Significant improvements to the Butler University transfer student process have created a more efficient registration and integration period.
“Before the university made changes, transfer students would go through a more complex registration process than freshmen because they had to figure out which of their credits transfer and how they transfer,” Student Development Specialist Jennifer Kaschner said. “This process was not only confusing for the students, but also for the departments as well.
“It was not a bad process, except that different departments handle things different ways and some didn’t always get in touch with the student right away, and the students were left to wonder, ‘Am I going to be registered for classes? What’s happening here?’”
Kaschner said the Admissions office now sends all the students’ paperwork to the Learning Resource Center where advising files are compiled.
Then Kaschner and Program Coordinator Cara Cima split up the files and begin contacting the transfer students.
Once a transfer student is accepted to Butler, they immediately begin to get acquainted with their new university and where they fit in Kaschner said.
“We try to move the transfer process along a little faster, so it’s not as regimented as the freshman admission process,” she said.
Kaschner and Cima contact the students to see if there are any questions or confusion about any part of the transfer process.
Kaschner said that at the beginning of the semester, transfer students go through a much more abbreviated orientation program than freshmen do.
They pay an orientation fee and are encouraged to participate, but are free to do what they want.
Kaschner said that there is one required lunch program on Academic Day before classes start.
This is an opportunity for students to meet with staff and faculty, associate deans and veteran transfer students in order to network and ask any questions they still might have.
In the fall orientation process, she said there has also been an optional transfer student orientation group as well as social events to ease the tension of starting at a new school as a transfer student.
When sophomores Dan Klipper and Travis Brown came to Butler University as transfer students, they found the process to be both a simple and positive experience.
“I really didn’t have to do a whole lot,” Brown said. It was very easy and simple. They just helped me right along. I mean, they helped us move in and get used to being here.”
Both students applied, were accepted and followed through with the transfer process.
They said transferring could have been difficult but that the people they met at Butler helped them and made the process as easy and painless as possible.
“I was close to going to Ball State University because it was a little cheaper, but the big reason I came to Butler was that they actually responded to my e-mails,” Klipper said. “When I e-mailed someone they e-mailed it to everyone else and just did all this stuff with trying to get me situated as easily as possible.”
