<p>I'm currently at a small liberal arts college located in the middle of nowhere, PA. This college happened to be my back-up school and after a solid 2 weeks of arguing with my parents on where I should/wanted to attend school (the other two were abroad), I was semi-forced into coming here due to 'practicality', 'brand' and financial purposes. While I tried to start my first semester here with positive thoughts and the intentions of taking advantage of all of the possible resources the school had to offer, some unrelenting force continued to eat away at my insides ensuring me that this wasn't where I was truly meant to be. And while I tried to ignore this force by throwing all of my energy into school work, it continued to thaw at me: The people are BLAH as with the classes and the environment is just TOO homogeneous for my liking; I crave for diversity and a more integrating community of both students from the US and abroad. So, I am sticking with my gut and will transfer(still shifting through my list of schools) but the question is, WHEN?</p>
<p>PLAN: Finish up my freshman year at my current year for the best grades possible, take a 'leave of absence' at my school to study abroad at a university abroad and then apply for a spring transfer 2012 to the (currently undecided) college of my choice.</p>
<p>Why this plan? I had essentially NO TIME to prepare for the upcoming January SATs this fall and am not so confident in my high school GPA/standardized test scores to submit to my schools since most of them are extremely competitive, so I figured taking some time to truly develop my application with grades, scores, and other essentials would better my chances.</p>
<p>Does this seem like a plausible plan? I am truly unhappy right now and I feel as though this would be the best plan of action.</p>
<p>ANY advice would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Have the financial issues been resolved? Will your parents pay for your transfer school?</p>
<p>If money is not a problem, your plan is fine. Note that the transfer schools will look at a balance of your HS grades and SAT scores along with your freshman year grades. If you were only okay in HS and your grades in college are similarly only okay (sounds like first semester was not so great?) – the transfer colleges will simply see an okay transfer student. Even retaking the SAT for a higher score will likely NOT be much of an overall boost to your transfer application. However, like I said above, even with all of that, your plan is fine. Just have a good range of transfer applications (safety, match, reach).</p>
<p>Assuming you mean Fall 2012 transfer, you are way too late for Spring.</p>
<p>I would apply for study abroad at your current school (full year). That way you will get direct credit, which will help increase your chances (more focus on college after 2 years). Also, some schools offer financial aid for school sponsored study abroad, so the financial burden will not be as great.</p>
<p>A friend of mine did just that. It was a little more difficult (getting recommendation letters), but he was able to get it done.</p>
<p>mookerson: Since I am a freshman now, I would not be applying as a transfer for the spring but rather in spring 2013. Financial help would be nice, but my parents mentioned that that is not the primary concern at the moment more so actually getting in first. </p>
<p>itransferred11: I will definitely look into my school’s study abroad options for fall as I completely forgot there are numerous options-thanks!</p>
<p>annikasorrensen: I’m predicting around a 3.3-3.4 (perhaps higher) for this semester’s GPA, but then again I am in the middle of finals week now so I won’t know for certain until later on in the month.</p>
<p>Is it worth taking the SATs again at the end of the year? I’m an excellent writer and convey my thoughts thoroughly on paper (especially with creative writing), but testing has never been my forte…</p>
<p>If you expect to start at the new college/university after you have completed two full years at your current institution, it is not likely that you will need ACT/SAT scores as part of your transfer application. Take a long hard look at the transfer app. information for each of the places that are likely to be on your list, and find out if for some reason any of them do require those scores.</p>