The faces that fill the halls of West High are not exclusively from the Iowa City area — they come from all over the world. New places, new people, new scenes; the transfer process from one school to another can be stressful for any high school student. WSS highlights the stories of five students who have recently gone through the transfer process. 

After his father got a job at the University of Iowa, Jason Kim ’26 made his way to Iowa City about a month and a half before he began his sophomore year at West High. Kim transferred from Canada, specifically a small school in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While he is a sophomore, this is his first year of high school as Canada’s middle schools include ninth grade. 

“[My previous school] was very small, it was a private school. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere, I guess if you consider Halifax, Nova Scotia in the middle of nowhere, I think like the most people you would find in one grade was like 60,” Kim said. 

The move from a small private school to West, which is home to more than 1,500 students, wasn’t the only thing that made the transfer difficult for Kim. After living in Halifax for 10 years and making friends there, Kim felt that the transfer from his hometown to West would be difficult. Looking back on his mindset, Kim found himself pessimistic about the situation before the move.

“I’d say originally, I was pretty hesitant [to transfer] just because I had lived pretty much all the life that I’d remembered [in Halifax] and I’ve made pretty close friends,” Kim said. “I felt like transferring, particularly at this point in my life would be kind of difficult, especially making new friends and things like that and just having opportunities to try new things. I think it’s ended up not as bad as I was thinking, I kind of went into it more pessimistic.”

As Kim settled into Iowa City and West, he was met with the combination of overwhelming first days and welcoming fresh faces. He recounts the experience of adjusting to West, including figuring out new classes and meeting new people. “I just kind of had to get used to everything and I kind of had to find a rhythm in my own sense. I’m a particularly kind of reserved person overall so I kind of just wanted to get a feel for what classes I felt like I could be more outgoing in and talk to more people,” Kim said. 

While adjusting, Kim recognized people who welcomed him to Iowa City, both at West and in the Midwest in general. “I think the people here are just very nice people, particularly adults in general. I feel like they’ve been pretty welcoming overall.”

Since transferring, Kim has been taking the opportunity to try new classes that his previous school did not offer.  “I think the biggest part was just deciding what classes I wanted to take because there are a lot more classes here. It was very small over there and so there weren’t many opportunities to try different classes and things like that,” Kim said. 

Kim has taken Digital Music Production, Advanced Music Production and Culinary Arts, three classes that he had previously never envisioned being in a school environment. 

“[Those classes were] really fun because when I came to think of music in schools, it’s always banned and things like that. It’s never things like digital music production where you can actually just kind of be creative with it and do your own thing with music. So I thought that was very interesting,” Kim said. “I’m currently taking Culinary Arts I which is something I didn’t think could have been a subject in school. There’s also woodworking and that’s very interesting, and looking at both culinary arts and woodworking there’s this whole area where you can do all that stuff and to me, that’s really cool.”

Aditi Pathak ’26, while only a sophomore, has studied all over the world.

Most recently, she studied in Fairfield, Iowa, where she attended Maharishi School, a private school that utilized transcendental meditation and yoga in its daily routine to improve brain functioning. “We would sit down and we [would] focus on a certain word. And we would keep repeating [it], but the word, like, slowly started to fade away the more you repeated it, and you let your mind just like, be,” Pathak said.

Pathak noticed the school was much more diverse than the West. According to U.S. News and World Report, the school’s minority enrollment is 50.4%. People came from all over the world, such as Ukraine, India and Korea.

She also attended schools in the United Kingdom and India. The school systems in the respective countries were quite different from what she has experienced in the United States. In India, they used a Cambridge curriculum, which Pathak found much more difficult than the curriculum at West High. 

The Cambridge curriculum is taught in over 10,000 schools all over the world. As described on their website, the curriculums “combine an emphasis on mastering subjects in depth with the development skills for study and work in the future. We value deep subject knowledge as well as the conceptual understanding that helps students make links between different aspects of a subject. We also encourage students to develop higher order thinking skills – problem solving, critical thinking, independent research, collaboration and presenting arguments.” 

After she moved to the Iowa City area after her mom got a job at the hospital, it wasn’t just a new school system she had to adjust to, but other cultural aspects as well. “In the UK, they spelled things [like] color like ‘colour.’ I had to like completely change the way I spell because like I used to spell in American English. And then when I came back here, I had to change it again.”

Even though some were more closed off when she first started attending West, Pathak met a lot of welcoming people. “I think most people study together since elementary and middle school, like they already have their group, so they don’t want to open up, but there’s a lot of welcoming people,” Pathak said.

Unlike Kim and Parthak, Annie Smith-Davis ’25 just transferred across town; no move was necessary. This year, she transferred from Regina Catholic Education Center, where she attended grades seven through nine.

It was a lot different from West High. The school is kindergarten through twelfth grade and to Smith-Davis, it felt like everyone knew each other. There were a lot of rules, and Smith-Davis felt she didn’t get to express herself as much. “It’s very strict. It’s very biased. Like, you don’t get to express yourself in any way…It’s basically like being in church 24/7,” she said.

The main reason she transferred was the difference in diversity between the two schools. “There’s so much more diversity at West,” Smith-Davis said. “There’s many different opportunities and everybody has an equal chance at doing something.”

West was named the number one school in Iowa by U.S. News and World Report and has the motto “where excellence is a tradition.” Both of those things added up can lead to West High students feeling pressure to perform exceptionally in their classes. Smith-Davis said that she did feel some of that pressure but even though the curriculum could feel hard, she felt like the teachers at West supported their student’s success.

“I feel like in general, it is hard, but [with] the support here, [it’s made it] very, very easy…You guys have that title for a reason, like you actually want to help us succeed,” Smith-Davis said.

Not only was the academic aspect different for Smith-Davis, but sports were, too. She participates in cheerleading and soccer and found West athletics supportive but more serious. “The only people that do sports [at West] are people who want to succeed in that sport,” she said. “So it makes it better for sports here because you’re surrounded by people who have the same goals as you.”

Overall, her transition to West was a positive experience.

”People are open to talking to you and not leaving you out, [and] you feel involved no matter what,” she said. “There’s so many different religions, races, ethnicities, clubs and groups, [and] people are able to express [themselves]. Teachers even allow you to express yourself as long as you’re not hurting anybody, and they support you in that. And, you know, you don’t have to hide who you are, really, and there’s no rules or regulations to, like, be loved here.”

After two years at City High and then one year at separate schools, two students made the transition to West High for their senior year. Unlike most transfer students, they didn’t transfer alone but instead together.

Friends since their sophomore year, when they attended City High together, Aubrey Claiborne ’24 and Avery Shaw ’24 found that the schools they attended weren’t the right fit. They had bad attendance and found themselves dreading school in the mornings. 

“I did not want to go back to City. [I] was very unsuccessful, [and it] led me down a really bad path,” Shaw said.

Something needed to change, so Shaw ended up attending Tate High School, and Claiborne moved to the online learning program for a year. But that change wasn’t quite right either.

“I went online for a year and I did not do good online either. Like I like ruined my room, so I just never wanted to work in my room but couldn’t do anywhere else.” Claiborne said.

Shaw’s experience at Tate wasn’t favorable either, as she wasn’t able to take all the classes that she wanted to take prior to going to college.  “I couldn’t take a math class there because they didn’t have [Pre Calculus], and I took all the classes at Tate [but] I needed to take more to get into college.”

The fresh start ended up being very beneficial for both of them. Shaw was able to enroll in classes that weren’t offered at Tate, and Claiborne found herself enrolling in AP classes and putting in time outside of school to get homework done. “We started doing good. And then we started meeting people and everyone’s really nice here,” Claiborne said. 

At West, Claiborne got the opportunity to join Business Professionals of America and start taking business classes.  “They’re the best teachers ever,” Claiborne said. “I’m so glad they’re teaching, they’re great mentors.”

Through her business classes, Claiborne met a real estate agent and set up multiple job shadows with her. She’s now planning on going into real estate and owning investment properties. “It taught me a lot about what I want to do in the future,” she said. “[It] just showed me that it’s actually possible.”

Although the transfer process can be difficult, Claiborne and Shaw felt that transferring together made it easier. Shaw feels more comfortable and confident with Claiborne in the building. Claiborne recounts that transferring alongside Shaw didn’t make the transfer experience feel as scary as it normally could be. 

“I’ve gone to like 12 different schools in my life so I’m kind of used to being like the ‘new kid’, but with Avery, it didn’t seem like that, [and] it didn’t seem uncomfortable.”