More than 3,500 transfer applications for fall 2024, setting another record

It’s not just first-year applications for admission that broke records this year for Virginia Tech. The university also saw an all-time high number of transfer applications, with 3,542 transfer students applying for admission for fall 2024 — a surge of 12.8 percent over last year.

Nationally, the number of transfer students is on the rise, according to a recent report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. So while Virginia Tech’s transfer boom is on trend, it also reflects years of dedicated effort to welcome transfers and make their experience as seamless as possible.

“Transferring between institutions can be fraught with challenges,” said Jarrid Dulaney, transfer coordinator and interim associate director of undergraduate admissions. “Many transfer students come to us having already had a few chapters in their educational journey — some ups and downs, some starts and stops. We try to provide lots of access points for transfer students to get assistance in navigating our process, so we can see how Virginia Tech can help them achieve their goals and fit in with their educational pursuits.”

That support for prospective transfers takes many forms:

• Hokie Corner, an advising service that offers prospective transfers one-on-one appointments with admissions representatives and advisers, so they can get customized advice about courses, transfer credits, student life, and more. “They feel that support from the beginning, even before they’re a Virginia Tech student, and that’s carried on through their time here,” said Allison Silknetter, assistant director of Transfer Student Initiatives.
• Guaranteed admission for students who earn a transferable associate degree in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS).
• Admissions transfer roadmaps that help students identify the courses they need to complete before transferring into a desired major.
• A course equivalency database that assigns a corresponding Virginia Tech course to every VCCS course in the catalog, clarifying exactly how credits will transfer. For instance, most students who earn an associate degree from a VCCS school have already completed their Pathways General Education requirements.

Transfer students are a little different. Older and wiser. New to Virginia Tech but not to college. First-year students but definitely not freshmen. 

“We have all these experiences that freshmen don't have," said Sarah Hevener, a transfer student earning dual degrees in professional and technical writing and public relations. 

Yet many of the universities Hevener toured when she was ready to transfer from Brightpoint Community College, near Richmond, lumped transfers in with freshmen and failed to offer any transfer-specific support.

Not Virginia Tech. Since 2018, with the creation of the Hokie Transfer Community in Undergraduate Academic Affairs, resources and support for transfers have exploded.

“Our programs are booming,” said Silknetter, “and most of them have a lengthy waitlist. Students say, ‘I knew I loved Virginia Tech for the obvious reasons, but then I heard that you won't forget me as a transfer, and that you have all this programming to help me.’ I think it's a big influence on those who want to transfer to us.”

In fact, the Virginia Tech Transfer Community won the 2023 University Exemplary Department or Program Award from the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost for its efforts to support transfers with programming like the following:

• The Transfer Experience Living-Learning Community. What started as a small pilot program in August 2018 has grown to more than 200 transfer students living together in Newman Hall. “That's a program that fills within weeks, and we have a long waitlist,” said Silknetter.
• “Unleash Your Hokie Potential.” A First-Year Experience course designed for transfer students, the eight-week UNIV 2114 class helps students get to know campus resources, zero in on potential career paths, and identify high-impact opportunities like undergraduate research and study abroad.
• Transfer Peer Mentors. The six-week program matches new transfer students with mentors who can “be a resource for all those questions that they'd rather ask a fellow student, about eating on campus and getting football tickets and taking the bus,” said Silknetter. A weekly social event for mentors and mentees ensures a fast-growing circle of friends.
• Tau Sigma. The Virginia Tech chapter of the National Transfer Student Honor Society sponsors social gatherings for transfers throughout the year. In 2024, Hevener, the chapter vice president, won a $5,000 scholarship from the national office of Tau Sigma, the first Virginia Tech student to do so.

In 2022-23, 13 percent of Hokies who earned a bachelor’s degree started their time at Virginia Tech as transfer students, a small but mighty cohort that promises to keep growing. 

“We always say, no matter what semester you're in here in Virginia Tech, once a transfer student, always a transfer student,” said Valentina Leon-Ledezma, a graduate teaching assistant for the Transfer Experience Living-Learning Community. “We have many transfer students who have acclimated themselves within the community — and they still hold that transfer student identity close.”