Hi everyone!
I’m currently a rising junior at a top 20 liberal arts college but as the fall semester approaches I’m becoming more and more apprehensive about returning to school and would like to look into transferring somewhere else. Unfortunately, there seem to be a few issues that could prevent me from transferring. First, I know that most reputable schools require transfer students to attend for at least two years, so as a rising junior I would presumably be unable to transfer anywhere if I went back my current school this semester. I would be open to taking a year off of school and working in the interim, but I’m not sure how schools would view a student taking time off.
Second, my GPA could be problematic for the colleges I would like to attend. I had a really rough first year of college and my GPA took a hit as a result. I believe I ended up with ~2.7 GPA, with a low 2 in fall and ~3.1 in spring. I began treatment for clinical depression and I pulled it together this past year, receiving a 3.5 in fall and 3.6 in spring.
I’m looking to transfer because I know my current school isn’t a good match for me. It is a fantastic place in many regards, but it’s small, and cold. I’ve known since I started that it wasn’t the right fit for me and while I tried to stick it out, I’m really worried about the idea of powering through despite being unhappy and missing out on the college experience. I’ve put a lot of effort into growing emotionally and academically over the past year, and I would love to be able to take advantage of this growth in a better environment for me.
Some of the schools I would be interested in transferring to are Northwestern, Columbia, Rice, Brown, UCLA, Berkeley, Tufts, and USC. I know my GPA will make this difficult, but I’ve worked really hard to pull myself out of a bad place and I hope that would at least partially make up for it. I also had a good high school GPA, 2200 on the SAT, I’m a National AP scholar, and I’ve lost 70 pounds over the past few years.
So… that’s more or less the situation I’m in right now. I’d really appreciate any advice regarding whether or not it’s viable for me to transfer and how to proceed if it is. Thanks!
UCLA and Berkeley only take junior transfers and won’t look at high school stats so you’d have to take a break. Assuming you’re not a California resident, OOS transfers are lowest priority and there isn’t alot of help with articulation. Your GPA has to be prerty good. Cost per year could be ~$55+K per year. Look at this profile https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof14.htm
Given the totality of your application, transferring to the Ivy schools listed will be pretty difficult. Most of their seats are tied to attrition, thus they are very limited. Second, they would require near perfect grades from your existing school. Finally, the most common and accepted transfer reason, is lack of degree or major, not being offered at your current school. USC strikes me as a school that should be on your target list, but it also can be fairly competitive (but much less so than Ivy schools) for transfer admission. Best–
Stay where you are and pull up the GPA. Do well so that you can go to a good grad school if you are interested in that.
You must first deal with what caused your poor performance. was it depression? partying? homesickness? Until you fix that your poor performance will continue at a different school.
Rather than going back this fall without a clear plan, take a leave of absence and give yourself a year to come up with a well thought out application list, apply for transfer, and find out whether or not you do get in somewhere that you’d rather be. Lots of students take time off. It won’t be held against you.
Thanks everyone! @happymomof1 do you think that an upward trend and good work experience will make up for a bad first year GPA for competitive schools?