In high school, I did not live up to my best and was therefore very limited by my college options. I didn’t grow up in a very good/supportive home and had to work 30 hours a week, which lead to me getting pretty bad grades and graduating with a 3.2 and 1410 SAT.
I was looking for a small, liberal arts school with a good amount of financial aid and a strong sense of community. I was fortunate enough to get into what seemed like a pretty nice private school in the midwest with a 75% graduation rate and 60% acceptance rate, which was a lot better than I expected given my grades. They also gave me a very nice financial aid package as they are almost a 100% need-based met financial aid school.
Now that I’ve been here for awhile though, I am rethinking if I should continue here next year or not.
Our school is on trimesters and right now I am almost done with my second one, yet I’m still not feeling all that thrilled about it. I’ve felt let down by every one of my professors, even though I tried to not to be too judgmental and give them a chance. So far I’ve had 7, and every single one has been just not good with all due respect. I know that I’m not crazy because everyone in my classes has felt the same way. Some read off of incoherent power points, some have made some really really inappropriate comments, some give me zero feedback when I ask for how to improve on a paper, one was just out of it and constantly talked about smoking and drinking --it just seems that nobody is really passionate about teaching. Maybe I’ve just had bad luck because I know that professors like that exist everywhere, but so far it’s 7 for 7 and I’m starting to get worried.
I’m also not really connecting with the student body. I keep trying to join clubs, but the leadership in them is terrible. I tried joining student government and everyone is so immature and the president has to leave like 3 times an hour because it gets so heated. I tried joining a club sport, but the captain is too lazy to show up to practice and has cancelled 2 out of 7 practices so far. I tried joining an LGBT club but the leader just complains about their life the literal entire time and we do literally nothing. I tried joining dance but nobody shows up. It’s just like no matter what I do or how much I try, I’m not on the same page as everyone else and want more out of things than they do. Every club I’ve tried is a complete mess.
I have two friends here, but I don’t connect with them that much. One is overly pessimistic and never wants to do anything and the other is condescending and can be rude. I just have not clicked with anyone even though I keep trying to put myself out there. So I wouldn’t exactly miss anyone if I left.
The thing is though, is that it’s not absolutely terrible here all of the time and like, I am sure I could graduate here if I stuck with it. This time a year ago I would have thought it was a miracle I even made it to college. I was sure I wouldn’t get in anywhere I liked or that I couldn’t pay for it, but I made it somewhere and I am incredibly grateful for that. But I also can’t help but feel like there’s somewhere else I would be happy at, because I’m not all that happy here. So much so, I’m trying to find out how many times I can study abroad just to get out for a while.
I absolutely loved my high school, so I really am usually open minded towards school and try to make the best of everything, but I’m just not feeling it here, no matter how positive I try to be.
Now that I am in a safe space where I can do my homework with no negative family issues getting in the way, I have a 4.0. Even though I expect to get a few A-s and even Bs this year as this term is much harder, I think I’m definitely going to have above a 3.75. I feel like I can finally achieve what I always could now that I’ve moved out and sometimes I think I should finally give all of those dream colleges a shot now that I have this to ride over my high school transcripts.
I think I would really like Occidental, Oberlin, or Reed (or any other like colleges, I haven’t really explored others yet bc I’m still so on the fence about transferring), but I’m not sure if it’s worth it to uproot everything and give it a shot, because those schools are pretty hard to get into. On top of that, I don’t even know who here could give me a letter of rec since my college terms are only 10 weeks, meaning I’ve only known my professors for a max of 2.5 months. I highly doubt they remember me very well and even if they do, it’s at a very surface level. And if I don’t end up transferring, it’s going to be really awkward to take another class with them after that. Our school is so small I definitely will have more with whoever writes my letter.
I just don’t really know what to do now and I have to start now if I want to transfer somewhere. Part of me feels like since the leadership and whatnot has been so bad here that there is a lot of opportunity for me to get leadership positions and make an impact vs if I went to a really selective school where a lot of students will be better at that than me. In a sense, I might have more opportunities here since it’s less competitive. But I don’t know if that’s enough to stay. I also don’t know if I even have a chance at these schools since they still look at your high school transcripts.
I’m a first gen student and like I said before, I don’t really have a good relationship with my family, so I feel really alone in this process. I can’t talk to any of my friends here because they obviously wouldn’t want me to transfer and my friends from home are busy with their own college lives. So I really don’t know who to bounce this situation off of for advice other than the people on this website.