Office of Student Leadership and Engaged Learning

VCU Transform is the living-learning program for students who want more out of their college experience. If you're passionate about leadership, community impact, and making a difference globally and locally, this is where you belong. Through hands-on experiences, you'll grow as a leader while diving into real-world issues like social justice, community service, and belonging. Plus, you’ll have access to exciting opportunities like study abroad, internships, research, and peer leadership roles. It's all about turning your ideas into action—and having a blast while doing it.

All VCU Transform students must follow the following requirements to remain in and complete the VCU Transform program:

• Maintain a cumulative 2.0 GPA
• Live in the west grace north residence hall
• Enroll and complete the 10 credit course curriculum
• Complete at least 60 hours of beyond-the-classroom experiences over 2 years
• Engage in experiential learning pathway
• Create and submit a capstone learning project

Yes. All students who are in Transform are required to live in our residence hall in West Grace North. The only exception is for RAs who live in other buildings as part of their position.

Due to the program being a living-learning program, we place students in rooms together who are in the program.  You can create a roommate group on the housing application only if they are also members of Transform.  Otherwise, you will be randomly placed in an apartment with other Transform students.

Not at all! Our students come from all different backgrounds, levels of experience, and from all majors. We work hard in the classroom and co-curricular activities to reflect and connect leadership learning back to all majors and industries.

Yes,  we have found that almost all of our students have no problem adding the additional courses to their schedule. For the third semester we allow students to take a substitute course, which often is a requirement of their own major and allows the program to only be 7 credits to complete.  Please note that some majors (nursing, arts) are more difficult to fulfill additional program requirements, so please talk to your advisor before committing to VCU Transform.

There is a bonus of being in Transform—you get to register early! We work with our students to register early and get into our classes.  However, we cannot offer any additional options outside of our designated course times/days.

There is no cost to be in Transform and we provide all programming, lectures, and events for free to our students.  There is a cost to live residentially in the residence hall and for the additional credits, but that is not a fee instituted by the program.

Sure! As long as you can commit 2 years in the program, you are welcome to apply any time.

Applications open every year in October and close in February.  The current application cycle for 2027-2028 is open and accepting applications.  The priority deadline is November 16 at noon and after that applications will be accepted until early February as space is available. If you have any questions, please contact transformllp@vcu.edu