Hi everybody, I am currently a premed freshman thinking about transferring to Columbia. I’d like to transfer for a couple nonacademic reasons (I don’t enjoy my current university’s location, etc), but I am worried about my GPA at Columbia. I currently have a very high GPA, but I heard that after transferring, my GPA will be reset and based only off of my grades at Columbia. Since I would be entering Columbia as a sophomore, I’m worried that the course work (organic chemistry + physics) would be too tough and leave me with a low GPA (since I no longer have my freshman year GPA as a buffer). Is it still worth it for me to transfer? I want to maintain a high GPA for med school applications. Thank you!
For medical school admission purposes, all college courses and grades from all colleges will be considered and used to calculate the relevant GPAs. See page 25 et al in https://students-residents.aamc.org/media/11616/download .
A potential pre-med trap for transfer students: if the new college does not accept your prior college course as equivalent to its own course, even though content is substantially similar, and requires you to repeat it, the repeat notation that you need to include for the course at the new college could be a detriment to your medical school application. Note that this can also apply if you repeat college credit from high school dual enrollment, or AP credit.
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Columbia comes with an extra challenge: you will have Core classes to get through, some of which are not easy to get high marks in.
And transferring to Columbia b/c you dislike the location of your current college? Really?!
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I also see potential risk in transferring. I do not see much gain.
Can you tell us where you currently are studying?
If you are serious about getting accepted to medical school, then I think that you need to focus on that.
And yes, you should be expecting to run into some very tough premed classes along the way. Whether it will be organic chemistry, or physics, or something else might depend on the student.
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You will need an academic reason why you want to transfer to Columbia.
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These courses are tough no matter where you take them…and you will find many very smart students in your classes as well.
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Why Columbia other than you like the location? There must be other schools whose locations you prefer more than where you are now. You really need to come up with a better reason than that.
If your goal really is to transfer then you need to find schools that are easier to get into. Columbia is a hard admit. You don’t just decide to go there. You decide to apply. Then they decide if they want to admit you and the answer most likely is no because the transfer rates are so low. So where else do you want to apply?
To get into a medical program, you need a high GPA (3.8+?) so can you get that at Columbia? Stay at an easier undergrad program is the key.