Admissions counselors share advice

By Aliza Hashmani/reporter

Transferring to a university could be stressful for students who do not have adequate information about deadlines, applications and transfer credits.

Three admissions counselors from UT-Arlington, Texas Woman’s University and Texas Wesleyan University helped NE students become better prepared and informed about the transfer process to these specific universities last week.

Raquel Daisy, UTA admissions counselor; Jessica Brown, Texas Woman’s admissions counselor, and Sarah Smith, Texas Wesleyan admissions counselor, encouraged students to be proactive in getting the right information about deadlines, financial aid, correct classes for a degree, credits needed to transfer and credits that will transfer.

Daisy said it is never too early to contact a four-year university to get this information.

“You at least want to do it a year before you plan to be at whatever university you’re going to,” she said.

All three counselors recommended the online application because it helps quicken the application process.

Also, students eligible for the Pell Grant could get an application fee waiver.

Smith said because Texas Wesleyan is a private university, the process is a little different.

“We have our own online application through our Web site, and we encourage all of our students to do our online application,” she said. 

“We waive that fee if you do it online just because we are trying to move to a paperless application process.”

Texas Wesleyan does not limit hours that will transfer in, but the student must take at least 45 hours at Texas Wesleyan to receive a degree from the university.

At UTA, the academic department will cap the number of transferred hours to allow a sufficient number of hours to be done there, usually about 25 percent.

For example, if a student’s degree plan is a total of 125 hours, 25 percent of those hours must be taken at UTA, Daisy said.

“We put the limit out there of 84 hours that can transfer, but that’s just because you do have to take the last 25 percent of your degree from the institution you’re going to graduate from,” Brown said.

GPA requirements for both Texas Woman’s and Texas Wesleyan are 2.0 or higher, but Texas Wesleyan requires at least 30 transferable hours.

If a transfer student does not have 30 transferable hours, the university requires a high school transcript and if the student is under 25, an SAT or ACT score.

“We are going to take a look at all of the college courses you have done, wherever they may be from,” Daisy said.

“We are going to take a look at all of those college courses and calculate a cumulative GPA.”

UTA will waive up to three repeated courses chronologically. Texas Woman’s will honor the highest grade of the repeated course while Texas Wesleyan will accept the most recent grade of a repeated course.

“Sometimes someone will take a class and make a D and then retake the class and make an F, so we do take whatever the most recent credit is,” Smith said.

For more information, students can visit the transfer center or counseling center on any TCC campus.

For more information on UTA, visit www.uta.edu or contact Daisy at raquel.daisy@uta.edu or 817-272-0105.

For more information on Texas Woman’s, visit www.twu.edu or contact Brown at jbrown17@twu.edu.

For more information on Texas Wesleyan, visit www.txwes.edu or contact Smith at sarahsmith@txwes.edu or 817-531-5804.