Order of registration now depends on the year a student entered rather than Hillsdale credits, in accordance with the new policy. Courtesy | Facebook

Beginning this semester, transfer students will register according to their total college credits including those at previous colleges, rather than registering based on completed or in-progress Hillsdale credits. 

The college installed the former policy in 2019 to only count Hillsdale credits. According to Registrar Douglas McArthur, 70% of Hillsdale students now enter with some form of college credit.

“Historically, students registered by credits, but at that time, there really weren’t programs like AP, so we all started school together with zero credits,” McArthur said. “We had very few true transfer students. The idea was to try to get back to the time where only Hillsdale credits counted and it all made sense.”

The college had been considering the change from Hillsdale credits in the last year, according to McArthur.

“We’ve recognized for the last couple of years that things weren’t going quite as well as we would have liked as far as registration is concerned,” McArthur said.

McArthur said an unfortunate consequence of the old policy was students chasing credits and taking an overly heavy course load to gain priority registration. Additionally, McArthur said some programs are more conducive to high-credit loads than others.

“A chemistry major is really limited on the number of credits and courses they can take in a semester because their courses take up a lot of time,” McArthur said. “There are other programs where doing a lot of extra coursework like one-credits is built into the program. Some students can do 17, 18, or 19 credits a semester because the nature of their program allows them to do that.”

McArthur said another factor in the change to the new policy was the increase in the number of transfer students at the college. According to McArthur, the number of transfers at the college has grown in the last few decades from about a dozen to more than 100.

According to McArthur, the new policy should put transfer students on even ground with those who entered as true freshmen.

“From an equity standpoint, the start term really does match better than credits for where students actually are programmatically,” McArthur said. “It’s beyond the capacity of our office and the department to manage around the particular needs and problems of transfer students. This was the way that we thought was the most just and the simplest way to treat them in relation to the rest of the student body.”

Self-Service temporarily crashed the morning of Nov. 12, prompting students to register a few hours later than planned.

“It was an ‘oops’ on the registrar’s end,” McArthur said. “We noticed something that needed to be fixed while everyone was logged on to Self-Service. The only way to fix it was to get everyone logged off, which we did.”

Junior and transfer student Andrew VanDevere said he is happy with the policy change.

“I completely love it,” VanDevere said. “It’s not as though I think the old policy was bad; it just left transfers out. I’m so excited to register with the class I’m actually graduating with.”

VanDevere said other transfers were also happy with the new policy.

“All the transfers celebrated really hard after the policy change,” VanDevere said. “There were texts flying through our group chat, and we had a card going around for Mr. McArthur.”

Sophomore transfer student Caesar Gombojav said he also likes the new policy.

“I think it is a positive change because if you’ve done the college time, you should be able to register accordingly,” Gombojav said. “It’s something that other transfer students have had problems with.”

McArthur said the new policy will be easier to administer.

“Counting credits is challenging when students add and drop during the middle of the semester,” McArthur said. “Not counting credits and using something that doesn’t change, like a student’s start term, you’ll always know what factor you’re dealing with.”