I’ve been running into more and more parents, who are curious about sending their children to community colleges.

I can understand the attraction. Community colleges are often much cheaper than four-year schools and they can offer a more personalized education than big state universities.

Out here in California, for instance, a freshman can take introductory courses with 30 to 40 students at a community college versus hundreds of students  at introductory courses at many state universities here.

Teenagers who start at a community college or end up leaving a four-year school for another four-year institution, have lots of company.

According to a transfer student report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, a third of students end up transferring to other colleges or universities. Some of these students are transferring from community colleges, but many are also seeking to move from one four-year school to another.

Because of the huge number of college students who are on the move every year, I am sharing some tips for these often overlooked students:

8 Things Transfer Students Need to Know

1. The transfer admission hurdle is slightly more difficult.

The acceptance rate for transfer students (64%), according to NACAC, is slightly lower than the acceptance rate of first-year students (69% ).

When evaluating transfer applicants, the biggest admission factor by far is a student’s grades at their current college. More than 90% of colleges that participated in the NACAC survey said the overall postsecondary grade point average was “considerably important.”

2. Transfer students can qualify for merit aid.

Seventy-seven percent of colleges reported that they provide merit scholarships to transfer students. Eighty-one percent of small colleges, which have less than 3,000 students, report that they award merit scholarships to transfer students. In comparison, 66% of medium-sized schools and 67% of large schools offer merit awards.

3. Not all schools have room for transfer students.

Small colleges, which have very few undergrads leaving, can have few available spots for transfer students. For instance, Amherst College admitted just 24 transfer students out of 421 applicants for the fall term. Georgetown University, a much larger institution, admitted 364 transfer students out of 1,616 who applied.

State universities are often more equipped to accept large numbers of transfer applicants. UCLA, for instance, recently accepted 5,505 transfer students out of a pool of 18,986 transfer applicants.

4. Standardized tests scores aren’t as important.

The SAT and ACT, according to the NACAC survey, are less important for transfer students than high school seniors.

In fact, the more time you’ve spent in college, the less other institutions care about your SAT or ACT scores, according to Deborah Shames, an independent college counselor in northern New Jersey and a transfer admissions advisor for Kaplan Education Foundation.

“If a student is transferring after one semester in college or a year, schools usually want the SAT and high school GPA, but the further away from high school, the less schools rely on them,” Shames says.

5. Check out what a college wants from transfer students.

Before applying to a school, find out what the institution is looking for in transfer applicants. You can get a good idea by looking at a school’s Common Data Set. The Common Data Set is a document that four-year schools across the country complete that contains lots of information on such topics as admission criteria, freshman academic profile, campus safety and transfer admissions. You can often find a college’s Common Data Set by Googling that term and the name of the institution.

The College Board also provides this same transfer information. When looking at the profile of any four-year school on College Board, click on “Admission” hyperlink and you’ll find the transfer statistics.

6. Make sure your credits transfer.

You don’t want to lose credits when you move to another school. During the admission process, talk to a college’s transfer credit evaluator to get a sense of what credits would transfer.

7. Look for transfer-friendly schools.

One way to access that intangible is to ask if the college has a transfer coordinator. Also does the school have a transfer orientation or other transfer programs? Does the school have housing for transfer students? Ideally, you’d like to talk to transfer students about their experience at a school.

8. Focus on the positive when explaining your desire to transfer.

College applications will typically ask a student why they want to transfer. Shames warns that students should avoid saving anything negative about their current school. Instead focus on positive reasons for the change and offer specifics on why you want to transfer to a specific college.

According to special transfer student report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, a third of students end up transferring to other colleges or universities. Some of these students are transferring from community colleges, but many are also seeking to move from one four-year school to another.

If you or your child is hoping to transfer, here are 8 things you need to know:

1. The transfer admission hurdle is slightly more difficult. The acceptance rate for transfer students (64 percent), according to NACAC, is slightly lower than the acceptance rate of first-year students (69 percent).

When evaluating transfer applicants, the biggest admission factor by far is a student’s grades at their current college. More than 90 percent of colleges that participated in the NACAC survey said the overall postsecondary grade point average was “considerably important.”

2. Transfer students can qualify for merit aid. Seventy-seven percent of colleges reported that they provide merit scholarships to transfer students. Eighty-one percent of small colleges, which have less than 3,000 students, report that they award merit scholarships to transfer students. In comparison, 66 percent of medium-sized schools and 67 percent of large schools offer merit awards.

3. Not all schools have room for transfer students. Small colleges, which have very few undergrads leaving, can have few available spots for transfer students. For instance, Amherst College admitted just 23 transfer students out of 412 applicants for the fall term. Georgetown University, a much larger institution, admitted 284 transfer students out of 2,028 who applied.

State universities are often more equipped to accept large numbers of transfer applicants. UCLA, for instance, recently accepted 5,261 transfer students out of a pool of 16,587 transfer applicants.

4. Standardized tests scores aren’t as important. The SAT and ACT, according to the NACAC survey, are less important for transfer students than high school seniors.

In fact, the more time you’ve spent in college, the less other institutions care about your SAT or ACT scores, according to Deborah Shames, an independent college counselor in northern New Jersey and a transfer admissions advisor for Kaplan Education Foundation.

“If a student is transferring after one semester in college or a year, schools usually want the SAT and high school GPA, but the further away from high school, the less schools rely on them,” Shames says.

5. Check out what a college wants from transfer students. Before applying to a school, find out what the institution is looking for in transfer applicants. You can get a good idea by looking at a school’s Common Data Set. The Common Data Set is a document that four-year schools across the country complete that contains lots of information on such topics as admission criteria, freshman academic profile, campus safety and transfer admissions. You can often find a college’s Common Data Set by Googling that term and the name of the institution.

The College Board also provides this same transfer information. When looking at the profile of any four-year school on College Board, click on “Admission” hyperlink and you’ll find the transfer statistics.

6. Make sure your credits transfer. You don’t want to lose credits when you move to another school. During the admission process, talk to a college’s transfer credit evaluator to get a sense of what credits would transfer.

7. Look for transfer-friendly schools. One way to access that intangible is to ask if the college has a transfer coordinator. Also does the school have a transfer orientation or other transfer programs? Does the school have housing for transfer students? Ideally, you’d like to talk to transfer students about their experience at a school.

8. Focus on the positive when explaining your desire to transfer. College applications will typically ask a student why they want to transfer. Shames warns that students should avoid saving anything negative about their current school. Instead focus on positive reasons for the change and offer specifics on why you want to transfer to a specific college.

A teenage girl tried to hold back the tears when I told her that she would probably have to attend a community college before transferring to a four-year school. She’s a high school senior and her GPA is 2.0.

Of course, this girl is more than a test score or a GPA. She loves to write and is a staff writer on a student magazine. She holds leadership positions at her school. But she’s got an Achilles’ heel. It’s math. She has flunked some math classes.

I told her that I could totally relate to her predicament. I was lousy at math in high school and I too enjoyed writing. When I arrived at college, my GPA jumped because I no longer had to take any math classes. The furthest I ever got in high school was Algebra II and it was excruciating.

It was hard for her because her twin brother, with a significantly higher GPA, enjoyed far more options than she did. She was trying to stifle her sniffling with limited success.

I handed the girl a copy of a story that I wrote today for my college blog on CBSMoneyWatch. In recognition of the community college summit held at the White House I wrote this post:

7 Ways to Succeed in Community College

If you know someone who will probably end up at a community college, pass the link along. I truly believe that it’s not where you go to college that matters, but what you do when you get there.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also write a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com and US News.

Yes, there are ways to transfer to great schools — even Ivy League quality — from community colleges.

At the end of their post, I’ve included some of my own posts on transfer students…

Transferring Out of a Community College

Four-year colleges and universities are courting transfer students from community colleges. And they have transfer agreements or articulation agreements to make that move possible.

So what’s a transfer agreement?  Simply put, it’s a contract between partnering schools that allow qualified students to transfer course credits, but most transfer agreements do more than that. A transfer agreement can be a ticket to a four-year institution. Many transfer agreements tell students at a particular community college what they need to do to transfer over to a partnering four-year school. Here’s what many agreements include:

• The courses you must take before transferring
• The number of units you must complete to transfer
• The minimum GPA required
• Other specific requirements for certain majors

How can a transfer agreement help you? If you’re a community college student, provided that you’ve completed all the requirements under the agreement, you’ll be given priority consideration for admission to selected colleges and universities. In some cases, fulfilling a transfer agreement gets you guaranteed admission to a partnering four-year school. For example, the Virginia Community College System has transfer agreements guaranteeing admission to the University of Virginia’s College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Once you’re in, you can finish courses towards your bachelor’s degree and you’ll graduate with the same degree as everyone else at your university or college. The difference is that you had that first two years or so to explore your options while saving money by paying less tuition at a two-year college.

Transfer agreements differ among schools, so you will need to do a bit of research and talk to a transfer counselor at your college.

Lan Ngo and Chris Goodmacher write advice for prospective and current college transfer students at TheTransferBook.com.

More Reading from TheCollegeSolutionBlog:

Good News for College Transfer Students

Do Transfer Students Succeed in College?

About two out of three full-time college students receive grants, otherwise known as scholarships, to attend school. If you just look at private institutions, the number who receive college scholarships is a whopping 80%.

I obtained those figures by reading a New York Times’ Q&A with Sandy Baum, a professor emeritus at Skidmore College and a senior policy analyst at the College Board. It’s hard to image anyone more knowledgeable about college costs than Baum, an economist, who has immersed herself in college funding issues for many years.

While the published figures on college tuition are daunting, what families should be focusing on is what their college cost will be after they subtract grant money or scholarships that typically come from the schools themselves. When you subtract this cash, what you’ve got left is the net tuition price.

This net tuition price, according to Baum, has been steadily shrinking for at least 15 years. It’s declined so much that the average cost of college is dramatically less than the sticker price.

Here are some examples:
Type of institution                Published Tuition    Average Net Price
Community college……………$2,544                           $0
State university ………………..$7,020                           $1,600
Private colleges ………………..$26,273                        $11,900

You can learn more about college costs by reading The New York Time’s interview.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com.

Read more:

Naming Names: A List of the Most Generous Colleges

A Primer on College Scholarships