Twelve years. That is how long a student spends in school before graduating high school. It’s the number of birthdays one celebrates before being a teenager. It’s kind of a long time. This spring in Shocker Nation, 12 years has a fresh new reflection point. It’s the number of years in a row Wichita State has worn the championship belt for being Kansas’ No. 1 transfer destination. It means that for more than a decade (120 percent of a decade, to be exact), students who started their higher education at a Kansas community college made the journey to Wichita State in greater mass than any other university in the state.

After completing their community college stint, 719 students transferred to Wichita State in the fall 2021 (the most recent year this data is available). That scale of transfer intake is 15 percent higher than the next closest Kansas university. Plus, if you factor in volume of transfer students from Kansas technical colleges and other in-state universities, Wichita State owns those additional transfer crowns too. We’re the top destination for transfers from Butler, Hutchinson, Cowley, Pratt, Garden City and Seward Community Colleges, plus land more incoming students from Kansas technical colleges than all the other schools in the state combined. We are not just a transfer destination, we’re a transfer juggernaut.   

Why does this matter? We think it means students who are serious about moving on to a bachelor’s degree know our university has the right collection of transfer practices in place to catapult their educational and professional careers. With resources like dual advising, the transfer gateway and plentiful internships in our community, transfer students who are looking for clear paths toward their degrees will find what they need while wearing Shocker black and yellow. Perhaps you might be like Julius Thomas III who changed his major upon transferring to Wichita State, leveraging his talents in voice, dance and acting to be powered by individual attention from our College of Fine Arts faculty, and rose to lead roles in “Hamilton” and “Motown: The Musical” on Broadway. Or perhaps your transfer story might mimic that of Harriet Hamilton who parlayed a collegiate tennis career onto the athletic director’s honor roll and a supply chain logistics internship with one of the world’s largest privately held companies located five minutes from campus. There’s no limit to the Wichita State transfer success stories, transcending all majors and a variety of previous college settings.

Why is this good news for you? We’re working on lucky number 13 (years in a row) for next fall so if you haven’t already decided to transition to Kansas’ top transfer destination, we’ve got a new deadline for transfer scholarships in play. If you apply for admission and submit all of your official previous/current college transcripts by April 1, you’re on your way to receiving up to a $6,000 transfer scholarship to utilize over two years of attendance at Wichita State. It’s that simple for you to be a part of the university’s entering transfer class for fall 2023. We’re celebrating unparalleled heights and consistency with our transfer population, and we’re delighted to pay it forward to future transfers to keep the momentum going.