I’m a freshman at Michigan looking to transfer. I honestly don’t know what I want my major to be, but it’ll likely be constrained to CS, business, and Biochemistry. Not dissatisfied per se with my time here so far, but perhaps not blown away either. My main “wants” are as follows:
Smaller School (Ideally small to midsized, but I can see one exception)
Better weather
Urban
Prestige
Better Academics
Proximity to tech-hub-y places (Boston, Palo Alto, etc)
Schools I’m considering are the following: Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, and Rice.
I’m fine with applying to all reaches and taking the risk of getting rejected everywhere. I’m happy where I’m at right now.
With regard to reputation, Michigan is excellent. I know a software engineer from Michigan quite well and he is probably the best and most successful software engineer I have ever worked with. When I was a graduate student at Stanford my girlfriend, a student in the same program, had just graduated from Michigan. She was one of the stronger students in the master’s program. She would periodically mumble that the academic quality at Michigan was just as good as at Stanford.
I think of Berkeley as being relatively similar to Michigan – huge and academically very strong. I will admit that the weather will be better. If you are out of state then Berkeley would be expensive. Do not take on extra debt to make this transfer.
Stanford is one of the few universities where to me it would make sense to transfer from Michigan if you can. However, it will be a very high reach as a transfer student (and would have been out of high school also). A bachelor’s at Michigan followed by a master’s at Stanford (with or without some work experience in the middle) might be more realistic and a very good option to consider.
With regard to MIT, look at the courses that you would be required to take as a CS major. When I was there 6-3 (the CS major) had more electrical engineering requirements than I was happy with. 18C (mathematics with computer science) is another thing to consider as a possible major in the very unlikely event that you would get accepted there.
If it were me, I do not think that I would transfer from Michigan to Columbia to study computer science. I would just stay at Michigan.
I do not know much about Rice.
In my opinion there are very few universities that are good enough that it would be worth transferring from Michigan to study computer science. Michigan is already an excellent university. CS is a field where “prestige” really does not matter. This partly explains all the t-shirts and blue jeans.
I do not know as much about business or biochemistry, other than a master’s might be a reasonable choice in either field which does bring up the option of a bachelor’s from Michigan followed by a master’s from one of the schools that you are considering.
Move away from the school choice ? Why are you limited to CS, Business or Biochemistry ?
If you want to study Gender studies do that. Or Geology or art history etc. you needn’t pigeonhole yourself to something you don’t want ?
If you truly want a smaller but not small school, and you want better weather, why limit yourself to the top of the top. Not sure about your finances but why not an Emory, William & Mary, Miami, SMU, etc
There are Michigan level kids at any top 200 school in the country.
You’re full pay, and hence, it wont matter. They’ve already reviewed your file and will give you the same results. They don’t like being countermanded and basically told that they made a mistake.
It is really all about “fit” and “space”.
Firstly, you have to “fit” what they want or need.
Secondly, someone has to drop out to make a seat available for a transfer at those elite schools.
You said you’re happy where you are at. Then why transfer?
Agree with @tsbna44. Bragging rights are screaming and emanating from my screen right now.
Why these three majors? They have very different course work (even at the frosh/soph level), so planning your frosh/soph course work to keep all of them open may be difficult, even without worrying about transfer credit equivalencies at other schools.
Berkeley only admits transfers at the junior level who should be ready to do upper level course work in their majors.
MIT and Columbia have substantial general education requirements that may require you to do substantial catch-up work if you transfer in without having planned to cover them before transfer.
I don’t think a change in VISA status is enough. Elite schools don’t take a lot of transfers so students need to have a compelling reason to be considered. Believing that Michigan isn’t prestigious enough isn’t a compelling reason. If you can compile a solid transfer application that shows how you’re a good fit then it doesn’t hurt to reapply to schools that rejected you last year, but you may want to add new schools to the list too.
Unless you are in-state to Cal Berkeley, forget about trying to transfer there. It’s pretty damn hard to get in as an OOS student from a 4-year school (around 4-5% acceptance rate historically).
Where were you accepted as a first-year student this past cycle? From my personal experience, I think if you are transferring as a current freshman you’ll be competitive in the same crop of schools that you were coming out of high school–that is, if you were rejected to Stanford, MIT, and CU last time, what has changed about you in just a few months for them to not reject you again?
If you are really set on leaving UMich but want a place of similar regard/academic level, look at Vanderbilt. None of the schools you’ve listed are known to take a lot of transfer students.
thanks. noted. I’m saying “constrained” in that those three majors are the ones I’m most interested in. I’ll probably be dropping business as a possibility with my coursework currently and next semester. I already have the AP credits to be considered a junior and I meet the transfer pre-reqs for berkeley MCB and L&S in general.
best schools I got into were Michigan, NYU, UCSD with some kind of scholarship (was it half off?), and NEU also with a large scholarship. The biggest things, imo, that changed between last cycle and this cycle was 1: change of citizenship status, 2: 2nd author-publication at an IF 6 journal (I noted that it was being peer-reviewed during my freshman apps but no results until way after decision dates), 3: perfect GPA for 2 semesters (summer and fall), and 4: family telling me that I am 1/4th URM (though I’m extremely hesitant to use this to my advantage and most likely will not just because I have 0 cultural ties).
Thank you for suggesting Vanderbilt. I’ve looked into the school and I think I would be happier at Mich than Vandy.
At may of the schools, the only thing that is harder than freshman admissions is transfer admissions. MIT transfer admissions rate is 3% (21/673). If you look at the 21, there are likely a lot of special cases in them. Things like people that were in the military or other reasons why they couldn’t attend earlier (sickness, etc.).
The UCs don’t do affirmative action for admission. It’s not legal in California publics. Plus, California is a VERY diverse state. If the school considered URM, they would have more than their share of URM candidates with more than 25% lineage.
Change of Visa status won’t change prior admissions decisions. Where did you get the idea that because you have a change in visa status you automatically “get in” everywhere? They won’t reverse your decision; they’ve already seen your file, so it’s “one and done”. Please give the admissions committees some credit. They know when a student immediately tries to transfer, after one year because of being previously rejected. They know the real reason.
Additionally, you are a non-resident of California. Political pressure from California taxpayers has changed admissions priority. In-state residents are the priority. Coming from another OOS university is low priority. Having a change in Visa status is not going to put you at the top of the list. Thousands of US citizens don’t have Visas because they were born in the US; yet, they’re applying too, so why would you have ANY advantage over them?
UCB requires 60 units of college instruction. If you’re a freshman with AP credits, or CC credits taken during HS, those are “elective credits” that they consider as prerequisites and not necessarily as full university level courses. This is a disadvantage if you haven’t taken these courses, this past year, at Michigan.
As a UCB transfer applicant, you have to hope that someone drops out the program. In case you are not aware, the UC‘s are impacted. Too many students and not enough seats.
Then, you have to wait in line after
CCC applicants,
UC-UC transfers,
CSU transfers,
In-state private universities
and then finally, OOS schools. (This is you.). It’s even worse because you don’t have a compelling reason to transfer.
Florida has great weather and good schools. You may want to apply to several of their schools.
If you want “proximity to tech-hub-y places such as Boston and Palo Alto”, why not just research schools in high tech areas (Austin, Texas & Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, etc.) ?