<p>I think a lot of students drop out because of cost. I know some of my friends rolled their eyes or actually got upset with me for my decision to go to community college for my first two years. They were mad because I was in the top 5% of my graduating class at high school and probably could have gotten into any college in Texas while they were working their butts off writing essays and cramming last minute extracurricular activities in so they could put it on their application to compensate for years of neglecting their GPAs. Some of my friends got accepted into University of Texas, Rice, etc., but not on a full scholarship because they didn’t have the grades and/or had too much money to qualify, or they only got a little finacial aid.They won’t be able to go all four years without accumulating massive debt, especially the ones I know who want to go into medicine or law.</p>
<p>Yet they could have gone to community college for two years and then transferred, thus paying MUCH less for the core classes everyone has to take anyway (English, Math, Science, etc.) Sure, some of the pricer schools have better core classes, but not always. I really don’t find that there is a direct correlation between the price of a college and the quality of education (especially when it comes to core classes). What you’re really paying for is the presitge of the college. And some colleges specialize in a certain fields, but for your first two years, it doesn’t matter because the basic classes are the same.</p>
<p>Someone posted on here that kids change their college because at 17 or 18 they have trouble making a 4 year decision. I agree that’s part of the reason I decided community college was right for me, besides the fact that it’s much cheaper. I only had to make a two year choice, and next year, I’ll have another two year choice. It’s a lot less pressure when you look at it that way. </p>
<p>Also, a lot of people on here have been saying the parents presured their kids into going into a particular college and their kids hated it and wanted to transfer, but I was actually grateful my mother, who I’m very close too, first suggested I go to community college. Her motivation was a little selfish (she wanted to keep me at home cause she’s not ready for me to move out), but later I realized my own reasons for wanting to go, and so it seems her intuition was right. Parents should reconsider their reasons for wanting a child to go to a certain college, especially if its the one they went to- doesn’t that seem a little biased and arrogant? Whose to say their have a great time like you did-obviously a lot changed since they went there. ;)</p>
<p>I know several people who left UDel. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just sort of…meh. Sports aren’t great, tons of kids go home on the weekend and the students I knew went back to their home state schools or stepped it up to UPenn.</p>
<p>We are grateful that D was able to help defray costs by going to CC & saved us considerable funding before going to her dream school, USC where she is now very happy and hopes to matriculate.</p>
<p>away2–my D transfered from UDel to a LAC. More engaged, less pre-professional student body, less large-scale partying, more aligned with her values in general.</p>
<p>Academics were great, but no one talked in class. Had nothing but positives to say about faculty and outside opportunities. Had good merit scholarship.</p>
<p>This was nine years ago, though, so ancient history.</p>
<p>This is an old story but one of my friends transferred out of Harvard and went to Smith. She enrolled at Harvard the first year they directly admitted women (rather than segregating them to Radcliffe) and found that the school was still extremely sexist. She said when they’d walk into the dining hall, the guys would yell out numbers rating them, and she had a professor tell her to her face, “You don’t belong here because you’re female.” She went to Smith and loved it. </p>
<p>Sometimes being a trail-blazer means you encounter some nasty thorn bushes.</p>
<p>Also, I dated a guy who transferred out of our small LAC for financial reasons. His dad had changed jobs and moved from PA to Michigan, but the new job didn’t work out nearly as well as they had hoped. The boy was an engineering major and the oldest of 4 kids. Being able to get an engineering degree at a school as respected as Michigan, for in-state tuition and much lower commuting costs (his family had actually moved very near Ann Arbor) meant that even though he absolutely loved our LAC, he did what he thought was best for his family and transferred.</p>
<p>Best screenplay for a movie transfer story I’ve heard was a female transferring out of Swarthmore after freshman year. To make a long story short:</p>
<p>a) Starts dating RA on freshman hall fall semester.</p>
<p>b) RA’s girlfriend comes back from study abroad second semester and all hell breaks loose, including late night screaming matches between old and new girlfriends in the dorm hallways.</p>
<p>c) Freshmen female transfers to put the drama behind.</p>
<p>d) RA is relieved of his duties and replaced mid-semester.</p>
<p>I think the moral of the story is that all politics are local and all transfers are probably personal and more convoluted than we might sometimes suspect.</p>
<p>Some truth to that, I suspect. Every transfer has some personal, and therefore highly idiosyncratic, dimensions to it. On the other hand, the fact that there are very pronounced differences in transfer/dropout rates across colleges suggests it’s not only the personal and idiosyncratic, but sometimes systemic factors at play. It’s always personal to the parties involved. But dismissing it as “just personal” when some schools have 4-year attrition rates of 40% or more while other schools have attrition rates in the single digits is to bury one’s head in the sand.</p>
<p>I do think this thread is a good idea, though. Although I agree that most transfers are more personal reasons, if a particular college popped up several times with a similar theme (ie safety on campus, or horrible professors) it would be worth knowing about.</p>
<p>I also think it’s good to keep certain things in mind when looking at schools in the first place. Certainly, you can’t be 100% certain, but there is more to picking a college then prestige, merit awards and even location.</p>
<p>Ive known quite a few people who have graduated from a top ( Uchicago, Upenn , Oberlin…)school after attending a communuity college for a couple years.
I dont know what “rank” that would be considered</p>
<p>How hard is to transfer from a tier 4 or tier 3 university to an Ivy or a top 40 university?</p>
<p>Lets say you have some good ECs, a 3.9 GPA in college, A 2250+ SAT score, good essays and some good recommendations. </p>
<p>To an IVY, its very,very difficult, as transfer acceptance rates are much lower , and in some cases virtually non existent[ Princeton doesn’t accept transfers, Stanford’s acceptance rate is less than.2% ] than acceptance rates for freshman. You may want to look into USC, which does take a lot of transfer students who have shown the ability to succeed in college. Chicago does save space for around 40 transfers each year, but transfers into that extremely academic, intellectual environment is intense, so say the least.</p>
<p>Those kinds of differences are systemic to socio-economic and incoming academic preparation issues. To put it bluntly, rich white kids graduate more reliably than poorer kids. Remember, transfer outs decrease your grad rate, but transfers in do not count. So almost any public university, with students coming and going to and from community colleges and so forth, are automatically docked.</p>
<p>My friend’s S went to Penn State for a year and transferred to a school closer to home. The reason was simply that his parents cuddled him. He never went anywhere without them. Although the boy is build like a lineman and they live in a very safe area; the parents drove him everywhere.
The boy told me he couldn’t handle all the free time.
My D’s friend went to Harvard for a year did not like it and transferred to Wesleyan and loved it.
FWIW, I know one girl who didn’t like Columbia so much that she did her UG in three years. Another kid had such a hard time adjusting to Princeton, that his mom had to go see him every weekend to keep him “sane”.
So, whether a school is a good fit or not, it’s hard to know, until matriculation. A weekend visit and a tour are not good indicators.</p>