<p>I'm considering giving up my full scholarship at a mid-sized private university to transfer to the better ranked state school. Long story short, I'm miserable here, can't find any semblance of diversity (I'm black), and can't find any motivation to study. I started strong, with a 3.6, but am now at a 3.1 and because my dad got really sick, nearly dropped out in the middle of last semester. I'm taking some time off now while my dad recovers, and realized in that time that I hate where I'm at right now and am dreading going back. I'm just scared that medical schools might judge me harshly for giving up a full scholarship in order to transfer. I think that at the new school, which is highly competitive, I will have a better fit and be more motivated to reach my full potential. Any input? Advice?</p>
<p>Med schools won’t even really know about the scholarship.</p>
<p>That said, can you afford to transfer? If you need aid, then do NOT cut ties with your current school UNTIL you’ve seen the FA pkg from your new school and your family agrees with it.</p>
<p>If you need aid, keep in mind that transfers rarely get good aid. However, if your family will pay all of your college costs, then you’ll have lots of choices.</p>
<p>Med schools aren’t going to care. They will look at your list of courses taken and separate them into those required for med school and those that are not and look at the grades. There tend to be gpa cut offs in each category. That you transferred is not an issue. That you were depressed isn’t going to be an issue. The grades are the big issue. That and the MCATs. Other ancillary issues will be in the picture, but not the ones you are concerned about.</p>
<p>Giving up the scholarship will not even be on the radar for med school apps. Your happiness and GPA will. Easy choice if the $ is there. Good luck.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’m unsure how the med schools would even know if you gave up the scholarship in the first place. I can’t think of anywhere finances were mentioned on the AMCAS, and my scholarships didn’t show up on my transcript. How do you think they would know?</p>
<p>In some fields, especially academic ones, it’s quite common to put awards such as scholarship funding on CVs and resumes. This is not common practice in professional fields such as medicine.</p>
<p>if it’s a purely need based scholarship I can’t imagine it would come up anywhere but if it’s a selective award then I think it would be fair game to list under “awards” on AMCAS</p>
<p>Perhaps I was mistaken as I realize now that the OP doesn’t state that it was a merit scholarship, but that was my assumption when I posted above. </p>
<p>D1 had a scholarship that was merit based and went to approx. 15 of 6k entering fr, so she does list it as an award on her CV and applications as bdm states.</p>
<p>I have no idea whether that is true. It is possible it is and it is possible that while your school does it not everyone does. Unless you have activities and awards than you can fit, why not list the merit scholarships anyway?</p>
<p>^lol, I was one of those psychos who had too many activities/positions and no room to list awards/scholarships. i do have a list of them on my CV that i include for random stuff (eg i recently applied to do some rural rotations, they asked about awards/honors, i included some relevant awards from undergrad). </p>
<p>As far as I know, merit awards were not included on my committee letter.</p>
<p>Correction: just checked AMCAS primary app, the merit award wasn’t listed. I was thinking about the information that D1 submitted for her CL; don’t know if it was actually included in the CL or not.</p>
<p>^if I had awards of that caliber, I probably would too. I “just” had awards from my school though, and while they were nice in total none of them was very significant by itself.</p>
<p>I looked over D’s AMCAS and she did list her two scholarships under awards. They were both (big) national awards that also had a need based component.</p>
<p>She had some spaces to fill, unlike our EC Queen, Kristin :)</p>
<p>D1 might have listed hers had she stayed at the school, but since it was from 5 years earlier and was school specific, it gave way to other activities.</p>
<p>The most important is to ask yourself about real reasons for the way you feel about place. Keep in mind that absolutely every single frehsman goes thru adjustment period at college and it is smoother for some than the others. Most of depends on personality and not the place. Somehow you have chosen this place to attend. What were your reasons? Full scholarship cannot be the only reason. You must have felt that you somwhat belong there. Why did you feel this way originally? what has happened since then? The reason that it is important to analyze your current situation is to make sure to prevent it from happenning at the new place. Remember, the grass is always greener on the other side. The most important is to go deeply with the question is the grass really that greener or it seems so because you are looking at it from outside.<br>
You are the only person to answer these questions. Yes, transfer might be a big winner, but it also might be the wrong move. Forget Med. School at this point. It should not be even considered at all in your decision making. Another point is that with 3.1 you might loose your current scholarship. Most Merit awards require certain college GPA to be maintained.</p>
<p>I was told that all of my merit awards will be mentioned in the committee letter. Isn’t this SOP?</p>
<p>The school he transfers to would be doing the CL. If he never tells them that his former school gave him a scholarship, that school won’t know. However, it still wouldn’t hurt if he did mention: School X merit scholarship </p>
<p>The SOMs aren’t going to be thinking, “hmmm…it says that at School X he had a merit scholarship. Then he went to School Y. That sounds bad.”</p>
<p>I know mine mentioned her merit awards on AMCAS</p>
<p>My son did, too. But if there was one that he didn’t want to mention, there would be no penalty for leaving it off.</p>
<p>But again, mentioning a scholarship in an Award category doesn’t even need to indicate which school it’s from or for. If my son had attended two undergrads, then under awards it would have listed several scholarships…none mention a school’s name.</p>