Exploring Transfer Summer Program at Vassar College

Each summer, a handful of BMCC students are selected to be part of the Exploring Transfer program at Vassar College. This residential summer program introduces high-achieving students to the world awaiting them at four-year institutions. Throughout the academically rigorous five-week intensive liberal arts session, around 25 community college students from the New York area and across the country live in one of Vassar’s residence halls overseen by program counselors who help support and guide them through their studies and foster close working relationships between students and faculty.

Exploring Transfer

Founded in 1985, Exploring Transfer inspires community college students to continue their education at a four-year college or university by giving them a taste of residential college life at one of the most prestigious colleges in the country. Students live in dorms, attend two specifically designed credit-bearing courses (course offerings change each summer), and form lasting friendships with their classmates, counselors, and faculty. Students in the program have gone on to flourish at highly selective private colleges and universities such as Yale, Amherst, Stanford, Smith, and Vassar, as well as branches of SUNY and the CUNY. Exploring Transfer students receive tuition, room, board and books for the five-week period of study.

About Vassar College

Founded in 1861 in the upstate town of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Vassar College is one of the most highly selective residential, coeducational liberal arts colleges in the country. Vassar is renowned for its pioneering achievement in education and ongoing curricular innovation, as well as for the beauty of its campus. The 1,000-acre campus is maintained as an arboretum and is distinguished by beautiful architecture, an outdoor amphitheater, an art center, an observatory, recital hall, three theaters, a 500-acre ecological preserve, two lakes and many streams.

How to Apply

The five-week Vassar ET Program usually beings in mid-June and ends the last week in July. Students who wish to be considered for the program should work with a BMCC committee member who will help them to prepare their application materials. With a few exceptions, Vassar ET only considers applications from students who are “nominated” by committee members from its community college partners. The application process normally starts with an initial interview and planning meeting with a committee member in late fall. Applicants who were not able to get started in the fall can begin this process at the start of the spring semester. The application itself usually opens in January and closes in mid-February or early March.

To qualify for the application, the student should…

  • make contact & work with a BMCC Vassar ET committee member (listed below)
  • be an upper freshman or lower sophomore in the spring semester prior to the summer program.
  • be enrolled in and attending BMCC in the spring semester preceding the summer program.
  • *not* have significant past experience at a four-year college in the United States
  • have at least a 3.0 GPA
  • have strong study and writing skills

BMCC Vassar Exploring Transfer Committee Members

For information, contact one of the following:

Adele Kudish
(212) 776-6505
akudish@bmcc.cuny.edu
Professor (Department of English)

Syreeta McFadden
(212) 220-8278
smcfadden@bmcc.cuny.edu
Lecturer and Writing and Literature Program Coordinator (Department of English)

Cara O’Connor (committee co-chair)
(212) 776-6980
coconnor@bmcc.cuny.edu
Assistant Professor, Philosophy (Department of Social Sciences, Human Services and Criminal Justice)

Jamie Warren (committee co-chair)
(212) 220-8247
jwarren@bmcc.cuny.edu
Assistant Professor, History (Department of Social Sciences, Human Services and Criminal Justice)

Office of Academic Affairs
Organizational Chart

199 Chambers St, Room S-715
New York, NY 10007
Phone: (212) 220-8320
Email: academicaffairs@bmcc.cuny.edu

 

Office Hours:
Monday-Friday
9 a.m.-5 p.m