Illinois State University and Heartland Community College are celebrating five years of Redbird Promise, the guaranteed admission program for students looking to transfer from Heartland to Illinois State.
The program was created to simplify the transfer process, clarifying admission requirements and providing guidance even earlier for these potential transfer students. According to Samantha Meranda in the Illinois State Office of Admissions, Redbird Promise has benefited hundreds of students and strengthened an already strong relationship between the two institutions.
“Since its inception five years ago, we have admitted nearly 300 students through the program and have met with almost 700 individual students at our Heartland office,” Meranda said. “Redbird Promise has enhanced our ability to assist students with this important decision, and we can’t thank Heartland enough for their partnership.”
Illinois State transfer admission counselors spend one day each week advising Heartland students from an on-site office made available by HCC’s advising unit—just one of the many ways the two schools partner.
“The services and ease of transfer this partnership provides to our students is invaluable.”
Rachel Cook, director of advisement and transfer coordination at Heartland Community College
Rachel Cook, director of advisement and transfer coordination at HCC, shares Meranda’s enthusiasm for this collaboration.
“We continue to appreciate the partnership we have forged between Heartland and ISU,” Cook said. “The services and ease of transfer this partnership provides to our students is invaluable. Having an ISU admissions counselor in our advising office each week facilitates the seamless handoff that is so crucial for transfer students. In addition, the many agreements, transfer events, and available scholarships continue to make transferring from Heartland to Illinois State a great option for many of our students.”
Students participating in the guaranteed admission program are also eligible for the Bird to Bird Scholarship, named for the path students take going from Hawks to Redbirds. There have been 25 recipients named over the last five years. One of them is Branda Martin, a transfer student majoring in biology and starting at Illinois State this fall.
“When I was deciding on my next steps after high school, the feedback I received about my plan to transfer from Heartland to Illinois State was overall very positive and encouraging,” Martin said. “Naturally, there were times where I was stressed or anxious when it came to certain aspects of transferring, but because of my advisors at Heartland and ISU, as well as the Bird to Bird Scholarship, the process of transferring from one institution to another has been easier than I could have ever imagined.”
What’s more, in recent years Illinois State and Heartland have collaborated on 15 articulation agreements that make transferring credits easier to several academic majors at Illinois State, and they have found creative ways to engage would-be transfers in life on Illinois State’s campus. Heartland students can join Illinois State’s Transfer Redbirds student organization and even participate in Big Red Marching Machine, the University’s award-winning marching band.
It’s a relationship that’s proven worthy of the extra time and effort. According to Meranda, the collaboration between the two institutions’ students, faculty, and staff has benefited all parties, and it has resulted in strong representation for Heartland at Illinois State. One in three undergraduate students at ISU are transfers and about one in every seven of these students transferred from Heartland. And with nearly 45 percent of each Redbird graduating class consisting of former transfer students, a strong connection to a trusted community college partner seems like a promise worth keeping.
