<p>I am a high school senior attending my safety in the fall, both for financial and academic reasons (I had excellent EC's and test scores, but my hs transcript wasn't very impressive; also, it's affordable). If I stay there for two years and transfer to another school, must I graduate in two years? Could I stay for three, to make up for lost time and rigor? </p>
<p>I don't know if I'm going to transfer -- I may fall in love with it. But I'm just weighing my future...is this possible? I don't want to just transfer somewhere else for the name -- I really want the education.</p>
<p>You could definitely stay for three years without a problem. It will cost another year of tuition of course. I did one year at a community college and will probably be at my university for three and a half years. </p>
<p>(I’m guessing you meant to say that you are a high school senior)</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s totally what I meant, I just edited it. Thanks.</p>
<p>I guess I just would just feel like a pretender if I transfered into Top School and graduated with Top School on my diploma, when I would have really spent half of that time in Flagship Public. </p>
<p>Having been rejected from Top Schools during high school, I guess I just have an inferiority complex about it – like, would I really be able to keep up with the kids that had been there all along? What about at a school with a substantial core, like Chicago?</p>
<p>If anyone downplays the achievement of two or three years at a school such as UChicago, then they obviously don’t have an appreciation for a high quality education. Like I said, I started at my school as a sophomore, and the only negative I felt was that in freshman year a lot of people make friends, find their group, things that stick for four years, etc. I didn’t feel like an outsider or anything, but as sort of a traditionalist, I wish I would have gone my freshman year there. </p>
<p>As for being rejected, a lot of students that didn’t do so well in HS really mature in a year or two before transferring. If getting accpeted to UChicago is your biggest goal, then bust your but at the school you are going to start at. Take all your gen eds and get your feet wet in what you think you want to major in. Then if and when you transfer, you can dive right in to your major curriculum. But who knows, maybe you’ll like your first school so much you will want to stay there all four or five years. </p>
<p>But don’t worry about getting feeling like a ‘pretender.’ I’d give anything to spend even a quarter at UChicago.</p>