To be considered a transfer applicant, a student must have a minimum of three transferable courses. Transfer students are normally required to spend two academic years at Lafayette in order to be eligible for graduation. At least half the courses applied toward the major must be taken at Lafayette. Campus housing is available for all incoming transfer students.

Application deadlines for transfer students are May 1 for fall entry, November 1 for spring. Campus visits are encouraged, and weekday interviews are available.

To request more information, including an application, please complete the online Information Request Form. The material you request will be sent by mail.

You may also Download a Transfer Application. Be sure to select "Transfer Student Application" from the list of downloadable forms.

If you have any specific questions about the transfer admissions process, please contact:

Joan Lichtenwalner
Senior Assistant Director of Admissions
(610) 330-5106
lichtenj@lafayette.edu

Office of Part-Time Studies

Student Perspectives

James Garton '06 (Buckingham, Pa.) came to college with a passion for physics and chemistry and no reason to believe he would study anything else. But shortly into his academic career at Elon University in North Carolina, he discovered engineering - an inconvenient fact, since Elon doesn't offer that degree.

"It seemed to me that engineering was my true calling, and a few more weeks into class this notion was confirmed," recounts Garton, now an environmental engineering major at Lafayette. "After a few tours of the campus and a lot of soul-searching, I decided to apply to Lafayette for a midyear transfer. Luckily, I was accepted and obviously could not wait to undergo the Lafayette Experience."

Garton says he is very happy at Lafayette, which is also seven hours closer by car to his home and family in Pennsylvania. "My father just purchased season tickets to the Eagles and. with my father and I being diehard fans, it is a great opportunity to spend time with my father and 60,000 other screaming fans in the Linc (Lincoln Financial Field)," he says. A further payoff has been a chance to join Lafayette's golf team, Garton's passion outside the realm of schooling.

"My classes have gone very well and I have been very pleased with all of my professors and feel as though I have learned much valuable and pertinent information this semester," he comments, adding that he's had a great time playing and practicing golf. "Lafayette has and will give me many opportunities that Elon never could, and I am very grateful for that."

A graduate of Central Bucks High School East, Garton considers Lafayette "an extraordinary college" that is always striving for improvement, both academically and in terms of campus buildings. He says he is looking forward to his next three years and is "sure they will be some of the best of my life."

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A chance to sample a greater variety of courses and to swim on a team with a coach he likes were Chris Grabowski's aims when he transferred to Lafayette. The student describes himself as "much happier on the whole" now that he's made the move.

Grabowski '05 (Port Carbon, Pa.) says he likes being able to take courses that interest him, compared with the more restricted selection at Pennsylvania State University Main Campus, where "if I were a business major, those were the classes I would take."

"The different academic structure is much more appealing to me," says Grabowski, who did choose a business and economics major. "It's nice when the professors actually know your name and have a vested interest in your personal education instead of being a faceless number in the crowd."

In addition, Grabowski says, "I'm enjoying my athletics once again, which has helped my performance this past year." He says he wasn't happy with the way the program at Penn State was restructured after the coach left following his freshman year. "I've known the current swim coach at Lafayette and was very comfortable with his coaching style," he adds.

"On the whole, I enjoy being at Lafayette very much. If there was anything I could change, I wish there was more diversity at the college," says Grabowski.

The graduate of Pottsville Area High School says he is hoping to become more involved with special academic projects at Lafayette now that he has a better handle on how to approach the upcoming academic year.

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After completing one year at University of Southern California, Margot Huber ’03 decided to come to Lafayette. Feeling "like a number" in the majority of her classes at the university, Huber says, "Here the class size is much smaller. The professors know who you are, and they know when you’re in class."

Because the overall number of students on campus is smaller, the campus feels like a community environment, says Huber, of Lake Forest, Ill. "It’s much easier to get to know people and to get involved." An economics and business major and member of Delta Gamma sorority, Huber participates in rugby and volunteers at a local homeless shelter.

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Planetary scientists have speculated that Jupiter’s moon, Europa, has a surface crust of ice and an underlying ocean containing salts, sulfuric acid, or both. Megan Daly ’02, a physics major, conducted research with David L. Hogenboom, professor emeritus of physics, that could help determine what makes up this moon as well as others in the outer solar system.

They have studied the density of the solutions in both liquid and frozen phases at the high pressures and low temperatures that pertain to the interiors of these satellites.

"This EXCEL Scholars project makes you think on the spot and apply what you’ve learned in the classroom," says Daly, "even if it is just looking things up that you’ve learned in order to figure things out in the lab. The professor doesn’t tell you the answer—you have to find it yourself."

Daly, of Ballston Lake, N.Y., transferred to Lafayette from Boston University in the spring of her sophomore year. She has been a teaching assistant in physics and a circulation assistant for The Lafayette, the student newspaper.

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When Benjamin Persofsky ’01 transferred to Lafayette at the beginning of his junior year from Community College of Philadelphia, he was a trained emergency medical technician working part-time at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia to pay his way through college. He is now in the management development program at M&T Bank in Buffalo, N.Y.

As an economics and business major with a psychology minor, Persofsky externed with Michael Moskow ’59, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Shadowing Moskow, he learned what it takes to hold a high-level position in finance. He says the externship and his studies at Lafayette prepared him well. "Lafayette offers all of the tools one needs to get the best education available. The College took a risk and admitted me as a transfer student two and a half years ago. I cannot be more grateful," he says. "The professors have always given me their time to make sure I understood material. I never would have expected this out of a school of this small size."

Persofsky studied abroad for a semester at the University of Oxford, St. Catherine's College, in England. He played saxophone in the jazz band and was a DJ for WJRH, the campus radio station.

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Last spring semester, Claire Kesicke ’02, of North Salem, N.Y., helped execute stock-market trades with WJB Inc., a small independent firm on Wall Street. "This was a rare opportunity to get a taste of what goes on behind the scenes of the stock market," she says. "I learned what it is like to be down there on the floor and what happens when a firm calls with orders."

Kesicke, an economics and business major, transferred to Lafayette from University of Delaware last year. "Delaware was too big and I received no personal attention from my professors," she says. "My favorite teacher in high school, Nick Kowgios, a Lafayette graduate, encouraged me to try Lafayette. I had Cy Fleck for an adviser when I first arrived, and it turns out he was Mr. Kowgios adviser as well." Fleck, who is a 1952 Lafayette graduate and special assistant to the college president, was registrar for many years.

A diver on the varsity swimming and diving team, Kesicke is a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the economics honor society, and is a volunteer with the Landis Community Outreach Center. She is completing an honors thesis on "Finding an Alternative to the U.S. Treasury," advised by James DeVault, associate professor of economics and business, and Philip Shively, assistant professor of economics and business.