Doug Turnbull needed time to figure things out. After graduating from high school, in 2005, he enrolled at Kalamazoo College, in Michigan, but his grades sagged. “I wasn’t quite focused enough,” he says.
After one year, Mr. Turnbull dropped out and got into carpentry, enrolling part time at a community college. Although he liked working with his hands, his parents urged him to pursue a degree that would help him find a different kind of job. “The body fails,” his father told him. “You can’t do carpentry forever.”
So after spending several semesters at two community colleges, Mr. Turnbull transferred to Northern Michigan University this past winter. He has decided to major in English and become a teacher.
Mr. Turnbull is one of a growing number of transfer students at Northern Michigan, which, like many institutions throughout the nation, has seen its admissions equation change because of shifting demographics and a tough economy. This year the university increased its enrollment target for transfers and lowered its target for freshman applicants.
“Before, there was solid predictability for freshmen,” says Gerri Daniels, the university’s director of admissions. “Over the last couple of summers, we saw that dissolving, and we started seeing that we were going to have fewer freshmen.”
For this fall, Northern Michigan reduced its freshman-enrollment goal to 1,800—80 fewer than last year—and raised its transfer-enrollment goal to 480, up from 430. Ms. Daniels expects that the university will end up with well over 500 transfers, however. After all, 524 transfer students enrolled last fall, nearly 100 more than the university had expected.
So far transfer applications for the fall are up 16 percent over last year. A majority of those applications come from students who are not far removed from high school: More than 80 percent of the university’s transfers are 21 or younger. Last year there was an even split between students who had started at two-year colleges and those who had transferred from other four-year colleges.
“As the economy has worsened, we’ve heard from more students that they want to start college closer to home and save some money,” Ms. Daniels says. “The writing’s on the wall here, so we decided we needed to do some things to be attractive to students who are already looking at transfer early on.”
Northern Michigan has long considered transfer outreach a priority, but over the last year the university has done even more to engage such students. The admissions office revamped its Web site, creating a more-robust information page for prospective transfer applicants. It improved and clarified its transfer-of-credit agreements and policies. It established a focus group of transfer students to determine what the university might do better. And it stepped up outreach to veterans and current members of the military.
Recently, Northern Michigan also expanded its scholarships for transfer students. Previously the university offered them two tiers of awards for academic performance; now it offers five, with scholarships ranging from $500 to $2,000 a year.
“We recognized a gap,” says Kevin Stulz, associate director of admissions at Northern Michigan. “There were transfer students who had been working very hard, but if they didn’t have a 3.5 grade-point average, they didn’t get a scholarship. We wanted to be able to recognize a student who had a 3.0, who might be working full time, with a family.”
The university’s admissions staff has also done more to engage high-school students who might be considering the possibility of enrolling at another college before transferring to Northern Michigan. “We’re telling students, ‘You’re not the only one in this boat. You may not have a direct path here, but here’s how we’ll help you,’” Ms. Daniels says. “We really hadn’t talked to high-school seniors like that before unless they asked us.”
This summer the university plans to hold a gathering for accepted applicants who have decided to enroll at a community college instead, perhaps for financial reasons. The admissions staff has also developed a strategy for maintaining better contact with accepted students who enrolled elsewhere. Admissions counselors who recruit freshmen will now refer particular applicants to one of the office’s two transfer-admissions counselors, who will follow up to ask if those students are still interested in Northern Michigan.
“On both sides, there’s a lot of time invested, and we don’t want that time to be wasted,” Mr. Stulz says. “So we might ask them, ‘How did your first semester go?’ We’ll say, ‘A year from now, if we can still be of service to you. ...’”
Mr. Stulz, who has worked with transfer students since 1998, says recruitment of this population boils down to one-on-one relationships. “There’s really no one-size-fits-all approach,” he says. “They all have unique stories, and their courses may be all over the place, so you’ve got to spend time with them on the phone, on e-mail, or when they come in. This consumer is savvier than a freshman.”
Mr. Turnbull, who just finished his first semester, was impressed when the admissions office helped get him in touch with the head of the English department. The ensuing conversation made him feel wanted.
That was important for Mr. Turnbull, who says transferring presents students with a paradox. “I feel like I’m getting to the finish line,” he says, “but also like I’m just getting started.”
