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At this point in the year, high school seniors and transfer students know where they’ll be heading in the fall...unless they don’t. It’s not uncommon for a student to have second thoughts about the school they committed to or receive the news that they didn’t get off the wait list at their school of choice after enrollment deadlines for other potential schools had passed. If this sounds like you, you don’t have to put your post-secondary aspirations on hold: NACAC’s Space Availability Survey has revealed hundreds of schools that are still accepting freshman and/or transfer applications for the fall semester. Check out a sampling below:

• Albertus Magnus College
• Birmingham-Southern College
• Canisius College
• Drew University
• Eastern Illinois University
• Florida Atlantic University
• Gonzaga University
• Hofstra University
• IUPUI
• Johnson & Wales University
• Kalamazoo College
• LSU (Baton Rouge)
• Massachusetts College of Art and Design
• North Dakota State University
• Oregon State University
• Pace University
• Queens University of Charlotte
• Rutgers University (Camden)
• Southern Vermont College
• Truman State University
• University of Kansas
• University of Utah
• Valparaiso University
• Wilkes University
• Xavier University
• York College (CUNY)

The list will be updated regularly here – will this information help you in your college search?

So you’ve applied to a number of schools and received your admissions decisions but found that the colleges you once thought were perfect are anything but. Is it too late in the admissions cycle to find the right school for you? Not when countless colleges offer rolling and/or late admissions! Here are a few schools that do just that:

• Anderson University
• Caldwell College
• Frostburg State University
• Georgia Southwestern State University
• High Point University
• Iona College
• Johnson State College
• Lasell College
• New Mexico State University
• Ohio Northern University
• Pacific University
• Quinnipiac University
• Rivier College
• St. Thomas University
• University of Great Falls
• Voorhees College
• Winston-Salem State University

The cost of college is a huge factor for a high school senior about to head off to college for the first time, a transfer student getting ready to continue his or her education at a four-year school and an undergrad preparing to pursue a graduate degree. If the student can’t afford to attend a specific school, an alternate institution that better fits his or her college budget should be selected...but what if tuition is still undetermined before the enrollment deadline?

This scenario is common at public universities across the country, as they cannot announce the next year’s tuition until they know how much funding they will receive from their respective states. Though schools like Towson and UVa offer estimates, banking on those figures is a gamble: For example, VCU raised tuition 24 percent in 2010 and the average public university in California raised expenses 21 percent last year – sizeable increases few college hopefuls could have expected. Colleges in this position have to work out preliminary financial aid packages based on the current year’s costs and adjust the awards after tuition is set. Students weighing their enrollment options at private universities have it much easier: A recent report projected private tuition would rise between 4 and 5 percent for next year but schools including Georgetown, UPenn and Goucher have already set and posted their tuition rates for the upcoming academic year.

Are you still waiting on next year’s tuition rates to make your college choice?

For any student thinking about transferring, there’s always the worry that the credits they’ve worked so hard to achieve will be worth nothing at their new school...any student except those transferring to DePaul University, that is.

According to Lois Bishop, DePaul’s director of community college partnerships, transfer students at DePaul have great grades and high graduation rates but many have failed to take prerequisite courses or accumulated credits at their previous institutions that won’t count toward their bachelor’s degrees. In order to make transferring as educationally- and cost-effective as it can be, the school created the DePaul Admissions Partnership Program to help transfer students earn their two-year credentials and bachelor’s degrees on time. Students in the program are guaranteed a spot at DePaul if they finish community college with a 2.0 GPA and receive $2,000 a year after transferring if they achieve a 3.0. They also lock in bachelor’s degree requirements if they enroll within three years of starting the program, have access to DePaul advisers while at the community college to ensure they take the right classes for their eventual majors and can earn reverse credits toward associate degrees. (Check out additional details from Inside Higher Ed here.)

Since the program’s launch last year, DePaul has partnered with Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy-King College, Malcolm X College, Olive-Harvey College, Harold Washington College, Truman College, Wright College, College of DuPage, Harper College, Moraine Valley Community College and Oakton Community College but hopes to expand the opportunity to more schools and students. What do you think of the DePaul Admissions Partnership Program? Would a program like this appeal to you if you were thinking about transferring?

Between announcements of Cooper Union possibly charging tuition and the average student debt topping $25,000, news about the cost of college haven’t been too positive as of late. But lo, the University of Charleston has broken the bad news cycle: The West Virginia school has announced it will reduce tuition by 22 percent for all new students and provide additional aid for continuing students.

UC has guaranteed that no undergraduate student will pay more than $19,500 for tuition in the fall of 2012. This will be the base price for freshmen and transfer students while the figure returning students will see is $25,500 with a promise of at least $6,000 in university aid. The tuition reduction is part of a broad system redesign which the University of Charleston hopes will allow greater innovation and cost-effectiveness without compromising the quality of its education. According to a release on UC's website, these changes include “a five-year plan that emphasizes fast-track learning, achieving athletic prominence, championing innovation and expanding access.”

In a time where every dollar makes a difference, did the University of Charleston just move up on your college wish list?

by Radha Jhatakia, Scholarships.com Virtual Intern

There are many factors that influence your stress levels in college and all throughout life. In college, stress comes from your classes, meeting graduation requirements and securing enough financial aid, plus outside stressors like family and work. It can be hard to handle everything at once, especially when new issues arise and challenge us. The key to maintaining a healthy balance is to find a positive outlet to deal with these stressors.

It’s always nice having one friend that you can talk to about everything but sometimes a subject may feel too personal. I just transferred to a new school and the transition was taking its toll on me. All the while, there were problems going on at home and it was very difficult for me to deal with all of it. I had my sisters to talk to and an academic counselor from my old school to confide in but it would have been nice to speak to someone in a professional manner.

College administrators understand the stress we go through as students and how difficult it can be for us to handle everything. Therefore, many colleges have wellness and health centers that you can visit in your time of need. They offer workshops on everything from managing time to health education and there are also professional psychologists and counselors there to speak with you. All you need to do is make an appointment and someone will be there to help you out.

Unfortunately, many students don’t realize someone is always there to listen to them and in some cases, the consequences of not seeking help can be quite serious – even fatal. If you’re finding it hard to deal with any aspect of college life, don’t hesitate to take advantage of these resources. They exist for your benefit.

Radha Jhatakia is a communications major at San Jose State University. She's a transfer student who had some ups and downs in school and many obstacles to face; these challenges – plus support from family, friends and cat – have only made Radha stronger and have given her the experience to help others with the same issues. In her spare time, she enjoys writing, reading, cooking, sewing and designing. A social butterfly, Radha hopes to work in public relations and marketing upon graduation.

by Kara Coleman, Scholarships.com Virtual Intern

Sometimes transferring can be tricky. If you attend the same four-year university from the get-go, you can pretty much follow a checklist of all the classes you need to earn your degree. If you transfer from a two-year school to a four-year school or from a public school to a private school, however, what happens then?

In Alabama, I am able to use the STARS (Statewide Transfer and Articulation Reporting System) guide. From the STARS site, students can search their major and find all of the basic courses required for their major by all schools in the state. Then they can view degree requirements specific to the school they plan to earn their degree from. Certain courses required to earn an associate degree from a community college may not necessarily be required to obtain a bachelor’s degree from a public or private four-year university, so let your advisor know as early as possible if you want to graduate from your community college or just transfer.

Try to have a transfer plan from your first semester. Life can be unpredictable – I have a friend who attended a four-year university, got married over the summer and is now transferring to a different school closer to her new home – but if you have a plan from the beginning of your college experience, you’ll have a better chance of all your credit hours counting toward your degree. Most college students change their major at least once (I started as an English major but now plan to graduate as a communications major) so if this applies to you, consider changing your original major to your minor. All of those extra lit classes that I took will apply towards my English minor so I didn’t waste any time or money.

Find out if your state offers a STARS-like guide and, above all, talk to your advisors! Let your field advisor and a transfer advisor know of your plans; they’ll help you make the best decisions for what classes you should take to achieve your goals.

Kara Coleman lives in Gadsden, Alabama, where she attends Gadsden State Community College. She received the school’s Outstanding English Student Award two years in a row and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa. She plans to transfer to Jacksonville State University in August 2011 to study communications with concentration in print journalism. Kara’s writing has been featured in Teen Ink magazine and she is a children’s book author through Big Dif Books. In her spare time, Kara enjoys reading, painting, participating in community theater and pretty much any other form of art.

A big selling point of attending a community college is the money you’ll save when compared to the tuition and fees at a public or private four-year college or university. If you’re one of the many students out there with plans to transfer to a four-year institution once your two years are up at the local community college, there are a few things you should know when you’re looking to transfer. The credits you collected at your two-year college may not all transfer to your intended four-year school.

A recent article in the Indianapolis Star took a look at the trouble students at Ivy Tech Community College have been having when looking to transfer to the state’s public colleges, namely Indiana and Purdue universities. What they’ve found is that the public colleges aren’t accepting credits for many of the core classes that make up four-year colleges’ general education requirements.

According to the Indianapolis Star, there are many reasons why credits may be difficult to transfer. For one, there are no across-the-board standards when it comes to what constitutes a first-year English course, for example. It is then up to the discretion of the four-year schools’ administrators to decide whether or not to accept those credits. Credits that don’t transfer must be repeated on the four-year college level, which means students may not be saving as much money as they thought and take longer to graduate than they had initially planned. As most two- and four-year colleges don’t have standard numbering systems when it comes to listing courses in the college catalogs, it may also be difficult for students to know which level English course they should take in the first place to make sure they’re taking transferable credits.

There is no easy way to make sure the community college classes you’re taking will transfer to the four-year university of your choice, but there are things you can do to improve your chances. We’ve come up with some tips to help.

• If you know where you’d like to transfer early on, develop a relationship with administrators at that four-year college. The more you know about the kinds of college classes that do transfer, the more informed you’ll be when it comes to picking courses out of the catalog at your community college.
• If you’re flexible about where you’d like to go when you’re ready to transfer, consider the partnerships many community colleges have with state universities. Many two-year schools have long histories as feeder schools, making it easier to transfer credits from one place to another.
• Know who to talk to, both at the community college and four-year college level. Often, department heads are the ones who approve transfer credits or who know about the kinds of courses that would meet requirements.
• If you’re denied transfer credit, petition. Many schools will reconsider transfer credit decisions if you give them more information about a particular course, such as evidence of assignments and exams or syllabi. Four-year colleges just want you to be ready to transfer, so show them that you are.

For some of you, next fall will be a fresh start on a new campus, whether you’re transferring from a community college to complete a bachelor’s degree, or whether you were unhappy at your four-year university and needed a change of scenery. You’re not alone. The transfer experience is a reality for about one-third of all students who go to college, according to a report issued this week by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) on the transfer admissions process.

The study, which used data from the 2006 NACAC’s annual  Admission Trends Survey and pieces of a dissertation project from Michigan State University, looked at not only the number of college students who transfer schools but what transfer students can expect to be judged on when they apply to new schools, an important piece of information for students worried about how their applications will be perceived by admissions officials. Overall, about 64 percent of all transfer applicants are admitted to their intended colleges; about 69 percent of all first-time applicants are admitted.

According to the study, your academic achievements from high school become much less important than what you’ve done so far at the college you’re currently at. (Both public and private institutions overwhelmingly agreed on this point, according to the study.) College-level GPAs were ranked as the most important thing schools look at when they receive applications from potential transfer students. Grades in transferable courses are also ranked high in terms of what college officials look for. Private colleges are much more likely than public institutions to pay attention to things personal essays, recommendations and interviews. Larger, public institutions viewed the following more positively than private colleges: having 60 or more hours of transferable credit, being more than 25 years old, and planning to enroll part-time.

As far as what else admissions officials considered fairly important on a transfer applicant’s file, the results were a mixed bag:

• Scores on standardized tests are important to 3.8 percent of public and 8.5 percent of private schools.
• The quality of prior post-secondary institutions is important to 7.4 percent of public and 13.2 percent of private schools. (The study does not describe how “quality” is judged.)
• A student’s ability to pay is considered by 3.4 percent of private schools. (This was a non-issue for public institutions surveyed for this study.)
• Student interviews were considered by 11.1 percent of private schools. (This was a non-issue for public institutions surveyed for this study.)
• Race/ethnicity was important to 2.4 percent of public and 2.6 percent of private schools.
• Essays and writing samples were important to 6.1 percent of public and 25.5 percent of private schools.

While prospective college freshmen are already beginning to fill out their college applications in preparation for fall application deadlines, transfer students traditionally enjoy a bit more leeway. However, the sharp state budget cuts and larger enrollments in community and state colleges this year may mean that students planning to transfer from a two-year to a four-year school will want to get their applications together as early as possible this year.

California, a state whose severe budget crisis has made it something of a canary in the mineshaft for most funding issues this year, has recently begun turning transfer students away in droves from its four-year public colleges. The reason: the state university systems have had to cut back enrollments across the board, and after many decisions had already been made for the academic year now underway, in order to deal with a sharp decrease in available state funding for the current fiscal year.

This means that many conditionally admitted transfer students have been told they need to wait a year or look elsewhere, simply because they didn't correctly complete all the necessary steps far enough ahead of time to secure seats in state universities for the fall and spring semesters this year. This leaves students applying last-minute to pricey private colleges, vying for seats in courses that likely won't even count just to kill time until the next admissions cycle, or even dropping out for a semester or more.  The state's budget picture shows no signs of improving, meaning transfer students will likely need to contend with the same situation next year, as well.

While other state university systems haven't had to cap or reduce enrollments or close budget holes to the same extent as California, a decrease in funding coupled with an increase in interest in state and community colleges may still result in wrenches being thrown in many students' transfer plans. More students at community colleges will make it harder for some students to get into classes they need to complete to successfully transfer to a four-year college. More students applying to state colleges means available seats may fill up faster and transfer applications may be delayed. It can also mean stiffer competition for financial aid, such as transfer student scholarships. Like in California, it could also mean that students whose transfer applications are not perfect the first time may see their plans derailed, or at least delayed, much more easily than in previous semesters.

Because of these concerns, students who are planning to transfer from a community college to a state college (and also students considering a move between four-year schools) will want to stay in touch with their academic advisors this year and complete all required steps as quickly as possible. Make sure you are applying for admission and aid well ahead of deadlines, and make sure you're meeting all requirements to ensure a smooth transfer process. Staying on top of things this fall can save you headaches, and possibly money, when it's time to switch schools.