As graduation approaches at Elgin Community College, interest in transferring to universities grows, along with campus resources designed to help students navigate the process.

When students come to ECC, most of them come with uncertainty about their future, but ECC offers a plethora of resources to help students transfer to university.

“Our coordinators or managers meet one-on-one with students to help them fill out the application, or if there’s scholarship applications they need to fill out, we’ll walk them through that,” said Michelle Ramirez, Director of TRIO Student Support Services.

TRIO leads campus tours and meets one-on-one with students to help them with the transfer process.

Tracy Vittone, Director of Transfer Services, leads those campus tours as well, and both Vittone and Ramirez believe that the tours are the most valuable transfer resource offered at ECC. 

“Students come back from these tours and they want to learn more,” Vittone said. “They want to learn more about other schools and connect with their advisor to talk about what classes they have left to complete their transfer degree.”

“I think you learn so much when you’re on those campus tours and that information is invaluable,” Ramirez said. “And the whole thing becomes less scary.”

Ramirez believes that students get very intimidated by the change, and get comfortable at ECC.  Stepping onto the campus can help students get out of that comfort zone.

Although students at ECC transfer to lots of different universities, Northern Illinois University (NIU) and The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) have stood out as leaders consistently.

“We send more students to NIU than any other community college in the last several years, and UIC is our second top transfer institution,” Vittone said. “It makes sense because both of these schools are commuter friendly.”

Vittone said that specifically NIU is transfer friendly because they waive all of your general education requirements, and have you work closely with an advisor so that you should only have two years until you graduate with a bachelor’s. 

More information on transferring to both NIU and UIC can be found on their websites. 

ECC continues to host representatives from universities around the midwest, but in April they have had one-on-one appointment opportunities for both Aurora and Elmhurst University, and will have DePaul University on April 22nd. Aurora University will also be back on April 30th. 

These appointments will be held in the TRIO Suite in Building B, room B155. 

Jason Kane, Professor II of English, and Director of the Honors Program at ECC, believes that academic advisors are one of the most important resources for transferring students.

“People who act quick and talk to their advisors seem to find the most success,” Kane said. “From my honors students, around this time during spring they usually are going through the process and those who try doing everything on their own seem to struggle the most.”

Vittone, who had a background in academic advising, believes that the transfer services here can go a very long way in helping students get to the school they want to go to.

“I actually had a former student, to whom I was their advisor, who transferred to a school in the city recognize me while we were on a campus tour,” Vittone said. “I had to introduce everyone on the tour to her, and it showed how academic advising can go such a long way in this process.”

Vittone, Ramirez and Kane all emphasized the importance of just seeking help no matter what resource that’s available.

“Just ask questions to whomever you feel comfortable with, whether that’s your advisor, or TRIO, or a professor, and I promise you we will lead you to the school you want to go to,” Vittone said.

For further information on transfer services visit https://elgin.edu/student-services/transfer-services/