This discussion was created from comments split from: Berkeley Transfer.
You won’t have a problem finding jobs in the Bay Area simply because you went to an elite East Coast institution. Departmental rankings at the graduate level have very little bearing on your experience as an undergraduate. I always recommend that people attend the best overall university when they are making their decisions (there are certain exceptions: CS at CMU, BME at Hopkins, etc.).
At the end of the day, the quality of the student body at Duke is uniformly excellent. A public school like Berkeley has a very different mandate and the quality of its class will be more uneven by definition. People on this website pretend like there is no difference between good public schools and elite private schools when it comes to opportunities for undergraduates. That is fiction and no amount of wanting that to be the case will make it so. Anecdotally, many of my friends have struggled to find their footing at large public schools. You are ahead of the curve because you have already identified the problem and are contemplating taking steps to address it.
Duke used to be very difficult (almost impossible) to transfer into. That is no longer the case. The university has made a conscious effort to increase the number of transfer students who are admitted (in the interest of creating a more diverse student body). The people who transfer into elite schools often come from other highly regarded universities. Coming from Berkeley will not cause any problems.
You seem like you have a decent application. I would definitely give it a shot. Other schools to look at would Penn and Columbia. Both quite transfer friendly. If you are looking for the quintessential American college experience, Duke is hard to beat.
Hello everyone,
Thank you for reading this. I am a rising sophomore at Berkeley and would like to transfer. I was hoping that I could grow into Berkeley’s environment but it has not happened yet (I would transfer as a junior). Among many other reasons I am concerned about the safety. I would also prefer a smaller school with a better organized administration. Duke was one of my top three schools when I applied as a freshman and I got waitlisted and then rejected.
I am double majoring in English (my passion) and architecture (not set in stone). As a transfer I would probably just major in English (maybe minor in “architectural engineering” if I somehow got into Duke).
Some of my friends at Cal are discouraging me and say that transferring is very hard and mostly for community college students. Do you know of anyone who transferred from a university similar to Berkeley?
They also say that I would be stupid to go to Duke since Berkeley is ranked No.1 in English.
I would love to live and work on the West Coast one day. Do you think that transferring away would be a mistake?
I would love to hear whether I have a chance, what schools I could consider that are equally good (compared to Berkeley) and whether it is harder to find jobs in the Bay Area as a Duke alumn.
Thank you so much!
Here is some more info about my background:
I got waitlisted at Duke as a freshman and then rejected.
I was born and raised in Germany, English is my second language.
Cal GPA:
3.75-3.85 (after year 1)
31 credits after two semesters
Highschool: (ABITUR)
(in Germany so NC 1.0, about 4.0 GPA)
SAT:
R/W: 690 Math: 680
(my German school had a very different curriculum and I had to prepare myself)
TOEFL:
107
Activities:
High school:
student government president, volunteer tutor for refugee kids, paid journalist, tennis, swimming, orchestra
Berkeley:
Fall ‘18:
Rowing
Spring ‘19:
President of Hall Association
The Berkeley project volunteer
Tennis association
APX co-Ed educational Architecture Fraternity Chair of Fundraising
Volunteer over winter break for food bank and environmental film festival
Summer 2019:
Classes in either Architecture or English
Undergraduate literature programs tend not to be ranked by national publications.
If you would like to stay at UCB’s level, at least 39 U.S. colleges might suit you by entering student profile: https://amp.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9. Note that this analysis was limited to standardized scoring profiles and references an earlier calibration of the SAT.
Thank you very much! @JenniferClint @merc81
I hope you have good success with your transfer plans! Would you please tell us what the safety issues were that bothered you? I have read about problems in the Berkeley area before but want to hear from a current student how things are.