HELP ! Bad Freshman Year!!

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I currently attend a fairly competitive university (ranked in the 30’s by USnews). However my freshman year has been disasterous. Many distractions at school along with problems at home have resulted in poor grades… a 1.9 gpa the first semester and a 2.3 the second semester.</p>

<p>I have been advised to transfer schools so that I can start with a clean slate and a fresh gpa. Is this good advice? If so these are the questions I have to follow:</p>

<li><p>How do transfer admissions work? Will they look predominately at my high school transcript and sat scores (which are not bad… 3.9 gpa and 1350 sat) or will they look at my one year of poor performance in college? Or both??</p></li>
<li><p>What kind of caliber schools do I have a shot at? Are the better state schools in new york reasonable? (binghamton etc.)</p></li>
<li><p>I know it is too late to transfer into the fall semester so I would have to wait untill spring. What should I do in the downtime? Go to a CC? Get a job? I have been meaning to take pre liscensing for a real estate liscence should I do that?</p></li>
<li><p>and finally… when would I have to apply for spring semester transfer?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thank you for much for your time and anticipated assistance.</p>

<p>-BY</p>

<p>You have to remember that your high school GPA and SAT scores were only meant to predict your performance in college. Your performance in college sucked. Transfer admission committees look primarily at your college performance because you are in college now. Some schools don't even ask for your SAT scores and your high school transcripts, so that has to mean something.</p>

<p>I would say you have a horrible chance of transferring anywhere you want to go. Go back to CC and get your grades back up or continue in your 30ish ranked university and bust your ass.</p>

<p>perhaps attend community college and take classes and raise your gpa...to transfer, they mostly look at college grades and i dont know how feasible it would be at this point.....work on raising your gpa first and foremost..</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses. A few people at my school have told me that if you transfer after your first year more weight is placed on your high school admission criteria since it is a representation of 4 years performance vs 25 units of performance. They said if you do 2 years in college however that is the primary source of evaluation..</p>

<p>... not true though I guess?</p>

<p>well they balance each other out. if you are transferring after one year and had a so-so high school career, but got great grades in college, the school you want to transfer to is going to applaud that. if you did well in hs, then bombed college, theyre going to raise an eyebrow.</p>

<p>Why not stick it out? Your GPA is not going to be wiped clean and you're at a "top 30" school so anywhere you transfer is probably many, many steps down considering your college GPA. You still have a shot at grad school or even med school if you clean up your act. And it sounds like you're still in the running to get a nicely minted bachelor's degree from your current top-30 school.</p>

<p>If you need downtime, take it so you figure out why you're in school in the first place. </p>

<p>If you are in a hard major (sciences, pre-med, engineering), perhaps it's time to consider changing majors due to lack of motivation in your field of study. This is especially true if you took weeder classes and did poorly.</p>

<p>Also, if you plan to go to law school, business school, etc...the grades will count, as the schools would see them. Why not stick it out and do better. That way, grad schools (if you are going) will see an upward swing in grades that would benefit you.</p>

<p>Just my opinion on the subject. Good luck & hang in there.</p>