10 Reasons to Finish Your Degree at Rollins

For the sixth year in a row, Phi Theta Kappa has named Rollins to its Transfer Honor Roll, which identifies the nation’s top four-year institutions creating dynamic pathways to support transfer students. Whether you’re a traditional college student looking to transfer from your current school to our College of Liberal Arts (CLA) or a working adult wanting to go back to college through our Professional Advancement (PA) program, explore 10 of our favorite reasons Rollins is the right place for you to finish your degree.

1. A Personalized Approach

At Rollins, your education is powered by relationships, particularly the partnerships between our inventive, inspiring faculty and motivated, industrious students. Thanks to small classes and low student-faculty ratios, you receive the kind of personalized attention and support that you need to find your purpose, finish your degree, and advance your career.

2. A Future-Proof Foundation

The future changes fast. Our innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum prepares you to solve problems through multiple lenses and gives you the broad-based knowledge and 21st-century tools you’ll need to step into jobs that don’t even exist yet—skills like creative problem solving, critical thinking, collaborative teamwork, and clear communication.

3. One-on-One Advising All the Way

As a transfer student, you’ll be paired with a dedicated transfer advisor as well as a faculty advisor from day one. Plus, the personal attention you receive as a Rollins student begins long before you’re actually a student. From mapping out your degree plan to understanding how credits will transfer, we have your back every step of the way.

4. Transferring Made Easy

Anxious about changing schools or coming back to college after time away? That’s only natural, but there’s no need to fret. To set you up for success, Rollins has created resources specifically for transfer students depending on your individual needs. From a transfer-specific seminar course in our CLA program to our guaranteed admission policy for PA students, we help ease your transition at every turn.

5. Mentors Who Make a Difference

As part of Rollins’ unique cohort mentorship model, Rollins students have access to a constellation of mentors—peers, faculty, staff, and alumni who help you transition to academics and life at Rollins. They offer guidance on everything from course selection and networking opportunities in the community to finding the right internship and landing a job after graduation.

6. Get Credit for Your Classes

Have your AA degree? Good news: You’ve met your general education requirements, and you’re ready to dive directly into your major. Even if you haven’t finished your AA, Rollins awards credit for classes with a grade of C- or higher, and we’ll work with CLA students to transfer up to 70 semester hours. For our PA program, more than 90 percent of students’ credits are accepted, and they can transfer up to 92 hours.

7. Ample Aid

With generous merit scholarships and need-based financial aid, finishing your degree at Rollins is far more affordable than you think. Depending on your program, there are a host of options, including transfer-specific academic scholarships up to $24,000, work-study opportunities, and more than $89 million in annual state, federal, and institutional assistance. At Rollins, your financial aid options abound.

8. Real-World Experience

Through Rollins’ service-focused Immersion program, CLA transfer student Sarah Bennefield ’23 worked with the Hope CommUnity Center, a nonprofit not far from campus that helps empower the immigrant and underserved communities in Central Florida. The English major went on to teach ESOL (English to speakers of other languages) courses at the center, giving her firsthand experience that was essential to her earning a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Bulgaria.

9. Career Advancement

For PA students who are returning to school and working full-time like Marybelle Doe ’22, Rollins offers a unique blend of programming, personalization, and guidance to help them grow in their careers. Through the Pathways to Teaching program—a unique partnership between the College and Orange County Public Schools, Doe, an elementary-school paraprofessional, was able to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a licensed teacher.

10. Immediate Success

CLA transfer student Wyatt Deihl ’21 self-designed a major in health, medicine, and society at Rollins and made quick work of not only getting involved on campus but also blazing new trails. He founded the Rollins Public Health Association, implemented community health initiatives throughout Florida while serving as campus director of the 2019 U.N. Millennium Fellowship, and interned with the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Florida. A 2020 Truman Scholar, Deihl is now pursuing a master’s in public health at Yale University and currently serving as a public health law fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.