Looking for Transfer to Urban College w/Strong CS and Humanities

College Search & Selection
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<p>hey there. basically the title. i would appreciate any recommendations you guys have. more details:</p>

<p>i currently go to Cornell Engineering as a rising sophomore and plan on majoring in Computer Science.</p>

<p>as of late, I have realized that Cornell is not the best fit for me. I chose to go to Cornell b/c it was the best school out of the ones that I had applied to. to expand further, originally I had targeted either MIT or Stanford -- so take from that what you will.</p>

<p>what makes Cornell not a good fit for me now is that it is simply too large of a school with too large of a Greek life in a non-urban campus. more likely than not, I would not be able to transfer to a school like MIT or Stanford simply b/c transfer admissions to those schools is even more competitive than undergrad, and my performance during my first year, simply put, isn't good enough - not a 4.0, not enough ECs, etc.</p>

<p>my realization now is that the name-brand value of a school matters less to me -- especially less now than before -- and I'm just trying to look for a school that meets my needs, which are listed in the title. All three of these are equally important.</p>

<p>1) Urban environment: I prefer cities. I feel more connected to everything. There's more of a concert scene, there's museums, lots of people to look at. I love New York (I'm from Long Island) but I'm not necessarily married to it.</p>

<p>2) Computer science: It's my major. This will not change. This is what I foresee myself building a career upon.</p>

<p>3) Humanities: I currently take 2 languages at Cornell (Spanish and Chinese). My first semester, the class I enjoyed the most was my freshman writing seminar. I read everything -- news, politics, history, fiction, basically everything. for me, I see everything as art -- programming as well, of course.</p>

<p>sorry for the long post, and thanks again for the help.</p>

2

<p>University of Washington (Seattle)
Carnegie-Mellon
Cal-Berkeley
GA Tech (w/ Emory cross-registration) <a href=“http://www.news.gatech.edu/2011/04/11/tech-emory-bolster-cross-registration-partnership”>http://www.news.gatech.edu/2011/04/11/tech-emory-bolster-cross-registration-partnership&lt;/a&gt;
Pitt (has cross-registration opportunities with CMU)
Penn</p>

3

<p>What was your gpa? You don’t need 4 to transfer but what you have might direct where you can apply. CS is a pretty crowded field right now, I don’t think universities are looking for CS majors. Shame to give up Cornell CS. Another thing to consider is transferring to CAS and doing CS there. Won’t solve the location issue, but you do have summer you can intern in NYC or Boston and try a study abroad.</p>

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<p>@quakerstate, thanks for the suggestions.
@BrownParent, i have a 3.7 as of right now. the internship and study abroad are definitely things I’m doing.</p>

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<p>What can your family afford?</p>

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<p>Be careful about transferring to a much smaller school. The main advantage of a smaller school is smaller frosh/soph level courses, while the main advantage of a larger school is better selection and more frequent offering of junior/senior level courses. Starting at a large school and transferring to a small school is more likely to pick up the disadvantages of both while getting less of the advantages of each.</p>

<p>State universities (perhaps Stony Brook?) tend to be more transfer friendly, although some privates do accept significant numbers of transfers. But out-of-state state universities tend to have poor financial aid, if that is a concern.</p>

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<p>@Erin’s Dad, my family has prepared well for the burden of financing college. That said, we still wouldn’t be able to pay full tuition at an out-of-state state school that offers no financial aid.
@ucbalumnus, that is a good point that I had not considered. </p>

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<p>Most schools do not give great for transfers…private or public.</p>

<p>your statement is confusing. On one hand, you say that your family has well prepared for financing college, then you say that they cant afford OOS state schools. privates usually cost MORE.</p>

<p>how much can your family pay each year?</p>

<p>how much aid do you get from cornell?</p>

<p>do not cut ties with cornell until you have seen the aid pkg of a new school. </p>

9

<p>You are doing very well there. I’d consider staying at Cornell and taking a year either in a major city or a city abroad. And yes, financial aid is a big factor for transfers so be careful. Bear in mind that it is not always easy to transfer as most people make a lot of their friends freshman year when everyone is new to the school. The grass is not always greener…</p>

<p>If you really want to leave, there are a ton of threads on schools in cities and most are smaller than Cornell…Columbia, Barnard (if you are female!), NYU, Fordham, BC, Villanova, Penn, Georgetown, GW, Carnegie Mellon to name a few. You can pull up the USNWR list of colleges, look for ones in attractive cities, then check the website to see if they have your desired major. </p>

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<p>@mom2collegekids, sorry for the confusing statement. to clarify, I am receiving some aid from Cornell, so I’m not paying full price. In my experience, OOS state schools can cost just as much as a private, especially if/when they don’t give aid.
@happy1, thanks for the recommendations, I’ll look into them. I also discovered that Columbia has a visiting students program, which may be better than trying for a transfer.</p>

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<p>In general, I agree with the advice that doing an exchange program or study abroad program might be a better idea than transferring. Cornell is a well-respected school and it’s great in the field you want. You can also live in a city after you graduate.</p>

<p>In general, most public universities are at least a little cheaper than most private universities with no aid. And as a transfer student, you can’t expect a whole lot of aid in any case. For example, OOS tuition at UPitt and Georgia Tech is about $28K a year. UW-Madison and College of Charleston are $27K. It The University of Minnesota is very inexpensive for OOS students, at about $19K per year. These are much cheaper than the full tuition at a place like BC ($43K), Tulane ($46K), Villanova ($45K), American ($41K), and Loyola Marymount ($38K) without financial aid. Unless you got substantial financial aid, some of the less expensive OOS public options are cheaper than most privates.</p>

<p>In New York, what about Fordham? If you are interested in CS, CUNY-City College could also be a great place, although there aren’t ample on-campus facilities. There’s also Hofstra and Stony Brook, on Long Island.</p>

<p>In Boston, you might be interested in Northeastern and Boston U. I’m not sure how difficult transferring into Boston College or Tufts is. In D.C., there’s American U and George Washington. Philadelphia has Temple and Drexel, and Villanova right outside. You might be interested in University of Pittsburgh, too. In Atlanta, there’s Emory (probably also difficult to transfer into) and Georgia Tech. You might like the University of Richmond, a small LAC in Richmond, VA. There’s College of Charleston, in Charleston, SC. Tulane and Loyola in New Orleans.</p>

<p>On the West Coast, there’s Cal Poly Pomona. There’s also, of course, several UC campuses, although transferring in there might also be challenging. You may also be interested in Azusa Pacific, Harvey Mudd (also a challenge transferring), Loyola Marymount, Occidental College, Santa Clara University, University of San Diego and University of San Francisco. There’s also Seattle University and the University of Washington in Seattle, and Portland State and Reed in Portland.</p>

<p>In the Midwest, there’s University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin - UMN in particular is known to be cheaper for OOS students. You could also attempt UT-Austin.</p>

<p>I think you should still try to apply to MIT, Stanford, Columbia, and Carnegie Mellon to transfer. Even if the transfer admissions are competitive - you should try. A 4.0 isn’t a requirement. If your GPA is very low I could see not trying, but if you have a 3.6+ I would still try. You could also try Cooper Union, but you’d have to major in electrical engineering instead of computer science.</p>

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<p>@juillet, thanks for the detailed response as well as clearing up the OOS state tuition matter.</p>

<p>Based on what I’m hearing, and some personal reflection as well, doing study abroad or the like does seem like the better option. If I were to transfer, I probably should’ve tried for it this past year. Given that at minimum, for transferring to most schools, I have to wait another full year, it probably is a bit much. Maybe I’ll still end up trying, who knows.</p>

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<p>So you also need ‘give aid to transfers’</p>

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<p>Check out Case Western Reserve. The UG population is <5k, Greek life not very prominent and more focused on academics, and plenty of students with the stats for MIT/Stanford but either didn’t quite make the cut or chose CWRU for the generous merit aid they offer. I don’t know about merit aid for transfers but that should be easy to find out - they do accept spring admits for transfer students. </p>

<p>CWRU has a great CS program and while Cleveland isn’t New York, it’s got a lot of culture and great restaurants within easy reach of campus. My son picked the school in part because he wanted most of those things you’re looking for - well, except for the language part, but he specifically wanted a school with strong CS/engineering without sacrificing the humanities. He was really excited when he saw they had a course titled “Heroes and Hustlers in Latin Literature”. </p>

<p>You might want to check out their SAGES general education requirements. These small, seminar-style classes focus on written and verbal communications, and feature interesting themes like the literature of fly fishing, science of Harry Potter, and “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” - an exploration of the development of the atom bomb. </p>

<p>There’s also lots of museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art right next to campus, plus the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame downtown, and Cleveland has a huge theater district as well. </p>

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<p>They only accept 1-2 transfers a year, and it would be a very difficult transition. OP, I agree that looking at other options to spend a year off campus is a good idea. Also, as a CS major, you should have a decent chance at finding summer internships in cities that pay decently as well.</p>

<p>I just looked at Cornell’s study off campus page. It isn’t super straightforward (IMHO, no obvious first choice programs jumped out at me), but if you go into the office and talk with them or phone them I bet someone there could list some options for a CS major that make sense.</p>

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<p>@Mondut, thanks for the reply. I remember getting a lot of mail from Case Western in high school. They seem great, I wish I had paid more attention before.</p>

<p>@intparent, could you point me at that link? I couldn’t find it.</p>

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<p>I just Googled “Cornell Off Campus Study”. But a lot of the pages are ‘walls of text’ describing the rules. I think a call is a good idea (assuming you are not on campus now). Then see them in the fall and start the process right away for junior year (there are deadlines and stuff the year before).</p>

<p>One of my kids (not a Cornell grad) went to two different programs (one fall, one spring) and spent her whole junior year off campus. She went abroad one semester and to the Washington Center program the 2nd semester. You really find your own internship with the Washington Center – you might be able to find something in DC that is interesting for a semester if you did that one semester, and you get credit for it. But they provide housing (hers was super nice), and you also take some evening seminars and I think do a research project working with a professor at your college. And you get a semester of credit.</p>

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<p>@intparent, those programs sound great! the first links that I get back from a search though are for Cornell College though, not Cornell University – read: <a href=“http://www.cornellcollege.edu/about-cornell/not-in-ithaca.shtml”>http://www.cornellcollege.edu/about-cornell/not-in-ithaca.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’ll definitely ask around though to look for similar stuff.</p>

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<p>Sorry, here is a link:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.cuabroad.cornell.edu/”>https://www.cuabroad.cornell.edu/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>If you click through and find links to engineering programs, there are some CS options there, too.</p>

<p>They don’t seem to have the Washington Center option, but there are other options that might be interesting to you. </p>

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<p>I think Columbia sounds like the best choice so far that is in the same league as Cornell CS. What about USC(California), do you want to go West? </p>