Northern Illinois University is ranked No. 25 on U.S. News and World Report’s list of colleges with the most transfer students.

The report, released in last week’s issue of U.S. News, used the enrollment numbers from fall of 2001 to calculate the top schools for transfer students.

The list has NIU ahead of Western Illinois University and Illinois State University, making it the school with the most transfer students in Illinois.

Undergraduate enrollment has been on the rise at NIU, and the number of new transfer students has added to the trend.

“Right now, there are 2,444 new undergraduate transfers,” said Sheri Kallembach, associate director of Registration and Records. “That’s a jump of 113 transfers compared to last year.”

Students have a variety of reasons to move to NIU. Incoming community college students account for a large number of transfers, but for some students, like senior marketing major Adrienne Anderko, it’s a matter of taste.

“I transferred from Augustana College because I didn’t like the small-school atmosphere,” Anderko said. “I chose NIU because it was the only school that would take my application last-minute. The original plan was to only stay here a semester and transfer out, but I wound up liking it enough to stay.”

Making sure transfer students are happy is no easy task. The process of enrollment and moving course credit can be a burden for students and university staff.

“We’re talking about, in the state of Illinois alone, 30,000 students transferred on a yearly basis,” Kallembach said.

The university has developed a number of programs to make relocating to NIU a less-complicated process. One of these is the dual-admissions program that was set-up in 1997.

Dual admissions allows students at two-year community colleges who haven’t completed their A.A. or A.S. degree to be enrolled at NIU and their community college simultaneously. This can be beneficial for a new student.

“It creates a sense of community for the student at an earlier time,” Kallembach said. “If a transfer student comes in at the junior year, the native [student] may very well have been in a couple more classes … This would allow those transfer students to be in the same place as the native students.”

The dual-admissions program is operating in 18 community colleges throughout the state. Right now, more than 314 students are involved in the program.

Registration and Records hasn’t stopped there, though. A new service called the Course Applicability System (CAS) is in operation at the College of DuPage and soon will expand to other schools.

CAS allows community college students to see how each of their credits will transfer. They also may see how individual courses will fit into any degree at NIU. Registration and Records hopes that this will help students better plan their college careers.