麻豆精选

麻豆精选Admissions Team Makes Transferring a Slam Dunk

麻豆精选鈥檚  team goes by many names: Golden Flashes, Mid-American Conference champions, winners. 

But Ted McKown, senior associate director of admissions for transfer enrollment, would add 鈥渢ransfer students鈥 to that list. 

Many of the players on this season鈥檚 winning team transferred to 麻豆精选from other colleges, making them part of a group of about 1,200 students who, each year, find themselves at 麻豆精选for a new stop on their educational journeys. 

McKown and his team do all they can to make sure their move is a seamless transition, and that 麻豆精选becomes their final stop. 

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Ted McKown, senior associate director of admissions for transfer enrollment,

McKown said students transfer to 麻豆精选for various reasons, but most fit into three categories: academics, financial or geography.  

Geography comes into play often when a student decides to study farther from home, and then misses the familiar surroundings of home or does not like being away from family. 鈥淥ften these students are one to three semesters into their programs,鈥 he said. 

Finances also result in some students transferring to a different school. McKown said often students opt to study farther from home, but then their money runs out or their debt is growing, and they opt to return to Northeast Ohio where they can live at home and attend college more affordably. 

Finally, academics drive some students to transfer, when they begin a program of study at one university, then decide it is not what they expected so they switch universities to find a better fit. McKown said this is common for students who are deciding between 麻豆精选and another school, and then end up switching back to 麻豆精选in the end.  

鈥淭he second choice then becomes the first choice,鈥 he said. 

Whatever the reason for the transfer, McKown and his team works to offset any problems, one of the biggest of which is transferring credits. 

He said 麻豆精选tries to make sure that many, if not all, credits will transfer so that students aren鈥檛 losing the time they spent taking those courses or wasting the money they spent on them. 

鈥淲e really try to make the ease of transfer seamless with the way we transfer credits,鈥 he said. 

The transfer process can be overwhelming for students. 

When Isabelle Roeder, 20, a sophomore from Santa Cruz, California, transferred to 麻豆精选for the 2022 Fall Semester, it was her second time changing colleges in as many years.  

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Fashion student Isabelle Roeder transferred to 麻豆精选from a community college in California.

鈥淭ransferring is definitely confusing,鈥 she said. But Kent State, she said, made the process easy. 

鈥淭here were a lot of resources,鈥 Roeder said. 鈥淚t was pretty seamless. I don鈥檛 really remember many hiccups.鈥  

Best of all, she was able to transfer all her credits from both previous colleges. 

When she graduated from Soquel High School in 2021, amid the pandemic, Roeder said she wasn鈥檛 sure what she wanted to study, but she knew that she wanted to live somewhere different than her hometown in northern California. 

鈥淚 wanted to try something new,鈥 she said. Roeder enrolled in Manhattan College, a small private school in the Bronx, New York.  

鈥淣ew York is very different from California, and I wanted to get out and see the world,鈥 she said. It only took one semester for Roeder to discover that she did not enjoy living in a big city, and she returned home to California, enrolling at Cabrillo College, a community college in Aptos, California, to continue taking core classes while trying to determine where and what she wanted to study. 

At the time, her father was living in Kent, and when she visited him, she decided to tour the university. 

鈥淲hen I was in town, they were doing freshman orientation,鈥 Roeder said, 鈥淚 saw the fashion school and I was like, `Oh my gosh.鈥 I was always into art, but I didn鈥檛 want to just major in art. I didn鈥檛 know what that career would look like. But when I saw all the hands-on learning and working in labs (at the fashion school) it was not just a traditional classroom setting, that鈥檚 what sold me.鈥 

Kent State, she said, even helped her fill out all the necessary forms to change her legal residency to her father鈥檚 home in Ohio so that she would qualify for in-state tuition. 

Today, Roeder is majoring in fashion design and hopes to add a minor in either business or fashion merchandising. She is also hoping to spend a semester at the School of Fashion Design and Merchandising鈥檚 New York City Fashion Studio 鈥 to give the big city another chance.  

While she is still trying to figure out her exact career path, Roeder said she is thinking about a future working in sustainable fashion or pursuing gender equity in clothing. 鈥淪omething where I can make a positive impact on our world,鈥 she said. 

Despite having attended two much smaller schools, Roeder said she has adjusted well to Kent State, although the Ohio winter has taken some getting used to. 鈥淚 really like it,鈥 she said, 鈥淓veryone has been super helpful, and everyone is super nice.鈥 

Her first day of class in August was a bit of an eye-opener when she was in a large lecture room with about 200 students. 鈥淲e were sitting shoulder to shoulder, and it freaked me out at first, but now, I love that class because of how many people there are and how many people I have been able to get to know,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t has been awesome to meet people from all over.鈥 

McKown said his team understands that relationship building with transfer students is so important. They give particular attention to students who may be coming from two-year community colleges, even recruiting at that level so that students can prepare for their transfer as they are completing their first two years. That way, he said, students have a better understanding of what courses they will need to take at the community college level so that they are best prepared and so all their credits will transfer.   

鈥淲e look at those credits to see how they will satisfy their associate degree, but also apply to their bachelor鈥檚 degree at Kent State,鈥 he said. 

Students transferring from two-year community colleges often experience 鈥渟ticker shock鈥 when they see that courses at a four-year university are costlier, he said. In that case, 麻豆精选often can offer a Flash Transfer Northeast Ohio Scholarship to help offset some of that cost and make the switch affordable. 

Finally, McKown said, 麻豆精选offers a wide range of online-only courses, to allow those out of state or even out of the country to transfer to Kent State, without having to leave their homes. 

鈥淲e offer many programs that are 100 percent online,鈥 he said, 鈥淎nyone can transfer to 麻豆精选and get that degree from the comfort of their own home.鈥 

POSTED: Monday, March 27, 2023 02:44 PM
Updated: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 03:37 PM
WRITTEN BY:
Lisa Abraham