This year's class of transfer students - the first in three years to be eligible for financial aid - arrived on campus last month for their second college orientation. But while the transfer students were eager to adjust to their new surroundings, few seemed excited about the prospect of being first-years all over again.
Transfer student orientation, which began at the same time as first-year orientation, tried to help the 150 new transfer students learn about their new school in a comfortable, low-key setting. Unlike first-year orientation, transfer orientation had only two required meetings.
"We wanted to help them get to know other transfers ... to get a feel for Brown, how to shop, and register for classes," said Claire Valent '06, one of the transfer orientation coordinators.
Valent, like fellow coordinators Benjamin Freshman '06 and Bryce Covert '06, is a transfer student - she came from the University of Chicago in the fall of 2003. For Valent, the transition to Brown was difficult. She found orientation disorganized, and because of housing shortages she was placed in a Perkins double that had been converted into a triple. She also found it difficult to find friends without the structure of a first-year unit.
To help new transfer students make friends, the coordinators planned social events. Transfer counselors, who were transfer students themselves, took new transfers out to dinner and hosted parties in their dorms. Each student was assigned a counselor to go to with any problems or questions.
Having fellow transfers on hand who had been through the same experiences made the transition easier during the first couple of weeks, students said.
"Most of the people I hang out with now are transfer students I met at orientation," said Jennifer Chudy '07.
Chudy, a political science concentrator, decided to leave Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., because she felt the school was too small and did not have enough social sciences resources. Brown was a good fit for her because, like Sarah Lawrence, it had no core requirements, meaning she could transfer and avoid having to catch up on introductory classes.
However, moving from Sarah Lawrence, a school of only 1,410 students, was "overwhelming," Chudy said. While most of the classes at Sarah Lawrence are small, even upper level lectures at Brown can have a hundred or more students. Brown also offers a much broader array of extracurricular activities.
Many transfers have difficulty adjusting to shopping period, with some not bothering to shop classes at all.
"Brown is such a different college," said Freshman, the orientation coordinator. "It's like, wow, I can take anything I want, I can take what I am interested in."
At one of the mandatory meetings, called "Nuts and Bolts," the transfer counselors went over the academic program at Brown, advising students on how to navigate concentration requirements and transfer their credits. Later in the week, transfers met with academic deans and concentration advisors who worked to give them credit for their transferable courses.
"They were fairly easygoing - there wasn't a great degree of scrutiny," Chudy said.
This year, 20 new transfer students were offered financial aid, the first time in three years that any transfers have received aid. Students who transferred during the period following Brown's switch to need-blind admissions received no aid, leaving many feeling unfairly excluded, according to students involved in the orientation.
"There was enough concern on campus that we wanted to offer aid to transfers," said Director of Financial Aid Michael Bartini.
However, transfer students are still admitted on a "need-aware" basis, meaning that a transfer student's acceptance is partially contingent on his ability to pay tuition. Unlike students admitted as first-years, transfer students also cannot reapply for financial aid if they were not offered any upon admission.
