<p>Hello all, </p>
<p>I am interested in transferring schools. I am currently enrolled at Southern Illinois University College in Carbondale, IL. The school here is terrible and I really dislike the whole area. I miss living in an urban area. I am from Chicago and being out in the middle of nowhere is kind of a culture shock for me. </p>
<p>I am hoping to transfer to a more prestigious school outside of IL. I want to find a school that does not require a carto get around or that has a good transportation system for the students. I would prefer an urban area but a school that is in a rural area would be ok.<br>
A little history of myself may be in order. </p>
<p>I am 24 (25 in September), Hispanic male. Neither of my parents are college graduates and my mother is a high school dropout. Both of my younger sisters are in college. One is studying art at the local community college and the other is a grad student in engineering at Purdue University. I am the black sheep of the family (or was). </p>
<p>I have a 3.098 GPA at my current school. This is a big improvement over my high school GPA which was somewhere along the lines of one point something or other. IT was low and I was a hell raiser in high school. I had been thrown out of high school 9 times. I went to emotionally disturbed schools, learning disabled schools, and behavior disorder schools. Eventually I went to a state run military school and I got kicked out of that. I maybe able to get a few letters of recommendation from some of the teachers who liked me (hard to believe there were any) both in college and high school. </p>
<p>As I stated earlier I have a 3.098 GPA. I am sociology major and can probably finagle a letter of recommendation from a teacher I had. The problem was that she was a grad student and I am worried that this will affect how seriously other schools take her. </p>
<p>I have a teacher who agrees to write me a letter of recommendation as well. He is the head of the Sociology Department and has a good reputation in the sociological community. He is also a University of Texas graduate and obtained his PHD from that school</p>
<p>Both of them were sociology teachers and professors. I have passed all of my Sociology classes with as and Bs. I have 48 credits and most of them are general education credits. Math, English, and electives. </p>
<p>I failed one class. It was a Zoology 115 class that I received an F in (I simply did not want to get up that early). I retook the class and my school put it on as a Plant Biology Class which I received a B in. It was the exact class but the teacher was different. I am going to ask the school if there is any way to take the course I failed out and keep only the one I passed on my transcripts and/or GPA. </p>
<p>I also dropped a few classes simply because I knew that they were to hard and I had taken to heavy a classload. For example a College algebra class, I havent taken a math class since 1996. I have 3 math credits from a Math 115 course while College algebra was a math 108 course. I do not know if this will be a factor.</p>
<p>The schools I am interested in are: </p>
<p>Penn State University (University Park Campus)
University of Michigan
University of Florida
Florida State University
University of Texas at Austin
Texas A&M
Temple in Philadelphia
University of IL
Indiana University Bloomington</p>
<p>Thanks to all who reply.</p>