schools like uchicago that are kind to transfers?

Transfer Students
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i know this is about transferring, but i’m after school suggestions so i thought this would be the right forum; sorry if it’s not.

hi, i’m currently a first year at barnard. i know i said in a previous post that i loved it but i think it was just my appreciation for new york and being on break talking. the thing that’s killing me is the absolute lack of community life. it almost feels like a commuter school. people just go to class and then disappear. new york is great, but not so much for a non-wealthy college student. everything is out of reach. when i use columbia’s facilities, like the dining halls or libraries, i feel out of place, which i know is more about my own personal feelings than any way anyone is acting towards me, but still. i know some columbia students look down on barnard students, which is really stupid and doesn’t really matter anyway, but i don’t want to be somewhere those divisions exist.

i want a typical college experience. not necessarily like partying or anything like that; that’s not my thing, but i want a real campus with just one student body, if that makes sense. i didn’t realize that until now, even though i definitely have thought about it before. i have friends at williams and amherst and they love their schools even though they’re pretty rural because they’re homey and people stick around on campus. there’s a sense of community. i wanted to come to new york because it was so different from home, and who wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time in nyc, you know? at least that’s what i thought. this was such a heavy decision, coming here, and i turned down a few other small lacs because of their locations. trust me, i didn’t just see new york and completely rule out my other options. i waited until the very last minute to decide because it was so difficult, and i considered EVERYTHING. another reason i turned one down, one that probably would’ve been best for me, was because it doesn’t have the name recognition of barnard/columbia. a few people have already transferred out, and i thought it was weird to do so after only one semester, but maybe when you know, you know. it’s such a lonely and weird place for me. i feel like i’m just your average twenty something living in new york, and i don’t like that. i was super hesitant to post this because i don’t want to turn off prospectives and pre-frosh from barnard because of just my experience, but i need some help.

TLDR: i really love what uchicago seems to be, but i read that their transfer rate is something like 1%. what are some schools, preferably LACS, that have really good financial aid for transfers (i know this is rather rare) and have a reasonable transfer acceptance rate?

i know financial aid is really iffy for transfers, so i really don’t see myself leaving but i thought i’d see if there are any options at all

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Give Chicago a shot. Based on everything you’ve said, I think you’d like it. In some respects it’s one of the most LAC-like research universities in the US News top ~20. Unless things have really changed since I attended, there is no mass exodus away from campus on weekends. Big city life is there if you want it but the campus is the center of student life. And every undergraduate is a first class citizen of the university.

It’s good that you’re realistic about your chances, though. Most highly selective colleges have low transfer admission rates. Be prepared to make a compelling justification for transfer in your application.

If you do like being at a women’s college (notwithstanding the negatives you mention), then how about Bryn Mawr? Bryn Mawr is much less selective than Chicago, but my impression is that it has a very strong intellectual atmosphere, sense of community, and high quality-of-life. It’s also not out in the sticks like many other LACs.

Reed and Macalester are 2 other urban LACs you might want to consider.

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^^ Yup. Reed is small and secluded enough so that you have a quiet, campus-centric experience, but is situated conveniently enough that you can make use of everything Portland has to offer.

Reed also likes transfer students and I know many who transferred from schools like Franklin & Marshall (to get away from the preppy vibe), Macalester (just a bad fit), etc, and gives excellent financial aid.

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I don’t know if around 20% acceptance rate means they like transfers. http://www.reed.edu/ir/cds/cds1213/cdssecd201213.pdf

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No half-way selective private will have a high transfer acceptance rate these days (many publics were designed to take in transfers, especially from their CC’s). However, many universities will have divisions and won’t have a unified single student body culture. Universities tend to be fairly big, after all. Why not consider transferring to those LACs that you got in to last time?

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I notice you refer to yourself as an “average twenty something” — did you take a gap year before starting college? (Most first years are 18 or 19). I’m asking because I’m wondering is part of the problem for you is an age/maturity gap with many of your classmates. Barnard’s practice of housing all first years together is fairly common, but one downside is that it makes it harder to meet and socialize with a mix of students at various levels, and that can color your perceptions in ways that might make it hard to envision what campus life would be like in later years.

My daughter was also very unhappy with the social environment at Barnard her first year – like you she had friends at other colleges who seemed to be having more fun and enjoying more of a traditional campus life. She toyed with the idea of transferring, but when she thought about which campuses seemed the best fit socially, she realized that those schools didn’t offer the same quality of academics.

However, things got a lot better for my daughter her 2nd semester. I gave her some suggestions of activities to participate in at Columbia, and she met and befriended a GS student who was 26 years old – they ended up hanging out all the time. (Ironically, what brought them together was their mutual dislike of the activity I had suggested).

The next year things changed radically because my daughter was in a suite with students who became very close friends – I think there were 5 in the suite and they pretty much hung out together all the time. That was also serendipitous because the group of rising sophomores that my daughter wanted to room with weren’t able to get a suite together in the housing lottery - my d. was holding out for a single so she was on a waitlist for housing and randomly assigned the next year. But luck was on her side because she got a great room. So I think once the housing changes from a corridor-style dorm to a suite, there was much more of a sense of belonging and camaraderie.

She graduated 4 years ago and she has said many times that she is very appreciative of her Barnard education, due to the academic quality and the close relationships she formed with faculty over the years. But much of that developed later on – as a first year she was still unsure of her major and getting her bearings.

Of course if you want to transfer it makes sense to be looking at options now, before application deadlines --but just keep in mind that the experience at any college evolves over time. My son started out at a very small LAC where the campus was the center of student life, but that got old and felt constraining after awhile. He left after his sophomore year, and later finished at a mid-size regional public-- a good decision for him as well, but definitely a place where he had to find his challenges outside of academics.

If part of your problem is a sense of feeling out-of-place, a transfer to a new college could make things worse, not better – it’s often hard for transfer students to integrate themselves within the new community, where other students have already formed social bonds from their freshman years.

I’d add that my daughter definitely was not wealthy! That’s part of the reason it as hard for her to fit in – but she also worked at Barnard Bartending and was able to make enough money to support a reasonable entertainment budget for herself. She still lives in NYC and when I visit her we are always able to find low-cost things to do – I don’t think the problem is that everything is out of reach in NY, but it can seem that way when you are surrounded by students who can afford to spend money and not interested in looking for free or low-cost options for entertainment. So part of the problem is simply finding a circle of friends who have similar economic constraints. I’d note that you will find these economic divisions at just about any private college - it was something my son experienced as well. I just think that comes with the territory of being on financial aid while attending a college with a COA of $60K a year.

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I can just imagine your post if you had gone to one of the rural LAC and would be writing about how isolated it is and nothing to do but party and look, you could have gone to NYC but were to hesitant to make it work. Just think of those woulda/coulda/shouldas. I’m of the sort of mind that it does take a full year to integrate and find your people and make a life for yourself somewhere new, it’s something that you have to find and build for yourself, not move from place to place to find. You thought out your choices and made the best with pretty full information but now grass is greener. It just seems so risky the move could not work out since you don’t seem to internalize the reality of the information you have to make the decisions. But @calmom put it very well, great post. When you make friends with people at Columbia you won’t have to imagine and project things on them they aren’t thinking, or just leave that sort of person be. I wonder if you will be better off trying to transfer after a year and have a major in mind that works for your target school.

But you don’t say what you like about Chi, so how to possibly suggest similar colleges? I think that transfer rate is much to low to put that on your list. I don’t know how xfers work out with the core reqs. Look at schools with reasonable rates of xfer and more flexible gen eds. Maybe Vassar? Can you visit any?

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@tk21769‌ @International95‌ I’ll check them out, thanks.

@PurpleTitan‌ I don’t mean a HIGH acceptance rate, obviously. I meant reasonable, as in higher than 1%. When I’m talking about divisions, I don’t mean the usual ones of athletes, greek life, whatever, etc; I’m talking about the one at Barnard/Columbia. Sure, there are divisions among people at all colleges, but where else is one school within a university seen as inferior to this extent by other students within that university?

@calmom‌ No, I didn’t mean I was literally a twenty something. I’m almost 19. I meant that that’s what it feels like because I feel like I’m just living in NYC and going to random classes as opposed to feeling like part of an actual college community. I also feel like my housing situation puts me in a weird place because I’m in a strange double and my roommate is never there. I basically have a single. Maybe that would improve next year. Also, I know there are economic divisions everywhere, but it’s more apparent here because everything is expensive and this city is not exactly student-friendly.

@BrownParent‌ I don’t think so. It’s not that I want to necessarily go to an actual rural college, I just don’t think I need/want to be in a city as big as New York. There’s definitely something between rural and one of America’s most populous cities. What I like about Chi is the house system, the campus, the location (a city but not too big, probably quieter), student body size. I also really like Rice, and I especially like their house system, but I was rejected last year.

I’m probably not going to transfer because the schools I really like are out of reach and financial aid is not nearly as good for transfers most of the time. I’m just considering, it’s not like I’m trying to leave tomorrow. And even if I did get in to a school I wanted, I don’t HAVE to go there. It would just be an option, and I would obviously go through the rest of the semester here and see if I get a better feel for this place, and if not, well, maybe I could go somewhere else. I’m not decided, just wondering.

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Eh. Harvard College students tend to look down on Harvard Extension School.

You hear burblings by some students in the private Cornell colleges about the Cornell contract colleges. Also between Wharton and non-Wharton at UPenn. I could go on.

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FWIW, my D2 experienced the same issues as OPs first paragraph, basically. She gave it three semesters. It never got better for her, so she left. She liked her subsequent campus-centered school much better.

As OP experienced, others on D2s floor left first, that (plus me taking her to my old campus-based school) initially got her thinking about it. However, the school’s perseverance rate is actually very high, so it isn’t like everyone is running for the hills .Far from it.

Every school has its own set of associated unique features, Most matriculants actually like those features. But some people find out that they don’'t. If you’ve given it long enough to be sure, there is no shame in leaving, and you are not necessarily wrong to do so. D2 wasn’t wrong, for her. Really she should have left sooner. She didn’t experience anything her third semester that changed her mind from what she already knew after two semesters.

However given your reaction to one city school, another city school may also be suspect. I don’t know UC enough to know whether it is really sufficiently campus centered to provide the type of experience you are looking for,

re #8, “You hear burblings by some students in the private Cornell colleges about the Cornell contract colleges”,

The extent of what D2 experienced there, as reported to me by her and confirmed by her friends there who we met, went way far beyond anything that takes place at Cornell. But others on CC somehow do not all report having this same experience, variously either at all or to the same extent. It may largely depend on the particular set of Columbia students one happens to be exposed to. In part.

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Got timed out, but to continue. Not everyone experiences this, and not everyone is bothered by it. But if you are, you are. And you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. It bothered D2. It wasn’t the only reason she left, but it was one of the things she really didn’t like, for sure.

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@monydad‌ Thanks so much for sharing your daughter’s experience. It’s nice to know that I’m not just overreacting to my situation and that it might actually be better to go somewhere else. I’m not going into this semester hating everything and banking on transferring–I don’t actually HATE it here; there’s just so much to be desired–but if nothing changes by the end of the school year, I want to possibly have some options in place.

Oh, and I’m not seriously thinking of UChi as a serious option because it’s nearly impossible to get in; it’s just an example.

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There’s nothing wrong with keeping your options open – it’s just that it is also valuable to consider what problems are external (something about the college), and which are internal (something about your personality and the way you react or respond to various situations). The external stuff is likely to change at a different college, though not necessarily for the better. That is, you could exchange a BC v. CC rivalry for something you didn’t anticipate at another college – when I was an undergrad, my residential housing choice was a source of jokes and disdain for many. A college with a strong Greek life presence could seem intolerable for a student who is either disinterested in joining sorority or simply fails to be invited to join a desired one after pledge events.

As to the internal stuff: that’s stuff you carry with you wherever you go. Those personality traits may be a very good reason to move elsewhere – it may be true that city life and attending a college where students are so outwardly focused is not really for you – but it’s hard for me to see a school like Chicago (“where fun comes to die”) as being a particularly good alternative if you find the NY/Barnard/Columbia environment intimidating. That is, you might not really want to look at schools “like” Chicago, but instead seek out a school with a more relaxed and open student culture.

I think you correctly sorted out your own feelings from reality when you wrote: “when i use columbia’s facilities, like the dining halls or libraries, i feel out of place, which i know is more about my own personal feelings than any way anyone is acting towards me, but still. i know some columbia students look down on barnard students.” It seems like your own assumptions are at the heart of your discomfort – rather than anything any other student has said or done. The problem is that if the feelings are internal (“I feel out of place. The other students aren’t friendly to me. That’s probably because they think they are better than me.”) — you may find that those feelings persist in other venues, with simply a new set of internal rationalizations coming into play. Again, it can be hard to break in to established social networks as a transfer.

Do you know what you want to major in? Are there specific EC’s that you are involved with or would like to become more involved with? I think that whether you transfer or not, it might be beneficial to focus on your own academic goals and life interests, because as college progresses they will tend to become a more dominant part of your life. By junior year, most of your courses will be focused on your major, in one department, and you will tend to be part of a community defined more by that department and major-- so that can also play a very important role in choice of school.

Keep in mind that college is 4 years of your life and you’ve already completed year #1. Your social and emotional comfort and well-being are an important part of that, but whatever choice you make, it is still temporary. But the quality of education you get is something that you will carry with you for the rest of your life

I’d add one thing: my daughter’s happiest time in college was when she studied abroad for a semester – she made great friends and has kept up over the years with many of those students far more than most of her Barnard acquaintances. So even if you don’t transfer, you might consider options for a studying abroad down the line. Barnard’s financial aid was very generous when it came to studying abroad – we actually came out slightly ahead financially that semester, at least for the cost of attending the program itself.

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@aj1995: My D2 felt the same way. She didn’t hate it there either. She was fine with it academically, and was doing very well. She had good part time jobs that she enjoyed. She made friends there, and even had a (scarce) guy she was seeing there. She just had the sense that she deserved a 'better" (ie more suitable, to her) life experience for herself, for her time in college. And she got one.

But the above cautions are also correct. Transferring is a risk. Suggest try to look into how a school of interest integrates transfer students. .IMO it helps to go to a school with a sizable transfer contingent, as D2 did. Because that transfer cohort constitutes a group of people who are motivated to make new connections. D2 met people the first day she got to her new school, and never looked back. It is a risk, but it worked out great for her. But as they say, in the fine print, “prior results are not guaranteed”. YMMV.

On the other hand, at a certain point my D1 became disenchanted with her school too. For completely different reasons. But unlike D2, D1 stayed there, to the bitter end. It never got better for her there, It actually got worse. That was a totally different school though, as perceived by a very different person. But D1’s experience points out that sometimes staying and doing nothing about a suboptimal situation can also in effect be a risk.

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One more thing to keep in mind: January sucks. It’s cold, it can be wet & miserable outside, it gets dark early, and people tend to get sick a lot. All that can seriously impact your mood. If you were feeling ok when you posted a few weeks ago in the Barnard thread… and now things just seem intolerable - keep in mind that many people are far more prone to depression in winter months. Issues that seem trivial at other times can be magnified and start to seem overwhelming.

Again - it’s great to be considering options. I think sometimes that helps sort things out in any case – that’s probably what happened with my daughter. She tried to think of what other schools she might transfer to, and going through the pros and cons of those options helped her realize that Barnard remained the best choice for her particular wants and needs. But at the same time, do keep in mind that it’s a depressing time of year overall, at least at colleges in colder climates.

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I’m in the exact same situation except my school is just way too rural.

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OP is very thoughtful about her college experience. Maybe place like Oberlin would be a good spot? I don’t know anything about their transfer percentages, but I imagine it’s better than Chicago.

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No steer clear of Oberlin & Kenyon if you still want a small city. They’re in the middle of nowhere.

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IMO, the combination of small school + small location is not necessarily a winner. And any size school in a big city may not be a winner, for reasons the OP has now experienced. But mid or large school in a
small city (ie, college town) can be a winner. In my family’s experience.

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Oberlin is actually a nice college town. And it’s not too far from Cleveland.