Expert: Todd Johnson - 7/23/2007

Question
QUESTION: is transfering from 4 years university same difficult as transfering from 2 years college

i was accepted by a university and a college, neither of them is the best choice for me, and i am considering to transfer 2 years later. but i dont know which school should i better attend? will that be any difficulty if i transfer from a university?


ANSWER: Generally it makes no difference from which type of school you are trying to transfer. However, different schools have different transfer policies so I would recommend that you investigate several colleges that you think you might want to transfer to to see if they will accept all of the credits from the two colleges you are considering.

Also, you don't need to wait 2 years to transfer to another college if in fact the college you are at is not the best for you. However, you must have had some interest in these two colleges initially so I would give whichever one you decide to attend a chance to win you over. You never know, you might find that you enjoy whichever college you choose more than you think.

Good luck.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, 2 more questions

1.if my major is sure, whatever i attend in a college or a university, i will attend the exact same class, is that right ?  

2.if i want to transfer 2 years later to another school. does the old school need to have a agreement with the new school i want to transfer to?

Answer
As far as majors, different colleges will often have different tracks or different classes but generally the material covered will be similar for most majors and most colleges. This is one of the potential problem areas for a transfer though; the coordination of what you took at college A and how does that compare to classes at college B.

As to your second question, no, colleges do not need to have a transfer agreement with each other for you to transfer to. The advantage to some colleges having transfer agreements is that in most cases it means the two colleges have worked out some of the issues I talked about in the first paragraph regarding how one class at college A compares to a class at college B. Transfer agreements typically exist between 2 year colleges and 4 year colleges because everyone knows that the students from the 2 year college will need to transfer somewhere.

Hope that answers your questions.