<p>I'm a freshman at a well-regarded undergraduate business school. I am interested in my classes, have had many amazing opportunities and taken them, have a good number of friends but not a solid group, love the city which I'm living in. </p>
<p>But I constantly find myself frustrated or annoyed by the students around me. I feel like I am more motivated or hardworking than some of the students, and that they are more obsessed with drama and gossip than me. I know this seems obnoxious, but I don't mean it to be. I feel like I have to constantly go out and try to make friends, and that no one ever really tries to make friends with me. Well, usually not.</p>
<p>I'm wondering if the best course of action to take now is to try and transfer. I know the deadlines are soon and that transferring requires a lot of stuff, and I haven't mentioned anything like this to my parents yet. But I'm just wondering if I would like it better if I transferred to a more "intellectual" school.</p>
<p>I don't know. My classes are challenging and interesting, and I have every cultural activity I could want. I guess I'm just trying to see if I would be better suited to something else. </p>
<p>Based on what you’ve said above, I don’t see anything that makes me think a transfer would make things better. I would suggest, if you haven’t already, you should plug into some on campus organization.</p>
<p>If you are at the schools I think you’re attending(NYU, Baruch, etc?), part of the issue may be because of the unbalanced characteristics of the colleges as a whole. </p>
<p>While the business division may be among their strongest, other divisions such as Arts & Sciences may be very uneven in terms of admitted students and campus cultures. It was certainly clear to me when touring and visiting friends on both the campuses I mentioned. </p>
<p>One solution to try in the meantime is to make more friends off-campus and try to find students who are more compatible with your own personality. However, you may find that you have no other choice, but to transfer if this isn’t possible and finances aren’t a barrier.</p>
<p>Cobrat - that is exactly the situation. Finances probably wouldn’t be a barrier, but most of my friends are within the business school. And I really do like the business school a lot, but I guess there are other more balanced places where I could get this experience.
I was aware of the unbalanced culture, etc . . . Before I joined, but I wasn’t expecting hostility from other students. I’m pretty sure you can now figure out which school I go to now.
I just feel so angry or frustrated sometimes, and Im not sure if its because of this or something else</p>
<p>If you are happy with the business school, stay put. You will soon enough be finished with gen ed requirements and will be taking most courses within your department.</p>
<p>This is NYC, for heavens sake. If you can’t find the perfect niche in your college, check out things in the community.</p>
<p>Maybe. I guess it would depend on the type of school you are at versus where you want to transfer to. I attended a large state university and hated it. The students were like how you described. I would have been way better off at a more selective school and a smaller school. There was not much variety in people at that school. Everyone was very judgemental. You had to fit in to an itty bitty box or you were out. And the only campus activity was drinking really, which I did not do. This made it very hard. I would have been better off if I had just switched. I probably would have even been better off even if I just switched to the other state university. The other state university had a lot more to offer, much more variety in people.</p>
<p>I hope I have helped just a little. Just consider what you would do different, and would it make a difference. if your school is really just not a fit, then perhaps move on.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s that bad a fit. I don’t drink, and that’s fine. I don’t know if a smaller college would be good for me - I would never like to join a sorority or any other conformist groups. (I did go to sorority rush for the one that was most likely to fit me)</p>
<p>Hostility due to gossip and drama??? Never saw that on either campus…but that was mostly a decade or more ago and my HS friends who attended were the types to avoid students who were heavily into drama or gossiping excessively…they simply didn’t have the time or interest. </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, is there a political aspect to this hostility? Wondering as I have found that one of the schools I mentioned above tended to have a more open political differences depending on whether one was in Business(Conservative leaning/centrist/apolitical) versus Arts & Sciences and other divisions(More liberal-left than Columbia U). </p>
<p>Could some in the latter be assigning negative stereotypes to you for majoring in finance/being in the undergrad B-school even if you don’t really fit those stereotypes?</p>
<p>“Could some in the latter be assigning negative stereotypes to you for majoring in finance/being in the undergrad B-school even if you don’t really fit those stereotypes?”</p>
<p>It seems to me that every single year we have a few freshmen posting about their frustration with the other students they are forced to associate with at the schools they are attending, and wondering if they should transfer. I suspect that if you are happy with your classes and your opportunities that applying to transfer to a more “intellectual” school would be a waste of time. All universities of any size are full of 18-19 year olds and in spite of the fact that they are legally “adults”, there will always be drama and gossip.</p>
<p>You mentioned that you don’t mean to be “obnoxious”, but I think that your feelings of superiority are coming through loud and clear to your peers and they are responding accordingly. It might be more useful for you to examine and adjust your own attitudes and realize that just because the other students aren’t just like you doesn’t mean that they are somehow beneath you. Just a thought, not a lecture.</p>
<p>I have always thought that NYU is a tough school to be at because it doesn’t have much of a campus. Even though Columbia/Barnard are in NYC, they have a nice campus where it is centered around students. I personally think NYC can be a very lonely place if you don’t have friends. People are very busy going about their own business. It is not for everyone. My kid is living and working in NYC. She loves it because she has enough money to go out and she has a good circle of friends from college/high school, now she has friends from work.</p>
<p>From what you’re saying, I wouldn’t transfer. It sounds like you haven’t really found “your people” yet, but in a big school like NYU they’re there somewhere. I think we often build college up to this idealized, perfect image - and no college, no group of students is ever going to be perfect. I imagine you can find some drama-queens and unmotivated types even at Ivies. Sometimes I think we’ve led kids to believe that there is a perfect college, job, town, etc, when the truth is that everything has its plusses and minuses. One of the most important skills we learn when becoming mature adults is how to deal with less-than-ideal situations - how to deal with colleagues (and bosses) who annoy us, bad weather, cramped living conditions, or whatever. </p>
<p>If you are truly unhappy or feel you aren’t getting your money’s worth or feel unsafe or can’t get the degree you want where you are, then yes by all means transfer. But it doesn’t sound like that to me. Try focusing on the positives - all the things you LIKE about your college and your school. Think about the people you do like, where you met them, and then go back there to meet more of them (whether it was an organization or a particular type of event). </p>
<p>Is there a particular place you want to transfer to? If so, why? Does it just seem “better” or can you give a specific, verifiable reason? If not, do you just want to leave a place that hasn’t lived up to your expectations? It’s generally better to be heading TO something than to be running FROM something.</p>
<p>Remember what Erma Bombeck said, “The grass is always greener over the septic tank.”</p>
<p>I do not have feelings of superiority. I don’t know how I can prove that to people on an online forum. I’m the most accepting person ever. I have a legitimate issue, or at least an emotional one, and I thought people here would be able to help me.</p>
<p>I don’t mind not having a campus, not at all.
I am honestly a very open, very friendly person. I help everyone as much as I can, but I am guarde
These assumptions are frustrating, I might try and see if I can ask the moderator to shut this down.</p>
<p>It’s not just the campus. There’s also much more of a social cohesiveness across Columbia’s undergrad divisions…including Barnard with the notable exception of GS which is mainly targeting non-traditional students. </p>
<p>A part of it is the campus. NYU is far more spread out when you include the dorms which could be so far from campus that they run a bus service to get students to/from dorms. Another part is the larger number of undergrad students, degree of separateness between each of the divisions(i.e. Stern, CAS, Steinhardt, Tisch, Gallatin, Nursing, etc), wider differences in academic ability/ideas about the ideal college experience among admitted students*, and the fact not too long ago NYU was mainly a large commuter school. </p>
<ul>
<li>Many NYU students don’t necessarily want a traditional college campus experience. Moreover, while most students in divisions like Stern were strong students in HS with a strong work ethic(necessary to survive Stern’s heavy workload and quant requirements), the same cannot be said for all students in other divisions.</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<p>While they do exist at schools like Harvard and Columbia, they are a tiny minority who tend to be quickly marginalized and disdained with varying degrees of contempt by most of their classmates early on. </p>
<p>This means they’re not likely to get help from other classmates in areas such as notes on missed class days even if those classmates are not trying to be mean for no other reason that they don’t want to have to deal with the drama and/or the fear of the never-ending quests for help. Especially if there’s the perception the one asking for help isn’t doing enough to wean him/herself off of the drama/slacking tendencies.* To some extent, this is influenced by the prevalence of the “Type A” influences in their campus cultures. </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen of Stern students…they tend to be the same. Probably a reason for the OP’s negative experience with classmates from other divisions at her college.</p>
<ul>
<li>In contrast slackers were not only tolerated, but admired to some extent at my LAC as keeping with the neo-hippie ethos of the campus culture when I attended. We happily gave them our classnotes…even if they weren’t attending classes because they were too heavily stoned to even leave their rooms at times.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can totally transfer. The new school might require the transfer common app. If that’s the case, then you need to get LORs from some professors at NYU (along with LORs from your HS, transcripts from both college and HS, and write about 4 essays.) So basically, no, there is no way to apply to another college without your current college knowing this, if the new college uses the common app. It might be different for schools that don’t use the common app, but I find it hard to imagine being able to apply without a LOR or 2 from your current college.) OTOH, 2 profs and the registrar will know about the application for transfer, it’s not like the whole dept or school would know.</p>
<p>Maybe you need a more enclosed campus type of setting. Also, gossip and drama do tend to occur everywhere. It’s unclear if it is happening more at your college, but rest assured, it will happen at some level or another, at another college.</p>
<p>Transfer acceptance rates are much lower than frosh acceptance rates. And the possibility for any merit scholarships are probably close to zero.</p>
<p>Here is a list of the transfer admit rates at various schools. UChicago, Harvard, and Stanford have been updated for 2012; the figures for other schools are from 2011. Not sure about the transfer acceptance rates for LACs.</p>
<p>Harvard University: 1.0% (15/1448)
University of Chicago: 2.1% (21/990) (of those 16 enrolled, 76% yield)
Stanford University: 2.2% (33/1500)
Yale University: 2.7% (29/1072)
Duke University: 2.8% (26/920)
Dartmouth College: 3.3% (28/861)
Columbia University: 5.6% (149/2660)
California Institute of Technology: 6% (9/150)
Washington University in St. Louis: 7.3% (105/1435)
Northwestern University: 8.6% (130/1521)
University of Pennsylvania: 9.7% (203/2099)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 9.9% (44/443)
Georgetown: 11.1% (222/1986)
Brown University: 11.2% (214/1904)
Johns Hopkins University: 11.4% (116/1018)
Carnegie Mellon University: 12%
Rice University: 20%
Cornell University: 21% (Skewed due to guaranteed transfers)
University of California - Berkeley: 22%
University of Southern California: 25%
University of California - Los Angeles: 26%
Wake Forest University: 26%
Emory University: 28%
Vanderbilt University: 31%
University of Virginia: 35%
University of Notre Dame: 40%</p>
<p>I’m still reading the thread, I was just frustrated. I have already asked one prof for a letter of recommendation for something else. I don’t need financial aid, but the admission rates for schools I would like to go to are very low for transfers. </p>
<p>I actually have been able to find people I get along with well in Stern, and I like meeting people who have such different interests, especially at Stern. I like the “wierdos”, as some might say, that NYU attracts, because its interesting. Would it be wrong to only/mainly be friends with Stern kids? A lot of students are mainly/only friends with people in their major anyways</p>