process, you submit your transcript, um, and for me, I had transcripts from like 3 different colleges, right? So first of all, it was expensive. It was, it was a lot of money. As a person, again, I, I don’t have a lot of money. I work 3 jobs, like. It was a lot to do that, especially because I applied to more colleges than GW, so 3 transcripts to X amount of colleges, hundreds of dollars. It’s really expensive. Um, so that was tough. And then once my transcripts went through to GW, it took quite a while to get a response, which was scary, right? Because I had different options, but GW was like. My shining star, I wanted to go to GW so bad, um, that I committed without knowing my transfer credits and without a, uh, financial aid offer, which was terrifying, right? Because I knew that if it was more than $20,000 I would have to drop out. Um, and so that was really scary. And it was a huge discouragement to begin with that, to begin with such low hopes about a college that I was so excited for. Um, and then when I did get my credit response back, I wasn’t able to talk to anyone about it, right? Like they gave me a response, they gave these credits have transferred, these haven’t. This is where they went, and most of them were just Gen eds that did not count toward my degree. Um, and then I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. There wasn’t an email, and in fact, the email that I got about it said, please don’t respond to this email. And so I was like. It’s like shoot, um, so I didn’t know where to go, and that was tough, and that is the number one question that I get asked now as the president of the Transfer Student Association when new students come in, they’re like, this is not right. Who do I talk to about this? And the way that we handle credit appeals. Um, HEW is very much on an individual basis, right? You go to your advisor, and you really don’t get to advocate for yourself. You say, this is what I want, this is what I think should happen, and then the advisor takes it from there. And if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, that’s it, right? And most of the time it doesn’t. Um, and that can be really discouraging, especially for older students who are like, I don’t wanna take university writing again, right? I’ve taken university writing 3 times. Oh my God, that’s too many times. I know how to write. Um, I think. So, and then when I did end up taking university writing at GW for the 3rd time, I didn’t do that well in it, because I was in a room entirely with 18-year-olds, right, which is fine. Um, I was late to work almost every day afterwards because it was on our secondary campus, so that was tough. And I just, I was so tired. I didn’t want to do it again, to have to prove to my college that I am worth being in these other classes again. That was so tough. um, and at GW like there’s ways to get around it, and there’s ways to, to get credit for the things that you’ve already done, but it’s hard, and you have to advocate for yourself a lot and. That wasn’t always a problem with me because I’m an extremely stubborn person, um, and so it ended up working out for me. For a lot of our students, it doesn’t. And it is unfair to expect students to have the time and the resources and the self-confidence to be able to do that, because a lot of them don’t. A lot of them are first generation. A lot of them don’t know that you can do that. A lot of them don’t know that you can argue with your college, right? Um, and so it can be really, really difficult for students to then have to take an extra semester or an extra year and spend more money and spend more time. Um, and so I would say that that is like, it’s a huge part of the transfer experience, is making sure that you, as a registrar, you as whoever handles courses at your college, is accessible. And that is, even if, like, some sometimes it knows or knows, right, for transfer credits, and that’s fine. But be there to have the conversation about it. So Dari, you’re kind of, you, you’re dealing with this right now, right, especially with the um the Spanish classes that you’re brought, I mean I transferred, um, it was like last fall, so OK, I got it. Got it. Any other issues other than the languages? Um, no, I mean, yeah, the languages was kind of mostly it. I know it kind of depends. Like some of my other, uh, transfer friends that I know of, like they didn’t really have as smooth of a process of getting their classes accepted, and I, I don’t really know how that system works exactly. I think it kind of. It just depends on maybe like the school or like the type of specific requirements that they’re looking to satisfy in every class, um, but yeah, for me the process was pretty smooth. I think I was able to receive my transcript from GW to send it over pretty easily accessible for a small fee or maybe even for free. And then after that, once I confirmed my acceptance, I had the transfer dean reach out to me and kind of explain the process, and she asked to send over again my transcript and also just the different syllabuses for each class and then I think it took around a week or two for her to look over all the materials and then she sent me kind of like a a spreadsheet of what had gotten approved. And like for what category had gotten counted counted for, so everything, if it wasn’t able to pertain to one of their specific requirements, it was just taken as an elective. And another thing that Georgetown did is they waive, I think it’s like a first year seminar that freshmen have to do, but they waive it for the transfers, um, so that was nice that there was like one requirement that we didn’t have to go through again. For me, I had 12 credits from a Spanish club exam that I had taken in community college, uh, that GW just would not take. They refused, so I was 12, um, credits behind when I started my time at GW. Other than that, I was very fortunate to my community college actually giving my, um, transcripts to institutions for free. And GW is actually the only college that I applied to that did not have a pipeline partnership with my community college. Um, I had only applied to two schools out of state. I had applied to GW and NYU. Um, NYU had a pipeline scholarship, um, and partnership with my university, with, with my community college. GW did not, um, but because. I went to a community college that is one of the largest and I believe it’s the 2nd or 1st, um, in the state of New Jersey in terms of ranking, um, all of my credits other than that FLE exam, uh, actually transferred through, um, and so I still was very, very fortunate to have that opportunity. Uh, I felt like especially because everyone, every single one of my. Friends that had transferred with me were having some very serious problems with getting their credits evaluated. I had a friend who had transferred from the University of Washington in Seattle. I had another friend who had transferred from Ocean Community College in New Jersey, and almost half of their credits were not actually being accepted by the university, and I think I credit a lot of the. Opportunity of my credits actually transferring uh to what institution I attended uh because I went to Bergen Community College um GW actually had a uh better relationship uh in terms of how those credits actually transferred and actually a year later I ended up going with, uh, one of our former admissions, uh, officers at GW. For the transfer team to Bergen Community College because they wanted to formally start a partnership program with Bergen Community College and so like I, I really like to say like on the terms of registrars and actually having those credits evaluated, uh, having those partnerships available is extremely important because it truly made my experience so much better. Brookdale is number one in the state. That’s |
| 0:54:23.62 | 4.0s | Heather Adams | So we probably have time for one more question if anybody. Oh yay, go |
| 0:54:27.59 | 1.9s | Owen | for it. Hello, is this on? |
| 0:54:29.59 | 1.4s | Heather Adams | Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. |
| 0:54:31.35 | 48.0s | Owen | Uh, hi, I’m Owen. I work at the Greenhouse team at College Board leading the transfer success team. And thank you for sharing your experiences. As a designer and researcher myself, I love hearing from students, understanding your pain points, what you, what you do, what you use, how you’ve filled in gaps, and so forth. So, I’m going to ask a question sort of building upon that credit equivalency question you just had. Tell me more if you did or how you did this, any pathway planning you may have done to help sort of map out your entire journey or think about your community college, not just the credit transfer. But where do you want to go in the degree and if you were able to sort of navigate a pathway because clearly you’ve you’ve done some things, but I want to understand more what tools or things you’ve used and also what maybe you would have liked to have had access to, what would have made that pathway planning easier because I imagine it has been difficult. So I’d love to hear more about that. |
| 0:55:19.50 | 213.0s | Heather Adams | Absolutely. Um, GW has this really awesome resource called Degree map. Um, which it will intake your credits and it will tell you this is what you need to go, here are your options, here’s who you talk to about it for a degree that you are taking, for something you’re enrolled in, or something that maybe even you’re just curious about, you have the ability to build your own really plan of what you want college to look like. It’s digital, it’s online, you enter all your stuff in or your transcripts automatically. It’s already in there, um, so it’s entirely like the student can. Control it, you can edit it to see, you know, whatever that you want to see and how certain classes could fit into your overall plan of, you know, how you wanna graduate on time. Um, I use Degree map like every day. I love that thing. It is amazing. It’s definitely helpful in, in visualizing how you achieve your degree at GW, which is helpful for me being that that was one of the things that I struggled with coming into GW um, GW also has a fantastic. Career services program where you can get help with your resume, get help with your cover letter, and doing applications, um, so we have a lot of fantastic resources at GW and that is the reason that I transferred here, um, so I would say that the number one thing that I think that we lack is an adviser for transfer students, right? We have advisors for classes we have advisors for degree programs. As we had advisors based on school, we do not have an advisor who know what it’s like to be a transfer student, and that changes everything. They don’t have to be a transfer student themselves, um, but a lot of times we struggle with transfer students come in, they talk to their advisor, their adviser is like, hm, I don’t know how to handle this, or I don’t know where to go to, and that’s fine, you know, that can be true, um, but it can often be very overwhelming both for the admissions team and. The advising team and for the transfer student themselves to be like now nobody’s giving me answers because nobody knows, um, and so that is something that we’re working with the um Columbian College of Arts and Sciences with right now about designating at least transfer training for our advising team because we have like 400 transfers coming in. That’s an important thing to know because they all have questions, um, and so it’s important to have someone who knows the answers to those. Other thoughts on tools? I think I second everything that Naomi said. This is why she’s the president of the transfer. Um, I think degree map is absolutely phenomenal, um, and to the point of having a transfer specific advisor. Uh, I was very fortunate that in the College of Columbia Arts and Sciences, the one advisor that knows everything about transfer students, his name is Bobby Lavia. Love that man. Um, he like, he was my advisor from day one at GW. I just got really. Lucky to where I selected like out of the four that I options that I had of an advisor, I selected the person that was the right one for me, um, and I was actually able to get my double degree in philosophy because of that, because of degree math, because Bobby was there supporting me. I actually went back to my community college and actually ended up taking another, uh, class and transfer. Bring that back into GW because GW allows for students after matriculation to transfer up to 12 more credits, um, and Bobby, Bobby walked me through that entire process and so having a transfer specific advisor, um, or just an advisor that knew about transfer students, um, and what their needs were and how to navigate those processes really made all of the difference. |
| 0:58:52.98 | 11.0s | Loida González Utley | Great, I wanna do a quick round here. Do it razzle dazzle really fast. So help us complete this sentence. Transfer students should be able to count on. |
| 0:59:05.38 | 249.0s | Heather Adams | Anybody? It doesn’t matter, actually, in my opinion, where the office is that the transfer student can count on, just that there’s somebody, right? One person, for me, it was Chris. One person changes everything for a transfer student. It can make or break them when it comes to stopping out or transferring out. I would say highlight, I would highlight kind of three things. First, I’d say kind of to be able to count on yourself, um, and just kind of like it can be kind of uncertain sometimes, but just knowing like you know how much hard work you put into this application and everything that it took for you to get here, so you just have to like kind of trust in yourself, also like believe in yourself, like know that you do belong where you are right now, so having that self-confidence too, I would highlight the. Institution and having specific people to reach out to as we talked about, so like a transfer dean or just professors that are maybe familiar with the transfer process or that can answer your questions and then 3 I would say kind of the school and the community for being able to host like school events and like school spirit for example and just schoolwide events which would not only help the transfers but also just the school as a whole so there were a lot. Of kind of events that Georgetown hosted like there’s like a back to school barbecue or like homecoming where it’s like the entire community with like students from all different grades and alum and whoever else, so kind of schoolwide events because it is nice to have transport specific like experiences as well and special mentorship groups, but then you also do want to integrate into the wider school community and so having schoolwide events is also really important. I would say money and mentorship, um, like I said previously, I think financing for transfer students is extremely important, uh, but in addition to that, uh, I think transfer students navigate the professional landscape completely different, and I think mentorship changes your life. Uh, I actually have mentored now 26 students at GW. Um, all from different backgrounds, first gen, transfer students. One of my students actually just graduated from GW two years early. I was his orientation leader. Um, it was insane. I was like, I don’t even know how he did that, but like he made it happen and he, we were just talking on the phone like last week, um, but mentorship really changes the game. Um, one of the last things that I was working on during my time at GW was actually starting a peer mentorship program in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences because often the person who knows, uh, the career landscape better isn’t the advisor in the career services office, it’s the senior that has navigated it, um, and also transfer students like we have to be a lot more audacious when it comes to getting an internship when it. Comes to getting a professional opportunity because we just got there, we just got to this university 1 year, 2 years, 3 years after everybody else has already been there building their network, um, I am one of like the very few college grads of this year. I graduated with 4 job offers and I have like my dream job right now, but it wasn’t because I was super supported professionally at GWU. You it was because I was extremely audacious and I had to be because I had no other choice and if transfer students could be given the mentorship and professional resources to actually be able to transition into better internships into internship opportunities, period, if we’re already in a in a time where it’s hard to get a job, imagine what it’s like when you don’t have the resources to even start. All right y’all, well this was an audacious panel. And so let’s like give it up for the panel. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Um, uh, I can’t wait to see what y’all get up to next because you’re just, you’re, you’re killing it. So, um, anything, any final |
| 1:03:14.37 | 58.2s | Loida González Utley | word? No wrap up. Thank you for your voices. I think that that the true success of transfer is to listening to the students that we serve and you all advocating helps us, helps guide us. It’s our compass. And so I want to just also let you know we’re here. This is, this is a new conference. We’re here because of you, and we aspire to do better, all of us do aspire to do better for future generations of transfer students. So we’re working really, really hard and we’re really, really dedicated because we believe in all the things that you said. So thank you for that. Thank you all. Um, now, um, and thank you all again for being here. Uh, we are going to, uh, uh, invite you all to stay for the speed demos that are beginning now in this room with our partners, and we hope you, uh, stick around and chat with them, ask them questions, and see you around for the rest of the assembly. Thank you everyone. You |
| 1:04:20.98 | 60.9s | Loida González Utley | What I love about this conversation is that our students didn’t just share their stories, they shared their expertise. They reminded us that transfer is experience one interaction, one policy, one credit decision, and one human connection at a time. And sometimes what feels like a small institutional process to us can become a defining moment in a student’s journey. So as we leave this conversation, I hope we carry their voices with us and ask ourselves a simple question. What are we willing to change because we listened? A huge thank you to Doctor Heather Adams and Transfer Nation for joining forces with Transportee, to the assembly for giving us a space to have this conversation, and most importantly, to our students for trusting us with their experiences and challenging us to do better, because transfer isn’t an event. Transfer is a process, and if we want that process to work, we have to keep designing it with not just for the students who experience it. Until next time, keep asking better questions, keep challenging the systems we’ve inherited, and as always, the tea is hot. |
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