Digital Communication Fall 2010

Every year, organizations such as The Princeton Review and College Board publish hundreds of books and articles for freshman college applicants, while students interested in transferring are given at most a page or two.  In 2010, after 5 years of research, Chris Goodmacher and Lan Ngo published The Transfer Book.  Found in .pdf form on the website thetransferbook.com, the book contains almost 400 pages that break the entire transferring process down step-by-step, including:

• a walk-through of every component of The Common Application
• a process to ensure that as many credits as possible transfer over
• a simple, polite way to tell professors what to mention in their letters of recommendation
• interviews with top transfer students and admissions officers.
• and 331 pages of full-length interviews with transfer students of all kinds (community college, four-year, international, students that took time off, etc.)

The entire book costs $37, less than the cost of a single application fee. In addition to the .pdf book, the website contains a blog with various statistics and dozens of articles that address topics such as: Are There “Transfer Friendly” Colleges Out There?, When to Dump Your College: Transfer Mid-Year or Stick It Out? , and The College Transfer Admissions Essay: Three Keys.  Unlike the College Confidential transfer student’s forum and other blogs and books on transferring, The Transfer Book provides extremely detailed information and countless real-life examples in its two books and does so in a streamlined, easy to read format.  On the site, Chris and Lan brag that “We’ve put the best college transfer guide together possible.” Speaking as a transfer student and someone who has referenced those other sources, I can attest to the helpfulness of this book and website.  I find it a shame that it wasn’t published only a few months earlier to help me when I was going through the entire process.

The Transfer Book is instrumental in ensuring that students know exactly what to say to admissions interviews and how to better know what they are looking for on school tours.