The Great Disconnect: Why Admissions and Transfer Still Feel Like Two Worlds

In this special Admit It! and Transfer TEA crossover episode, hosts Alex Fronduto and Loida González Utley sit down to discuss one of the most persistent challenges in higher education—bridging the divide between freshman and transfer admissions. Drawing from national data and institutional experiences, they examine why these two areas often operate in silos, the impact that disconnect has on students, and what innovative models are emerging to close the gap. The conversation explores institutional culture, communication, pathways, and practical strategies for creating a more seamless student experience from recruitment to graduation.

Hosts:

• Dr. Alex Fronduto
  Associate Teaching Professor & Faculty Program Lead, M.Ed in Higher Education Administration
  Graduate School of Education, Northeastern University
• Loida González Utley
  Director, Recruitment and Enrollment Services
  Texas A&M University–Central Texas

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to a special crossover episode of Admitted and Transfer T. I'm Loya Gonzalez Utley, director of recruitment and enrollment services at Texas A&M University, Central Texas, joined by Doctor Alex Frandudo, who is the host of the Admitted podcast. Today, we are diving into a topic that both of our audiences will recognize as critical, the great disconnect, why admissions and transfer still feel like two worlds. We'll explore why freshmen and transfer recruitment are often siloed, how those structures affect both staff and students, and what can be done to bridge the gap. From institutional culture and process differences to emerging models of integration and collaboration, we'll unpack where we are, what is changing, and how we can better serve transfer students in the years ahead. Hello, fellow podcasters of higher education and other spaces. Um, we are doing something really cool today. Um, we, this is a crossover episode. This is me and this is this other gentleman in front of me. Uh, who I love very much. Um, and we just decided to come together to talk about this really cool topic. But before we do, for, since this is a crossover episode and it's going to go in my podcast and his podcast, let's do a little intro. Um, I'll start first. My name is Loya Gonzalez Utley. I serve as the director of recruitment and enrollment services at Texas A&M University Central Texas, and I have the privilege of being the host of Transfer Tea, which is a, uh, and, um, and I get to, I get to talk about all things transfer, and I get to meet really cool people, basically, people like Doctor Alex here. Well, why thank you. You're also pretty cool. Uh, my name's Doctor Alex Brandudo. I am an associate teaching professor and a lead of our Masters of Higher Education program at Northeastern University in Boston. And I am the podcast host of Admit It, which we cover pretty much anything broad range enrollment management. Um, so anything from specific populations to just general recruitment practices. And so love talking transfer specifically, which is really what we're gonna focus on. Today, I think, right? Is that what we're doing? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's an, it's an inevitable topic in higher education, right? Um, we, uh, we, we're talking about transfer in very different ways and transfer itself and then credit mobility and learning mobility and what is this and what is happening, um, but I think to, to even get to that point, um, when the reason why we want to talk about this is there is, um. There's like a great divide, like the great disconnect, right, between recruitment and admissions and transfer and admissions and And you know we're codependent on each other and if you've heard any any episodes on transferee, I think one of the main messages is like we're so siloed that it's taking us so much time to get things done and assist students, and students need our help now. They don't need it tomorrow or next year. I don't know. What do you think, Alex? I mean, especially transfer students. Like you said, people that are traditional freshmen going into college from directly from high school, they're planning years in advance for that process. A lot of transfer students are not planning that far in advance. We know that transfer timeline is so short and institutions are continuing to try to adapt to that and. Many are not being very successful. What they end up doing is just taking what they've done as like a freshman and just being like, Oh, this is what a transfer needs, and actually none of it is true. And we know that transfer is a growing population and with freshman populations in most of the country of the US, not everywhere, declining, like institutions need to be adapting to this adult learner and or transfer student. And so it is crazy to me that so many institutions have not adapted because this isn't new information either. No, it's not. No. And so like it's crazy because, um, so in most institutions cater to freshman students, right? And it's, I'm not gonna say it's easy to recruit freshman students because it's not, but, but it really isn't, uh, but, um, students follow this. Schedule, right? You know that you can purchase names, um, ACT names, ACT names, um, you can go to fairs, you can collaborate, and so you can start, um, cultivating a relationship with the student and putting them in your CRM and getting them communication, and you know when they're gonna graduate. So you have an expected entry term for a freshman student, right? And so, That does not work in transfer, and I think where we fail a lot in higher education is assuming that we are going to get transfer students the exact same way that we get freshman students. Oh yes, and I think that people don't realize that most transfer students actually don't know their entry term, right? They're like, I want to start today. You're like, OK, well, let's break that down. What does that actually mean, right? Especially for institutions that might have very specific requirements, right? I'm sure that's something we'll talk about at some point in this episode, but Right? Like if you're going into a health professions program or something that's accredited, that student may not be able to start today, right? It might be actually preparing them for success as they take some more courses or maybe they're not qualified yet. And so some people will think that, oh, transfer students, they can enter immediately, or there's the other piece that like it could actually take them some time. And so it's that one on one conversation that's so important, and if you don't have people that are specialized in that. Then that's going to be a struggle. So it goes back to the silo, like not everyone can just do transfer and you can't really, you need to have that silo in some ways of specialty, but you can't just not share things at the same time. So it's like this balancing act that offices need to be able to do. Yeah, and, and it's interesting that you bring that up because just recently one of my uh good friends said, hey, I have a transfer professional that needs to go to a conference, like what's the best conference? And if you really think about it, like, what conference is available, like what official training do we have for transfer professionals? And, and I said, look, I can give you some suggestions, right? I, I, you know, we're we're gonna talk about later on in, in, in the year about the assembly, like, but like. Where, how, how do they learn? Like how are we training the people to, to train students on how and when to transfer, and that is a really big question mark right now. Yeah, and I mean, I'll do one plug even though obviously we're we're promoting cro, but there is thankfully for those that might be New England based, there is a New England Transfer Association, which is up and coming. Um, I know a lot of people that have been a part of it, and so I hope that spreads. There may be others obviously across the US that I'm not aware about, but I think your point is like, there really isn't this like national governing board there you see with like, obviously like ACRA or NACCAC or anything, you know, obviously looking at, you know, financial aid, international. Transfer, there really isn't that at this point. Or if there is, please tell us because then we want to share it to other people. But so go ahead and it's nuanced by state, right? So like what works for you in Massachusetts transfer it may not fly in Texas transfer because the policies differ, right? So that is, that is all it is also, it's very niche, it's very nuanced. There's a lot of details and so I, I, I, you know, when we talk. About this episode and like talking about these silos is always really interesting to me because you have to know a little bit of everything to understand, right? Um, one of the, one of the data points that we want to bring up is the increase of transfer students, um, and how transfer enrollment has grown according to National Student Clearinghouse it's 7.9% higher and so we have to be prepared to talk to these, but now students are not just transferring from my institution to another and back and forth. They're transferring nationally, right? And so, like, I, while I need to understand how Texas is doing it, I also need to understand how Nebraska and California and, and what their common core is so that I'm able to help students here. And so that's why like we have to be the ones to break these cycles. We have to be the ones to advocate for more information, for more transparency, for more data, because otherwise we're not going to be able to be effective for these students. No, and like you said, we continue to see this increase. We're seeing it for a variety of reasons. Fall 2024 was a 4.4% increase year over year. 2025 data should be coming out at any point as we're recording this, so I don't have that. But thinking about each of these years, that population of students. is so diverse as well because like you said, they're coming from different states. Everyone sometimes is assuming that they're going from like community college into a four-year, but it's not true, right? There goes 4 year to 4-year as well. And like you mentioned as well, thinking about what the actual. The curriculum that students are taking is obviously going to be a big place in addition to policy, as you mentioned, um, because you even said Common Core. Not everywhere has Common Core or has has specific articulation agreements, you know, all of that plays a role into this, and I think it's difficult for us to do, but how, how much more difficult is it for the student? Well, and think about, think about what you need to know just as a professional. Like if, if somebody comes to you with a transcript and they say, hey, Alex, I'm coming from Nebraska to Massachusetts. I want to know if my English and math. 100 are going to come over. You need to have some knowledge of what that that curriculum looks like to be able to answer that one question, right? And so it calls for additional information which we, we don't, we don't have. I mean, we're having to look up a syllabus, you know, admissions professionals are looking up syllabus to try to compare them, to try to make a point to. Just, you know, and, and we do this for every single course, right? And then you send it to the faculty and the faculty have to review it. I mean, so on the recruitment side, it's hard to answer those questions at the time that you're talking to students because there's so many ifs or buts, and that's just one example of like the many things that that we need and pieces of information that we need to be equipped with so that we can answer those questions. Exactly. I mean, I now sit on both sides of that. So I've been in enrollment management for a long time, dealt with tons of transfer students, worked at a specialized institution, so it really came down to accreditation standards and specific topics within specific courses. So we essentially had to review every single course. Every single syllabus for every single transfer student, even if they weren't technically qualified in creating transfer grids for every single student to figure out even where they would place in what year, right? Like, are they actually a T1 into the first year? Are they a T2? Do they think they're a T2, but they actually have to be a T1 because they didn't do these courses. And doing that all across the board. And now that I sit on the faculty side, that's what I do, right? I'm on the faculty side now being asked these questions from our enrollment management team of like, does this course transfer and how many credits is it for? And it's like wild to me that like it is so individual and that's where we are right now. And we've gotten better. Like we have systems now in place where you can build, um, a lot of course. Work in the background and you know if you make an exception for one student, you can make that same exception for others in the future but that still that still does not remove the need to know more detailed information like to be able to accept this course, does that mean that it's going to fall in the right sequential order, right? So there's equivalencies. So, so here, here we go like is it transferable is the question. Is it applicable is the question. And then the, the, the third question is, given if we accept these, given the, the coursework that we are taking in, especially for STEM degrees, is the student prepared? Academically to go on with the sequential order of courses and be successful, right, like, like it's not a, it's not a question of just like, hey, yeah, take my transcripts and, and we're good, uh, I think some of the, some of the challenges that I've seen, um, with some students is, yeah, we have, um, 30 credit hours and, and we meet the admission requirements but sequence. Potentially, we don't have the sciences completed so that the student can go into their engineering degree, right? And so, so, so those are the, the conversations and the information that, that people need to be equipped with and, and we don't have something that is available at the level that we needed to get that information fast enough to answer questions for students. And so where does that bring us, right? So we're saying that we don't have all of this information. We have to provide this service, uh, we're balancing the act of we want specific transfer specialists, let's say on the admission team, but we also want people that are well balanced and can do all things. So I don't know, do you have any suggestions for someone that's out there's like, OK, you just listed all these problems, like what can I do? Yeah, so I think, um. I, I, I was hopeful and I still am that about 2 or 3 years ago there was a summit, a transfer summit at the White House, and I know that many organizations came together to call for desegregated data. I think to understand students, we need to understand our data first, um, and we need to, we need to be able to drill down on the data, uh, not just national data, like national statistics tell us that for example, uh, 33% of community college students want to transfer and they don't. Um, the, uh, Community College Research Center released, um, data this year on how there are now 2.5 million dually enrolled students, which they're considered freshman students, but they have transfer credit, right? So you add another layer of gray area to the transfer space because they're transferring students. Um, and so they have coursework and they're gonna have the same questions. I think that that what we need to do, like, I think that we need to be better advocates for desegregated data, and once we have the data, we need to, we really need to take action. Um, and, and figure out a way that we can communicate information to each other and be knowledgeable. Um, in a, in a, in a perfect world, there would be one database where we can all look at each other's states and requirements and coursework and, you know, and just be able to, to look in there and figure out what we need. Um, Until then, I think the best thing that you can do as a as a transfer professional is just get connected, get plugged in and network with people and ask questions and And honestly, you're gonna have to pioneer a lot of things probably. Uh, and so, uh, and so I think that that the best thing that you can do is just partner up, find your people, you know, find, find those groups of, of knowledgeable personnel that are willing to mentor you and, and provide you that information so that you can know because here's the thing, like right now for the, for many years, Has seen as a secondary population in institutions for a really long time, but as we have seen that the numbers have increased, there is going to come a point where institutions are going to be forced to see them as equal to first-timing college students, and that is inevitable given the amount of of of um duly enrolled students that are going to come in with transferring credit. And so I think that that's going to change the um. The composition of the student populations and institutions. I, I couldn't agree anymore. I think that people, again, it's almost, I, I relate this to the demographic cliff, right? People knew that this was happening and happening. We talk about it forever and now it's like here and institutions are like, wait, what do I do? And I'm like, wait, you should have been putting this in your strategic plan 5 years ago. And the same thing, like we already know, like we said at the beginning of this episode that transfer population is increasing, increasing. It needs to increase for enrollment in general, right, for institutional revenue, but also in general the student population is changing, and so that matters for all of us if you're not keeping up with as each generation of student is changing. And so I'm curious as we think about this, people think it's kind of like, OK, we're gonna advise you, get you in the door, and then you're just off on your merry way. And, you know, with me as an enrollment management. People always just think that means recruitment and that's not the case. And so I really am encouraging institutions as well to think about the entire life cycle of a student because what I see a lot is admissions does really well with transfers, you know, up to a point, right, because they have to know they're specialized, they're recruiting, it's still sales. But then the pass off happens and I still think there's some struggles in that pass off and some of that is even orientation. I've spent a long time reworking transfer orientations because they have been brutal and I encourage people that are listening to this to also think about that because I've always had the motto and especially if you're like a small private, for example, like to us the pass off isn't until like after ad drop in September, if it's a traditional fall start, let's say. Not whenever they enrolled or deposited, and so, you know, that idea has stuck for a while with like freshmen, but I don't know if it's always sticking with transfer. And so I'm curious if you've kind of experienced the same thing or kind of what you've heard. I, I think that that there are some institutions that do this well, but for the most part, the majority, and here's the other caveat, like the majority, because the, the population of transfer is so small, it is very under-resourced. And there are a lot of institutions, a lot of my peers right now that are out being the recruiters and the enrollment specialists and the people to assist. Admission because they're one, so, so they're, you know, they're under-resourced and so, um, I think that I think that that's a, that's a different um type of type of issue. Like if you want to grow this population and you want to, you want to bring them in, then you need to provide not only professional development, but you need to provide more bodies. Like you need to, you need to have a team, and it doesn't mean that it has to be 15 people, right? But like one person can't do it alone and and There are a lot of places where there is just one or two transfer professionals trying to carry on. I, I met somebody, um, in at the, um, tech and transfer, um, conference recently, um, and, and he was from a different state. He was from New York and he was like, I'm doing it all. Like I'm the, I'm the one person, right? And I like I felt that in my heart and soul because I've been there. He's like, I'm, I'm this one person and I'm brand new and like I don't have anybody to teach me. And, and you know, like, so, so this, this is, this is real, um, and, and I'm gonna mention something else because you talked about demographics. The demographics, as as more dually enrolled students are increasing, so is the push to help students complete. And then you get into stop outs, adult learners, military, like there are subpopulations. Transfer is no longer just transfer students. There are a lot of subpopulations of students that are trying to return to complete and, and this is a push nationally, but also the, the economic, um, viability of the country pushes, is what pushes education, right? And it propels students, I mean, we saw it in COVID. Um, when people lost their jobs, they went back to school to reskill. And so these are, these are all, you know, adult learners, people that have been out, uh, you know, that want to complete, and, and so there's all these subpopulations, and you have to be able to understand all of them to give them the appropriate assistance, but it's going to take more than one person. Right, and you just kind of also acknowledge that it's going to take more than one office, right? So the resources around even those subpopulations, we know that larger institutions, again, the national landscape is changing, so there may or may be different types of resources available for a variety of different types of student demographics, um, if they have gone away or not going away, you know, it will be interesting to see what that looks like for, like you said, completion, stop outs, etc. And I think also nationally, as we know, many states are starting to have free community college, right? And so that is another piece that especially if they want to then obtain a higher level degree, it's going to increase the adult learner population no matter what, if that is continuing to happen or could potentially, as we're already seeing, change your tra well, I hate using the word traditional, but just to distinguish, right, traditional freshmen. Many are potentially starting a community college. Why wouldn't you if it's free, right? And then, especially in the affordability conversation, the ROI in terms of, you know, education degree. So to then think about that, that like your many of your T3 even would be, but maybe still just a, you know, a large population that you may have not anticipated coming down the pipeline depending on what state you're in. Which is exactly why it takes more than one office, right? That, that's, that's exactly why, because, so, so here's the thing, um, imagine, imagine a student, um, that has free tuition at a community college, and the community colleges do a great job at assisting the students, right? Most of them have open admission, right? So they, they have Have these processes in, in, in place. Let's, let's use John Doe. So John Doe goes to community college and community college does a bang up job at showing them their resources. They don't have to pay for tuition. They don't have to, um, worry about the financial part of about buying their books and stuff, and most community colleges have very flexible scheduling, right? So then the student decides that they're gonna transfer. To an institution who is going to assume that because they are, they've already done college, they don't need any other type of support because they should know it. They already went to school for 4 years and got an associate's degree part-time. So why should we have to come up with an orientation for them because they know everything, right? And so then the student comes in. And the initial barrier, and this is a misconception, is there's not enough aid. No, it's not that there is not enough aid. It's the fact that the student needs to talk to financial aid to understand the totality of their financial circumstances and how that is going to fit in because here, here's the deal, like there's still, there's universities are very traditional, um, and so there are still barriers. to the modalities that students have and all of these small little barriers are what hinder people from actually transferring, and they require more than just admissions and more than just recruitment. Now they need involvement from student support services, from, you know, maybe they need a financial literacy course that is beyond, you know, enrollment management sometimes even. And so it requires a whole team of support, but that's not, that's not. The tradition because freshmen don't need it at that capacity and so I think that that what we can do best is make the distinction, right? Ensure that people understand that like graduate students are, you know, follow the the certain trends and need this support, transfer students need this support, and freshman students need this support, and they can all live and we can all live in harmony and we can all, there will be similarities. Sometimes, sometimes in some ways, but we should never take one process and say, oh, this freshman recruitment admissions process is going to work for transfer. It's going to work for grad, because it's not. We're that's, that's no, no, and I mean you're talking about I'm going to go all professory on you right now, right? Like that's all transfer student capital theory, right? Like you obviously there's capital theory in general, there's student theories. Right, but like when you think about what a transfer student really needs, you've hit on a couple of the main points, right? Like they need to understand credits, they need to understand the advising of like now their current coursework, they need to understand orientation, they need to understand financial aid. Again, those encompassing points apply to any student, right? But it's just specific to that population that people aren't considering, you know, some of the cool things that I've seen institutions do. Is really hit on each of those in a variety of ways during, you know, the recruitment enrollment pipeline where they are bridging the gap with the other offices, especially at larger universities where they might be more difficult, right? Hosting like financing your education workshops, right? Understanding what that actually looks like, but for transfers, not just for freshmen, right, because you might see those on the freshman side, right? Specific advising. I've seen some institutions. Bring students in before registration, before orientation, to have a one on one sit down with an advisor again. It's a connection to obviously the recruitment, but specifically of like, OK, now I have this like all this transfer credit and stuff. I know registration is going to happen in 3 weeks, but I'm still last, right? Like how do you help that process? That's another thing that institutions can be thinking of if you haven't done these types of really, you know, boots on the ground type of work at your institution. It's not just a, I went to this community college, I hosted a fair, they applied. They got their financial aid package and now they'll show up, right? Like if you aren't putting those strategic pieces, whether those are events, whether they could be virtual even. That's the only way you're going to get someone to actually stay and understand the whole process, right, because it's overwhelming and it's even more overwhelming with all of these other pieces, right? Like, uh, I can only imagine what someone goes through and the amount of information that they get. Yeah, I mean, I mean, think about John Doe. So, so you sent John Doe like a communications plan on financial aid. Well, John Doe comes from a free community college. He's never had to, like, like, you know, he's never had to fill out a FAFSA perhaps. He's never had to go in and understand his package. He's never had to accept his aid in a new portal because it was free tuition, right? And so we, we just, we, we allow all these assumptions to continue. To exist and it's time that we take action. I like to, I like to talk to students like they don't know anything. And so, and so whenever they come in my office, I'm like, Hey, how are you? I see that you're, you're seeking a master's degree. This is technical. Do you know the difference between technical and academic? No, no, I don't. OK, great. Let me show you. So that way as we progress in the conversation. You can understand what I'm saying because this is jargon, and I, and I joke around. I tell them like this is stuff I'm supposed to know, but I know that you don't know, like, so I'm just going to guide you through it. So when I say this, you can understand what I'm saying and you can tell me what you need and where the gap is. So we have to assume that they don't know it. And so I'm against the idea that we should assume that they already know everything because 99% of the time it's wrong. Oh yeah, and I love that you just said the jargon. It's like my biggest pet peeve, right? Higher ed is all about acronyms and jargon that we expect that every other person knows, and half the people in higher ed don't know them. And so you're like, why do you think a student knows anything that you're saying? And so like, let alone just like a program, but like when you're talking about different resources or different processes, like you know it because you do it. They don't know it because it's behind the scenes and so. Like these assumptions, like I don't understand how you don't get that. Oh, I love this one. Like, yeah, like, hey, the student, there's a pathway on the website. OK, cool. Does the student know what a pathway is? Do they know how to interpret that? Like you have, uh, you have span 2320. Does the student know what span 2320? Does the transfer guide tell them whether it's a common core or whether it's an elected like. You know, I don't even know what Spanish, Spanish, uh, but you know what I mean, like, like I don't have, you don't have your curriculum memorized. I don't have my curriculum memorized, but, and, and yet we're, you know, we're throwing things, tools out there. Um, and, and leaving the students to interpret them on their own, which again, I think leads into another really good aspect that we haven't talked too much about, but when we're thinking about like resources and their needs, right, going back to like capital like. Social capital in terms of other things on campus is also a detriment to many institutions because, right, people want to see people that are like them in any type of demographic, whether you're talking racial demographic, religious demographic, anything, right? That kind of sense of belonging is what students need to be retained and with transfer students again there are institutions that are doing this. Anytime we make this type of assumption, we're not saying every institution isn't doing this, but I would say nationally in a broad stroke, institutions are not providing resources for transfer students to get their social capital. Like, do they have a transfer student association just where people could just be a club and gather as other transfer students. And you think that's like basic, but not every institution. has that exactly and that that's that goes to the sense of belonging, right, because it breaks a misconception that universities are only for traditional freshman students, right? Then, then you can find your people in that space and, and I wanna mention one more thing because I'm faculty and you're faculty and I'm just gonna say like we need more faculty buy-in. On both sides of the transfer spectrum from community college to universities, I think there's nothing more impactful, um, than equipping, um, faculty with the information that they need, not so they can go recruit you. We're not saying you have to go do all the recruitment and the admission and processing and articulation. But you can answer some simple questions and also acknowledge that some students that are in your classroom are not going to be at the same level of understanding that others because they came from a different place. And I think that is so important. That hits on the retention, right, of retaining students and The student success, which look, we're not just trying to recruit admit students we want, I have, I come from the, from the feeling that we want everybody to succeed and we're gonna improve our country if you know we equip people with the right information and education that's like the only way we're gonna change this country, right. And so there's like it's, it's a bigger picture than just just recruiting a student to school. We want to lives. We want to change the trajectory of their family. We want to, you know, we want them to live better and, and, and then give back to our community. And so we can't do that if we're just sitting around, you know, making assumptions and oh my gosh, that's my biggest pet peeve is just the assumption parts that we make, all the assumptions we make in higher education. Well, you learned this last year in your course. Well, no, some of the people in this room didn't take that course last year. Yeah. Remember that book that we read? No, sir, I don't. I didn't read that book. So I mean, I, I get that, you know, with the faculty hat on as well. I, I, I live and breathe that every day, and I think that. I hope that people live and breathe that, right? Like that's what you want. Like you said, I think everyone goes into higher education, like staff wise, faculty wise, with the same idea in mind, right? We're looking for student success. We're looking to make that impact, like you said, make the world a better place, you know, I always make this joke like not everyone's joining higher ed for the salary, right? So there's like some mission intrinsic motivation behind why people enter whatever they enter in higher ed in terms of the staff and faculty side and Like that's what you have to keep bringing to the table every day. We know that pretty much nationally higher ed is under fire. There's scrutiny. There's so many things that we're dealing with every day and so. How can we make it better, and that's only going to be one student at a time and thinking about how you operationalize these things, how you streamline things, but continue to keep the student voice in mind, which is not always the case. I've seen many processes and procedures that think they're trying to make it better, but it actually just makes it more convoluted. Higher ed loves to add red tape and processes to things that might not need to be there. Yeah, and so, and so I've, I've gone into the, the habit of walking into meetings saying, what are we trying to achieve? Like how is this going to solve a problem for a student, you know, and if you ask that every single time, you're gonna become more and more student-centered. Um, and, and so that's one part. I would also suggest that people talk more to their student populations. Uh, I know when I came in to transfer, people were like, Oh, you're doing cool transfer things. Like how do you do it? Because I, I sit down and talk to students. I'm not, you know, I just, I listen to, I'm the, I recruit them, so I know what challenge. I see the challenges in real life, and I would encourage. If you're disconnected from students, try to connect every now and then. Students will tell you what their pinch points are. They will, they want to, they want to be heard. And when you are at, at a level, um, in your career that you're able to take action, it is just the most rewarding experience when you can say, look, I hear you. I've heard 5 students walk in with the same. Um, issues, same barrier, let me do something about it and then turn around and actually do something about it. Like you will change so many lives. It would be so impactful. I love that. Yeah, I mean, I think so many people as you move up, right, you're more and more taken away from the student day to day interactions that you get lost, right? And I know many people that are at higher levels that make it a point. They're like, I'm going to do 2 student meetings every week, or I'm gonna do, I'm going to go on the campus tour. I'm gonna do this and like they put it. In their calendar because we all know as you move up, your life is also always on fire and things are always happening, but they make a point to do the things that you're saying, and I think that's why they're successful, and that's why they're seeing increases when other people are not. It's because they're really taking that student voice to heart. I'm going to plug one quick podcast episode that I have in the past, just because you made me think about it. Uh, I had a guest come on talking about using design thinking theory with your admission staff to revitalize your application process, and like she takes through a step by step guide on like how to do a retreat that thinks about your application process and where every single bottleneck is for your student and think about a plan on how you can then strategically get rid of that bottleneck. And so it just made me think that when you were saying about thinking about the student and the processes and like how do you make it easier. So I just wanted to do that plug and, and also like the student, I always tell my recruitment team, how we recruit students now is not how we're going to recruit students next year. So you have to be aware of those changes and prepared for them so it doesn't take you 3 semesters to make a change. You have to be able to know then. You have to adapt to your student ever changing student population. I love that. I mean, if you can't, right, you're always going to be behind. You're never going to be able to catch up, and I think that's something that I find a lot is that people are looking to do what's next, but they're so stuck in the now, right? And if you're stuck in the now, you're never going to look forward. And so you have to make that strategic decision on like, what do I have to do today versus what can I be doing today to make next, you know, semester easier. And so I appreciate you sharing that. So let's think. Final thoughts, we covered a lot. If there was something you're like, OK, if someone listened to the end of this episode, you know, instead of our, you know, inherent back and forth,-- like what should someone take away with-- this? Build a solid but flexible foundation for students. Solid, solid as in strong, but flexible because it's going to change. And, and in everything that you do, um, I think that that's the best thing that we can do for students and for higher education. People are questioning the value of higher education now too, and I think that we owe it to them. To, um, to provide that flexibility and the transparency that we need. I would also say if you're a transfer professional, like you're not alone. Keep fighting, like keep pioneering, keep learning. We have so much ground to cover, like connect with us, connect, you know, that's the beauty I think of, of ACro is knowing so many people and being connected and having um resources available. Come, there's so many of us that are. As passionate as you and we want to support each other, we need to, um, so I would say that, um, also follow our podcast. Yeah, that's a good ending point. Um, I mean, I can't agree more, and I think for me I'm a holistic student. You know, theory person, and when I kind of talked about thinking about, right, their application process, but what about their enrollment process? What about them being a student in the classroom, you know, you as an admission professional or a recruiter, you know, whatever label you want, depending on where kind of office you're in, you do have the impact. You know the students that are coming in. And if you are not making those relationship connections to other offices and to faculty, you, other than the students themselves, which you should also advocate for, as we already said, to hear the student voice, but you're the other person that knows what's happening, right? You're the one that's talking to hundreds, maybe thousands of transfer students. You're seeing millions of syllabi. You're the one that's going to be the most knowledgeable, and so trying to advocate for what you think is needed to help the process is only going to be better, right? Because Your value proposition right off the bat is if we make this easier, our enrollment can go up, which leads to better tuition. No one's gonna argue that. And so, and you're literally the expert in that field, right? And so, and that's the only way you're going to advocate to your earlier point about getting more people. Well, if you get more apps in or you get more people enrolling, like that's going to give you a headcount to support that. And you know, sometimes that data is so crucial. And so if you're listening. Please, please, please reach out, ask questions to anyone, to us. We'd love to chat with you, um, but thank you for listening. I hope you liked our crossover. I just think of like Law and Order crossovers and other, other 911 episodes. So hopefully we'll do some more of these, um, but definitely, as Lloya said, subscribe to both of ours. Um, if you're only one of our fans, hopefully now you'll be both of our fans. And hopefully we do this again just like the um it it is Thursday Alex when we when we recorded this and this is Law and Order Day actually so crossover day I know this is perfect um thank you so much we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Thanks everybody.