Transferring university mid-year?

[UniTransferQuestion]

I’m looking for any advice and experience please. There doesn’t seem to be much info about, and DD is finding it had to get responses back.

She is in 2nd year of a uni away from home, has been diagnosed with a medical condition and advised to try to transfer to a uni that will enable her to live at home for support.

She’s kept up with studies - all great marks from Y1 and she is studying remotely at the moment in Y2 and managing fine with all work, but not sure how long that would be sustainable.

She was hoping she might be able to transfer midyear in Y2, but time seems to be slipping away with admissions departments just giving out stock answers.

Is a mid-year transfer just a pipe dream? Is she going to have to give up this year and start Y2 after the summer?

(humanities course)

Maybe not a pipe dream, but almost impossibly rare.

If you're very lucky, your local university might see enough similarity between the modules she's sitting at her current university and their own curriculum.

If so, once she finishes her first semester exams at her current university, they might allow her to transfer into the second semester of second year after Christmas.

But if the modules she's currently sitting don't perfectly map onto those taught at the local university, they'll say that she doesn't have the prerequisites for the second semester of second year, and therefore would have to start second year again.

Transfer will also be easier if she comfortably met the A level entry requirements of the local university and achieved at least a 2:1 in first year.

I've never come across it at our institution. I'd recommend a think about when to interrupt/suspend from the current programme, as the dates make a difference financially. If she interrupted for now, she could then enquire about transferring into year 2 somewhere else or, if her health condition could improve, she might go back to her original uni next year. Interrupting for a year is much more common than students think and can be the best option.

Highly unlikely. Universities all have different curricula and structures. It’s not school.

Have she discussed taking a year’s leave of absence and returning to re-do 2nd year at her current university?

Otherwise, she’s likely to have to start again at a different university. Transfer after 1st year are tricky, and highly unlikely mid-way through the year. The modules, structure, assessments -everything, pretty much, will be different.

Transfer will also be easier if she comfortably met the A level entry requirements of the local university and achieved at least a 2:1 in first year.

Excellent advice from @Skule . But it’s still unlikely to be possible mid-year. It just couldn’t happen at my place at all. She’d need to re-start 2nd year at the very least. Much better to look at a leave of absence at her current place.

In the main, courses are unique to a university so transferring at a time other than the start of the year is rare, and the reason you won’t find information online. The problem with providing general information about suspending/interrupting studies, etc, is that students will then work towards a specific goal which isn’t necessarily the best fit for their circumstances. Always best to speak to someone face to face in your own university. In my experience, suspending studies and starting elsewhere next September would be the best option.

What are the stock answers she is getting?
Can she make contact with a head of dept who can then help her with the admissions process?

Would she consider finishing off her degree with the OU. DDs friend did that to take up work opportunities (acting).

Thanks all. It seems the consensus is pretty unanimous that it’s not possible, which is quite a surprise.

Her tutor and student support at her current uni have been very positive and let her to believe it was a relatively routine thing so long as she met entry requirements and kept her grades up, which she has. But of course I was questioning it, hence the thread.

Now I don’t know whether she should apply for entry to 2nd year for next year and stop her current 2nd year work, or carry on at least for now.

Carrying on at current uni for next year will not be possible unfortunately.

Have you tried contacting the uni she's hoping to apply for, if the current uni aren't being particularly helpful?

She needs to be asking the potential uni now if she can transfer mid way. It probably depends on the subject and structure of the course. If it is accredited and has compulsory modules which are common to both courses it might be theoretically possible, assuming there is a space and the courses align, but otherwise retaking year 2 next September is more likely. Would her tutor liaise with the other to discuss on her behalf? Do they know any other students who have done it successfully?

It’s the current uni who are being helpful (but perhaps giving false hope), and the new Uni who are giving stock snswers and passing her between departments. But I get that it might just be complicated from their side. I’d love to get to the stage where we could see someone in person, but although it feels like forever it’s only really been a few weeks. Just conscious that time is slipping away.

If we could even get to a point where she knows she will need to restart in year 2 next year, that would be some certainty for her. I presume that would mean she’d need to stop the remote study she’s doing now.

What’s the subject, if she is being passed between departments?

How is she contacting them? She's more likely to get a proper answer if she speaks to someone rather than contacting by email I expect. What do the stock answers say? Is it a flat no, or are they suggesting it might be possible?

She’s contacting them by email. She initially phoned and they said to email a particular address, who passed her to another address, who directed her to the website and to email back if she still had questions, so she read the website (which said transfer due to medical conditions would require documentation) and emailed them back. And would love to be able to go in and talk to someone about it, but we don’t know who to ask for, and she really doesn’t want to come across as pushy or “entitled” in her words.

Subject is History. First and second year modules seem very similar to her current uni (she has a school friend on the same course at new uni - modules are similar enough that they have often spelt time discussing and debating the topics together). But I realise I am biased and looking for reasons that it might work.

I’d start with course Admissions tutor to see if she can set up a face to face discussion.

Ah I see - I'd misunderstood that.

In the circumstances, time is of the essence so I wouldn't worry about appearing pushy - she needs answers as quickly as possible, so it's reasonable to be assertive. It's unfair of them to string her along like this. I hope you get a definitive answer soon!

Has she contacted disability services at both unis for advice? (I'm not sure if they'd be helpful but may be worth a try given that it's a health issue.)

A mid year transfer is very unlikely to happen. She needs to go through an end of year exam board and I highly doubt any university would allow that with some grades being from a different university. Where I work it would be impossible.

But emailing the programme lead at the new /hopeful university is the best bet. It’s irrelevant what her current university say or think. Shame they haven’t got back to her yet.

Has she emailed the program lead directly? Not just admissions type emails?

Without someone signposting us to it, we wouldn’t even have known what a program lead was! But now that we know, we can ask 🙂Thank you!