Transferring to a Private College

There are reports of private colleges making more active efforts to woo community college students as an effort to "bolster and diversify their enrollments". Private college admissions departments are more likely to evaluate transfer applicants based on nonacademic variables such as the interview, recommendations, writing samples, and the quality of the applicant's current college. One estimate was that 40% of these schools recalculate a transfer applicant's GPA as part of the evaluation process, by using algorithms to factor in perceived course difficulty and comprehensiveness. One report suggested that private schools, while they tend to be more expensive, were a "strong option for transfer students" since they were often unaffected by state budget cuts and tend to have "better counseling services." Private colleges often view applicants from community colleges positively since many have had a track record of finishing their four-year degrees, or what colleges term "high persistence", and being successful students with relatively high graduation rates. There are reports that the percentage of community college students who are transferring to private schools is increasing; in the past, the percentage was about 15% to 20%, but the figure is more likely to be higher in recent years.

There tend to be more transfers to large private institutions, such as DePaul University in Chicago which accepted 1,400 transfer students in 2009, mostly from community colleges. In New Jersey, Seton Hall University keeps track of high school students which it accepts but who then decide to enroll in a community college, and then it sends them letters and emails after a year to try to get them to transfer; in addition, Seton Hall purchases lists of students from Phi Theta Kappa, the two-year college honor society.