Hey everyone. I am currently a college sophomore looking to transfer. Last semester, I decided to apply to transfer second semester and it was a pretty last-minute decision. I felt unsure because why should I transfer from a top-ranked university where everything is kind of good on paper because they’d supposedly offer all the academic opportunities I’d need?
I was in one of the schools of the uni I was currently at and felt restricted so even if there were opportunities to take literature courses (which is something I love) I didn’t get to know if I’d be able to access them because of all the core requirements (there were a ton because aside from core university requirements my school had a lot which my dean essentially strong-armed me into finishing first, and I probably won’t be done with them until junior year if I just focus on them). That was the reasoning I gave the colleges I’d applied to for transfer admissions. The thing is, my college was already selective so I thought that I might as well transfer “upwards” if I was going to do it which may have been a stupid choice.
I was able to sneak put a linguistics course into my schedule after switching deans and I know the reasoning I gave for transferring was quite shoddy but I am just NOT feeling my current university. The academics at my current school are good and I’d literally have a whole business career laid out ahead of me at the end of this. While I tried to love my current university, and I do have friends and extracurriculars I’m involved in, I just don’t love it. Also, the kids at my school are quite wealthy and preppy and there have been a few instances where people treated me in a way that made me uncomfortable (and as a POC there are many instances where they’ve been overtly racist, kind of like one of those @dearpwi stories. although as true as this is I’m not sure a college would accept this as a positive reason to transfer) I went to a high school that had many kids who came from really good backgrounds but in college there have been times where my literal skin crawled because of what was said/done even if it doesn’t represent the majority of students. I’m on an athletic team and honestly I felt pretty unwelcome and even ostracized (which could be racial but I’m going to assume the best for now). Maybe cause I’m not good enough at my sport since I joined the NCAA team once I was in college instead of being recruited?
I think my GPA was the main reason I was rejected last semester (especially since I applied to schools with less than 10% admittance rates) but also I know I had shoddy reasoning about how I didn’t want to be a business/econ major and wanted to focus more on my ultimate goal of becoming a writer. Except, look at me here now, an International Business major in my second year (but my thoughts remain the same). I’m worried the colleges I applied to last semester will think I’m full of crap cause I’m literally on the path to becoming the business major I said I didn’t want to become, although I added an English minor so now my Deans have to let me take literature courses.
What would be more helpful for these colleges to know this time around and will I look like a hypocrite if I apply again as the very thing I was trying to avoid? Honestly, I would have taken the other path once I’d transferred gladly but since I am in this pre-professional school and things just fell into place this is my school life if I stay at my current college. I know I could technically wait it out till graduation but I think that sounds like a pretty bad idea. I don’t want to waste my undergraduate years and I do not plan to go to grad school.