As you consider transferring colleges, you already have enough stress. But then there's the anxiety of writing your transfer admission essay. Where do you even start? Do you take the application essay you wrote for your current college and tweak it for the new one? Do you start from scratch? Your transfer essay is your opportunity to showcase yourself and the reason you need to transfer to your potential new school. While that seems like a daunting task, all you really have to do is tell a simple story.
Tell me your story
As the Director of Admissions, I can assure you that your transfer admission essay will be an important part of your application. A college will not ask you to write an essay if they do not plan to read it, assess it, and use it to determine if you are a good fit for their institution. There are two key considerations that every college admission representative will have when reading a college application essay (whether it’s for a transfer student or not!):
1. Are you a good fit for my institution?
2. Is my institution a good fit for you?
The answers to these questions will be exposed when one of my admission counselors or I read your essay. Therefore, my top recommendation for you as you write your transfer essay is to simply tell your story.
Related: The Best Transfer Essay Advice From Admission Insiders
Your first three steps
- Your first step should be to do a quick two-minute exercise. Take out a piece of blank paper or click on that Notes app on your phone and write down three of your strengths. This may prove to be difficult for you—we all hate bragging about ourselves, but instead of thinking about what you believe your strengths are, think about what others have complimented you on. If you have been called a leader, then think about what it was you did to receive that compliment and write that anecdote down along with the strength. Continue until you have at least three strengths determined and three anecdotal examples to go along with those strengths.
- Your second step should be to get to know the institution(s) that you’re applying to. You can do this in several ways, but the first and easiest is often to simply visit the “About” page on a school’s website. If you want to impress this college in your essay, then I would try and incorporate these values—maybe even those very words—into my essay. Another way to get to know the school is by visiting the campus. Sit in the student union and listen to the conversations going on around you. You get to know the culture well when you visit the campus. Again, assuming you identify with and want to attend the institution, you should also incorporate into your essay your experience with the campus’s culture and how you see yourself fitting in.
- Your third step is to understand the transfer essay prompt. Depending on the institution to which you are applying, your essay topic may vary wildly. For example, if transferring to Brandeis University, you may be asked to respond to, “You are required to spend the next year of your life in either the past or the future. What year would you travel to and why?” Or if you’re applying to Kalamazoo College, you could be asked about your life as a child: “Let’s go back to a time when learning was pure joy. Please tell us your favorite childhood book and why.” Stanford University asks simply, “What matters to you and why?”
Analyzing transfer essay prompts
Sense a common theme in these essay prompts? In short, they are all attempting to get to know you better. They want to draw you out in your essay. What are your hopes, joys, sorrows, achievements, goals, and dreams? Why do you want to transfer to this institution? Some colleges may even use a visionary to draw your inner visionary out. In the University of Chicago’s prompt, they tell you that Winston Churchill believed “a joke is a very serious thing” and to share with them your favorite joke and explain it without ruining the punch line. In every one of these examples, the idea is to get you to think about who you are and what you want to share with that college. Sometimes they ask you to dig deep, and other times they merely want to know more about what makes you tick.
Now that you know what the college is asking of you in the prompt, your next step is to begin writing. You have thus far written down three strengths (including anecdotal stories to back up those strengths) and visited the campus and/or the college’s website to learn more about the institution and how it identifies itself. You should now also have the essay prompt. What does it focus on? Does the college want you to read its mission statement, do they ask you more than one question, or do they ask you to reveal something about yourself? No matter what the prompt, make sure you are paying attention to every word. Your essay should answer the question and its nuances completely—while keeping all of my previous considerations in mind.
Connect with Stanford! Connect with UChicago!
How to get started with writing your essay
You may still be asking, but how do I start? What is the school really looking for? Allow me to reveal the answer to that question: there really is no right answer. The ultimate goal of a college application essay is for the school to get to know you better and determine if you’re a good fit and vice versa. As a transfer student, admission counselors want to know why you want to transfer to their institution specifically. This should free you up to get creative and also feel comfortable answering the essay prompt in a way that will truly showcase who you are and what you would bring to the institution.
How to break down your paragraphs
For some practical steps to begin writing, I always recommend starting from the basics. Use the five-paragraph essay format. It is easy to follow and will keep you on target and on topic. As a reminder, the five-paragraph essay format looks like this:
- Paragraph 1: Introduction/thesis: Don’t forget to start with an attention-grabbing opener! Then give the reader a broad introduction and list what you will write about in your body paragraphs.
- Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4: Detail paragraphs/body: Each paragraph should support your thesis and should not introduce additional topics. Your paragraphs should follow the same order you listed in your opening. These paragraphs are great opportunities to use those three strengths and anecdotes we determined in our earlier exercise!
- Paragraph 5: Conclusion/ending: Give a “wrap-up” of the essay and restate your thesis. Lastly, give the essay some closure. Usually for a college essay, you should end with how you believe you will be bettered by your attendance or how the school will benefit you while you are there (see earlier considerations that colleges look to).
You don’t have to leave your essay in this format, but this is a terrific exercise to get something down on paper. Then edit and tweak the essay until it is ready to be sent to the institution.
Five things to consider before submitting your essay
These are some final steps you should take to complete your essay as well as some thoughts to consider before you send your essay to your intended transfer institution. Making sure your essay is the best reflection of who you are and what you want the college to know about you is imperative. Consider these five things before you consider your essay complete.
- Have you been original? Have you written your essay in a way that allows you to become three-dimensional to the reader? If you have, then reading back your essay should paint a mental picture of who you are while also properly answering the essay prompt.
- Have you included enough detail? If your essay is so general or vague that it could be sent to any college or university in the country, then go back and try again. Include specific aspects about the college and why you want to attend as well as showcasing yourself.
- Have you allowed yourself enough time? Your deadline should be far enough ahead of you that you have sufficient time to write, revise, and edit. If not, you haven’t given yourself the proper time to ensure accuracy and a well-written essay, so you better buckled down to finish it.
- Have you asked someone else to read and edit your essay? Make sure you do, and provide the prompt along with your essay. Ask your editor to read the prompt and then your essay, looking to see if you have fully answered the prompt, as well as catch any grammatical/spelling errors or incongruous tone.
- Have you told your story? Your story is unique, incredible, and worth telling. Make sure you and your qualities and strengths stand out. Your future college should be reading an honest and forthright portrayal of who you are—and who you hope to become.
Related: How to Avoid These 5 Common Transfer Student Mistakes
Your transfer admission essay is just that: your essay. The goal is to make it personal and leave the admission readers with a good impression of who you are as a person, why you want to transfer out of your school, and why their school is the right one to transfer to. This is your opportunity to control the narrative of your application and secure that spot in the transfer school of your dreams. Good luck!
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