Advice on transferring?

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm a freshmen at uiuc right now, studying cs. I'd known for a pretty long time that I'd wanted to study cs in college (I went to a local magnet school that had a cs concentration, which was the reason I wanted to go there, so I apparently had a pretty good idea I wanted to study cs even before I was in high school). Going along those lines, my college search process basically consisted of finding out what schools had strong cs departments. A bit of searching led to the big four that always seemed to be mentioned (MIT, CMU, Berkeley, Stanford). I'm from the east coast, and my parents were wary of letting me go to California for college, so I focused on MIT and CMU. While I was visiting CMU we asked one of the people in cs department about some other schools that might be good for cs, and he mentioned uiuc. So I applied there, too (I'd also stumbled upon some other seemingly cool stuff from there like llvm and a tutorial on writing an os that their sigops was writing). In hindsight my college search probably should have been more involved, but for various reasons (one of them being that I was depressed from time to time) it wasn't.</p>

<p>I ended up getting rejected from MIT and waitlisted at CMU SCS, but I got into uiuc so I ended up going there. Now that I'm here, though (well, and even before I got here, really) I'm not sure I really want to be here. The most obvious thing I seem to not like is how local the school feels. Almost everyone seems to be from Illinois, and while I knew about this ahead of time, just being around it all the time makes it feel different. It also makes it difficult to believe I'm around smart people (not that people from Illinois are stupid, but unless people from Illinois are very far ahead people from other states in terms of intelligence, taking people from multiple states would have better results in terms of average intelligence).</p>

<p>A big part of what I thought would make college worth it for me was being around other smart people that would hopefully push me to better myself and being presented with challenging courses that I'd be able to go through with people around me. I'm in a sophomore level cs class as a freshmen and I don't know that I'm really getting much out of it (in that I know most of the material that's been covered so far, and what I don't know could've probably been fixed with some quick googling). I'm in a physics class where we're covering stuff we did in my junior physics class in high school. The closest thing to a class where I feel like I'm being pretty adequately challenged is the 400 level honors math class I'm in, and even then I feel like I'm smarter than some of the people in the class (not that I'm leaps and bounds ahead of them or anything, but I would have thought that I'd be among relatively significantly smarter people in a 400 level honors course, and I seem to be about on par with the other people, on average).</p>

<p>I just sort of don't feel like I really belong here a lot of the time. I sort of feel out of place and like things are kind of backwards - I went to a high school were everyone was a nerd and people were really intelligent, and in some ways my experience here so far feels more like what a typical high school experience would have been like. It's not like it's completely devoid of smart people and nerds here (I'm pretty sure, for example, that Rutgers, my state school, would've been slightly worse in this regard), but it still feels like it's not exactly what I would've hoped for. I've met a few people that seem intelligent to the extent where I'd be pushed to grow and learn from them, but I feel like that effect only happens when you're around many many people like that, not just a few.</p>

<p>So, because of all of that, I'm considering transferring. Things stopping me:</p>

<p>1) While there's a lot I'm not thrilled about, the school does have a good cs reputation, and it seems like this might be a plus in terms of recruitment. In the first 1-2 months we've already had a bunch of job fairs with pretty big companies showing up.</p>

<p>2) Going along with 1), I'm not sure where I'd transfer to. I want an improvement but a strong cs department is still important to me. Looking at rankings for cs depts, there are basically other state schools (and I don't think it would be worth it to transfer to a different state school, except maybe Berkeley), and elite private schools like MIT, Stanford, Caltech, which, as far as I know, all have very low transfer acceptance rates (I'd imagine CMU in general does not but I think SCS does, especially for external transfers). So basically, I don't know where I'd transfer to. I'd either need to apply to those schools and have little chance of getting in, or give up the strength/reputation of the cs department a bit and go for somewhere I'd have a better chance for. And in that case I really have no idea what kind of places I'd go for.</p>

<p>3) I'm tired. I'm really sort of dreading having to go through the app process again (and potentially get rejected from a bunch of places again).</p>

<p>4) Recs. I have like 4 teachers this semester, and one of them definitely has zero clue who I am. I actually have decent relationships with the other 3, to the extent where it would not be completely ridiculous for me to ask for a rec, but I still really don't know if any of them would be good fits for a rec or if they'd be willing to write them.</p>

<p>I think that's about it. I'm looking for advice. Should I stay? Should I transfer? If so, where to? If I haven't given enough info for useful advice, feel free to ask anything. Thanks. :)</p>

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<p><strong><em>bump</em></strong></p>

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<p>Stanford and MIT are a lot harder for transfer admissions than they are for freshman admissions, so they may not be great choices. CMU and Berkeley probably realistic if your GPA is good. If you are looking for other schools that might be more challenging, consider Duke, Penn, CalTech, Columbia, Cornell, and JHU. All have non-trivial (>5%) transfer acceptance rates. </p>

<p>How far have you gotten in terms of courses at UIUC? In my experience there is a BIG difference between the 100-200 level intro courses, which are pretty easy at most schools and the 400-600 level courses. If transferring doesn’t work out you might find that graduate level courses give the challenge you’re looking for.</p>

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<p>CalTech, Cornell, and Columbia were other schools on my mind (although I was also rejected from Cornell and Columbia last year). I actually recently noticed that CalTech’s admit rate was pretty high for transfers (it looked like 10% for people from 4 year colleges), and it also looked like they didn’t ask for recommendations, which helps for that issue. They also don’t look at SATs, which I think was a weaker point in my apps last year (2270 super score, though that’s with a 690 in reading, and I had a 680 in chem sat II). And there’s also the plus of not having already been rejected. One downside I can think of is that something I think might help my apps this year over last is that I’ve had/have two internships since I applied (at Morgan Stanley’s tech dept during the summer and now at Wolfram Research), whereas before my only job experience was at a summer camp my school runs. I feel like CalTech would care much less about that than other schools might.</p>

<p>I don’t know much about Duke or JHU, though somehow I feel like they wouldn’t be good fits, though if you have a reason to think they may be I’m open to suggestions. All I know about Penn is that my dad transferred there for his undergrad and ended up being pretty unhappy with it, and I’d probably group it with Duke and JHU in terms of fit. But again, I hadn’t done much research into them.</p>

<p>At uiuc I’m currently taking CS 225 (data structures), PHYS 211 (mechanics), MATH 416 (honors abstract linear algebra), and RHET 105 (basic writing course freshmen with <700 in SAT CR, or whatever the ACT equivalent is, need to take). I feel like MATH 416 is pretty adequately challenging, especially in light of the fact that it’s my second time being exposed to the material. Though that’s really only for the honors section - I was in the non-honors section of the class for the first 2 weeks, and it was much less in line with what I feel like I’d want out of a college level math course. But so I suppose if I continue taking advanced honors level math course I’d be happy.</p>

<p>CS 225 is pretty easy, and I got to it by skipping over 2 other classes, though like you said, this might just be the case for intro level courses. Although, when visiting uiuc, I did sit in on a 400 level cs algorithms course, and I was actually already learning a good amount of the stuff in my high school data structures course at the time (not sure how telling that is though - I have some friends from my high school at MIT, and they say that some of what we do in that hs class is junior/senior level material even at MIT).</p>

<p>More than just the course difficulty though, the intelligence and attitude of the other students gets to me more sometimes. If the school were filled with more people like those in my math class I’d probably be a significantly happier. There definitely seem to be cool people here that I might be missing out on (I should probably check out the ACM office and some of the gaming clubs more, for example), and so I’m sure I’ll find a way to not be miserable here if I end up having to stay. It’s just that “not miserable” or even “relatively happy” don’t seem like great goals, especially when a) other people seem to fit in at their colleges so well, and b) I’m paying a pretty significant amount of money to be here.</p>

<p>Thanks for replying.</p>

<p>edit: oh, and on Berkeley, I think they want 60 credits to transfer, so that doesn’t look like an option for this year anyway. I’ve heard CMU SCS is really tough to transfer into because there’s already a lot of competition from people in other colleges at CMU who want to get into SCS. If I do end up transferring I’ll probably be throwing an app their anyway, though.</p>

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<p>Was your high school elite in CS or STEM subjects? Remember that universities design their freshman / sophomore courses based on reasonable expectations of what entering students had in high school, so if you went to an elite high school, you may find the freshman / sophomore courses to be not very challenging anywhere.</p>

<p>UIUC is a good school for CS. Berkeley and Stanford do have a job recruiting advantage of being local to Silicon Valley computer companies, although UIUC is a common destination for those companies willing to send recruiters on airplanes.</p>

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<p>

Eh, sort of. It was a magnet school in NJ, and like I mentioned, I was in a CS “academy” they have. geohot actually went there - he’s probably our most famous alum. I don’t think we’re quite on par with places like Stuyvesant or IMSA (which seems to be popular around here), but it wasn’t just your average high school. The data structures class I mentioned was taught by an ex-Stanford math professor who also taught some advanced math courses (one of which I took).</p>

<p>

I realize this, but I feel like at other schools my situation might be less out of the ordinary, and so somewhat more accommodated for. Or, at the very least, I’d be among other people in similar situations that I could potentially learn from, which sort of feels like what makes college worth it in the first place.</p>

<p>

Yeah, like I mentioned, my concern isn’t as much for job recruitment as it is for the courses and my peers. In the time I’ve been here we’ve had several job fairs with pretty prominent companies around (Google, Dropbox, Facebook). And it’s not like I think I’d be less happy at MIT or CMU than at Berkeley or Stanford just because the former two aren’t in Silicon Valley. I’m concerned less with perceptions and more with what it’s actually like (though having almost everyone I talk to about where I go to college respond with something that sounds like “why the hell would you come here/go there” is admittedly somewhat disheartening. I hope I’m being objective in my evaluation of the school, though)</p>

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<p>“They also don’t look at SATs.”
that is not true. Take a look at accepted students data for CT vrs MIT. they care very much about SAT scores. </p>

<p>From the Common Data Set for Caltech, for first-time freshman admits, the 25%ile-75%iles on the SAT were:
CR 700-780
M 770-800
W 710-780</p>

<p>At Caltech, 99.0% of the incoming freshman scored in the range from 700-800 on the SAT M, while at MIT, the corresponding number was 92.5%. At Caltech, 78.64% scored in the range from 700-800 on the SAT CR, while at MIT, it was 61.6%. At Caltech, 82.5% scored from 700-800 on the SAT W, while at MIT, it was 63.7%.</p>

<p>The 25%ile-75%ile of ACT composites was 34-35 at Caltech, and 32-35 at MIT. For ACT math, the 25%ile-75%ile of ACT scores was 34-36 at Caltech, and 33-35 at MIT. In ACT English, the range was 33-35 at Caltech, and 32-35 at MIT.</p>

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<p>From <a href=“http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/applying/transfer:[/url]”>http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/applying/transfer:&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

<p>I was speaking of course about transfer admissions, as I would be applying as a transfer.</p>

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<p>You may want to try looking in the archived course home pages for Berkeley CS courses:
[EECS</a> Course WEB Sites<a href=“CS%2061A/61B/61C%20are%20the%20intro%20courses%20for%20CS%20majors”>/url</a></p>

<p>and Stanford CS courses:
[url=<a href=“http://cs.stanford.edu/courses/schedules/2011-2012.autumn.php]Course”>http://cs.stanford.edu/courses/schedules/2011-2012.autumn.php]Course</a> Schedule Autumn 2011-2012<a href=“CS%20106A/106B%20or%20106X,%20107,%20108,%20110%20are%20the%20intro%20courses%20for%20CS%20majors”>/url</a></p>

<p>and the MIT OpenCourseWare:
[url=<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/]Free”>Search | MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials]Free</a> Online Course Materials | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | MIT OpenCourseWare](<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/classes-eecs.html]EECS”>CAS - Central Authentication Service)</p>

<p>to get an idea of what CS courses at those schools cover.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Why do they have such a low opinion of UIUC for CS? Rutgers in your home state is considered to be pretty good for CS, but UIUC does have a significantly higher reputation for CS (although Rutgers would have undoubtedly been much less expensive for a NJ resident).</p>

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<p>I’m surprised U of M has yet to pop up in this thread. Its also an elite CS school and you’ll probably get in.</p>

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<p>I know about OCW and was looking through the AI course once, though that was a while ago. It’d probably be a good idea to look through them some more (and at Stanford’s and Berkeley’s)</p>

<p>

Yeah, I got in to Rutgers, too - it would have been pretty cheap. It’s not cs people asking me why I picked the school for cs, really - just people asking why I came here in general. I mentioned I work at Wolfram - when I was interviewing there, one of the interviewers, upon finding out I was from New Jersey, asked “why * came all the way out here for college”. When we were visiting and we told one of the students that I got into NYU, they said, “you got into NYU? What are you even doing here?” When I was interning at Morgan Stanley and I’d talk to people about where I was going to school, they’d say things like “what made you want to go all the way out to Illinois?” (though, to be fair, when I mentioned it to someone in HR, they said “oh, yeah - that’s a really good school for computer science. is that what you’re going there for?” - which supports my perception that I shouldn’t be that worried in terms of recruitment) It happens a lot now that I’m here, too. The school just feels so overwhelmingly local at times that people are really surprised to meet someone not from Illinois (I think this is furthered by the fact that people from Illinois have circles of friends coming in as freshmen, so it’s easy to not notice some of the out-of-state people)</p>

<p>

As I mentioned, I’m not sure another state school (except possibly Berkeley) would improve things enough to make the transfer worth it, though if you have reasons to think that’s not the case I’d hear them (If I sound skeptical it’s just because I get the feeling a lot of CC posts end up being “you should come to [insert alma mater here]” without much consideration for context)</p>

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<p>You’re in a huge school; there are bound to be other kids like you there. Join the problem-solving clubs, and the programming clubs. Ask the math and CS teachers what activities there are and join them. It won’t help too much with your overall class experience, but it will get you friends. AND recs, should you still decide to transfer.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>It really reads like you are getting the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” type of feelings, even though you are at one of the top schools for CS in the US, and transferring may not make as big a difference as you appear to think it will make.</p>

<p>As far as what people think of your school, it is mainly what CS people think of it – they will be the ones making recruiting or graduate school decisions that may be affected by what school you attend.</p>

<p>As far as general school prestige goes, it does appear that people in the northeast generally have a higher opinion of private schools and a lower opinion of public schools than people in the midwest (IL, IN, MI, MN, WI), mid-Atlantic, California, or Texas. Probably because the northeast does not have as many top level public schools but does have a lot of top level private schools, while the other places have excellent flagship public schools (including UIUC).</p>

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<p>

It’s a possibility, but I’m not convinced that it’s just all in my head. For starters, I’m not just attending a CS department - I’m attending an entire university. Ideally, I’d want to be at a University where I’m surrounded by like-minded people. I don’t feel it here, at least not naturally. Yes, I can try and hunt down the smart people, which is something I should probably do anyway, but it’d be nicer if I didn’t have to. It’s also a bit of an issue of diversity, I think. Basically, while I have some issues with the cs dept, mostly my issues are with the school in general, which I cannot avoid just because I’m in cs (and in fact, I think the issues I do have with the cs dept probably stem from the larger issues I have with the university).</p>

<p>

Also, what are you making this determination based on? Knowledge of the school internally (like you know people who went here, or something), or just based on the reputation the school has externally? I know we’re ranked 5th or whatever for cs grad departments, and I know we’re a pretty good name in terms of recruitment. External perceptions are not what I’m principally concerned about, though.</p>

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<p>To clarify a bit, in the OP, I did ask “should I transfer?” I guess what I was looking for (if someone was to attempt to tell me to not transfer) was an argument to convince me that the problems I see were either fabricated or unimportant enough that I shouldn’t bother transferring. I don’t think they’re fabricated, at least not entirely - I know how I felt about my peers in high school and I know how I feel now. Emotionally, it feels important to me. I’m spending a lot of money on this and I think it’s important that I feel like I fit at the school I’m in, especially when I see others talking about how “right” their schools feel for them. Although I suppose there is some room there to convince me that I shouldn’t decide to transfer just based on fit.</p>

<p>Basically, I want to be convinced one way or another. I want to either be able to say “I’m ok with this school - it isn’t perfect but I can see myself being comfortable and okay here for the next four years, and I can justify what it’s costing me and my family” or “This school doesn’t really feel right, and it’s definitely the right decision to try and transfer”. Right now I can’t be sure one way or the other.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>This might be an unrealistic expectation at any medium or large university, which will have people with a range of intellectual interests and abilities. And a small school would have to be an exact fit to your intellectual interests and abilities to meet this expectation. At a large university, you should at least be able to find like minded people among the large population of other students.</p>

<p>Remember that, in real life, you will be interacting with people of all different intellectual interests and abilities.</p>

<p>As far as transferring goes, it is your decision. But evaluate schools realistically; don’t oversell yourself on how much better some other school will be, since you may be setting yourself up for a letdown after you transfer.</p>

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<p>

It may be the case that it was a mistake for me to come to a large state university, especially if part of my issue is lack of diversity, but regardless of how big any university is, there are still norms for intelligence and attitude toward academics and things like that, and I feel like an outlier in that sense. I’m not asking to be with people who are exactly like me. That was far from the case in high school. But it was closer to fit - I could relate to more people, just in general (there were more people whose interests aligned pretty closely with mine and even the people who were the most different were relatively relatable, or at least they were people whose company I could more readily enjoy). I don’t see why it would be surprising for this to be the case at a school where people share geography more than anything else, whereas I imagine at other schools people are there because they share something more relevant.</p>

<p>

I guess so, but college would seem to be one of the few times where I could get the chance to interact with intellectually similar people in a large way. I also wouldn’t be paying to be around people in real life, but here I sort of am (especially since I’m not in a major city or anything like that).</p>

<p>

I guess what I’m looking for is whether or not I should settle for having a meh impression of my college, or if its important that I go somewhere where I feel right. Right now I just have trouble justifying the cost here, and I don’t know if it’s worth just settling here, or if I should push to find somewhere I feel I fits better.</p>

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<p>UIUC is an excellent school and you can do a lot there but it is big and you may have to push ahead to get noticed. If you are not comfortable with doing that, look at other Association of Independent Technical Universities ([Association</a> of Independent Technological Universities: AITU](<a href=“http://theaitu.org/]Association”>http://theaitu.org/)). The list includes MIT and CMU but there are others which are strong in CS as well and might fit you better (smaller classes, easier to get to know faculty, get involved in research, take advanced courses quickly). You might even get some reasonable financial aid packages.</p>

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<p>If it makes you feel better, my high school’s valedictorian is a freshman there (and we lived in New England). She’s going there for engineering, not sure which type. So, there are intelligent Northeasterners there, too, just look. In fact, as you get up to more advanced courses, you’ll begin to be surrounded more by the people you want to. But I understand, somewhat. If you want to transfer, you probably should to a smaller school. I dunno about UIUC, but if the whole “large party-happy” school feel is the same there as UConn (my boyfriend’s school), then you know what’s wrong. What if you tried a school like Rensselaer? My step brother went there for computer science, and I think he started working at 70 or 90 grand a year…sorry if this isn’t too helpful. To be honest, I haven’t really kept in contact with my brother. There’s around 5,000 undergrads and since it’s in New York, you might feel somewhat closer to home. Besides, since most of the students are engineers or are in computer science, you’ll have more of “your type” of person, I think. It’ll be pretty expensive, but if you have the money, it could be a school for you to look into.</p>