Hi! I am a freshman at Colby College and I applied to transfer in the fall but have made friends who I really love and who make the rest of the school a little better. I got accepted to Northwestern and Barnard, both of which I love, so now I’m deciding whether I should stay at Colby, transfer to Northwestern, or transfer to Barnard. I am a history and Spanish double major at Colby (it doesn’t have comparative literature), but I would be a comp lit/history major (and hopefully a Spanish minor) at either of these other schools. Does anyone have any input as to where I should go?? Or does anyone have any advice regarding how to make this decision? Thank you!!!
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I went to Northwestern (years ago – I’m a parent) and it’s a great school. However, it is a very big school – much larger than Colby. So you need to be careful not to get lost or overlooked.
As far as Barnard is concerned, every single person I know who went there was brilliant and became successful in their field. Of course the big thing about Barnard is that it’s smack in the middle of NYC.
I don’t think you can go wrong with either school academically but they are both way bigger than Colby.
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What is it about Colby that you originally liked, and what made you decide to transfer?
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my sister goes to colby and is a senior and has had a good experience here. i didn’t like the school fall semester bc it’s kinda too remote for me and it’s very small. now, I am liking my classes more bc I’m taking stuff more related to my major and I have a good group of friends who I rly love. i am a presidential scholar at colby which held a lot of weight when I was originally deciding where to go.
The reason why I asked is because sometimes students want to transfer their first semester, but as they get used to the school, make friends, etc it is not uncommon for them to reconsider.
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Yes, agree with @twogirls . We need to know what your reasons are for transferring.
You say your friends make Colby “a little better.” So is it something inherently wrong at Colby? Is it possible you just needed a little bit longer to settle in? Is it switching majors? Is it not wanting to be in that location and instead being in a city?
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Can you afford Barnard and Northwestern?
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You say you love Barnard and Northwestern (two different schools) but what do you love about them ? I assume you loved Colby b4 you didn’t so there are no guarantees.
It’s great to hear you have a strong friend group - that matters.
I think academics matter. So if Colby doesn’t meet the need, that makes sense.
I don’t think anyone can definitively answer for you. Just realize starting over isn’t easy and no where is perfect.
Good luck.
Ps - what benefits do you get from the Presidential Program and can they be replicated elsewhere ? In some ways it just seems like you started rough as many do -and need time to find your stride.
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Seems like you need to make a list of pros and cons of each school, including any price differences.
Also, check whether the courses you took at Colby will be accepted for subject credit at the other schools.
Note that Northwestern is on the quarter system, so transfer credit from a semester school like Colby is less likely to match one-to-one with Northwestern courses.
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As a parent of a Colby alum, I know that it’s really easy to hold great connections with profs and that the history faculty in particular are super supportive and receptive to students. You may find this harder to replicate at either of the other options based on size alone. To many, this might not matter but I am guessing that if the Presidential Scholarship appealed to you, it might matter.
With that said, I agree that you should go back to why you wanted to transfer and evaluate if you still feel those things matter. I have known students who have tranferred because the school couldn’t support their academic intetests (,i.e. needed advanced Russian) or who really wanted to be in a different geography, type of environment (urban), etc. I also know that many students who decided not to transfer because they found a good friend group and realized it would be hard to rebuild that as a transfer. In most cases, they wanted to go TO some other place, not AWAY from where they were.
As you think about Colby, you may also want to consider how you can use time abroad (semesters and Jan Plan) to accomplish some of your goals, including expanding your social circle. Colby is remarkably flexible and accomodating in this regard, and with an interest in Spanish, that will be critical. It is also, admittedly, very much of a bubble - with all that is good and bad about that.
None of us can tell you what is best for you. Just be careful of thinking the grass is greener elsewhere before really looking at how you can optimize your current situation.
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It seems that you perhaps have experienced the highs and lows of Colby as depicted in this 2014 film: Colby Life Documentary - YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, you may want to view it for perspective on your decision.
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Does the Presidential award mean that Colby is a lot less expensive for you than Barnard or Northwestern would be?
If so, another approach could be to plan a semester abroad in a Spanish-speaking country for sophomore spring (if it isn’t already too late to get that ball rolling) so that you can get your time abroad in at the lower cost. Then you could either transfer when you get back, as a junior, or stay at Colby if it continues to grow on you in the fall.
There is the “bird in the hand” argument re: Barnard and Northwestern, to be sure - congrats on those great acceptances! I’m just thinking that you’re likely to want to study abroad, and it’s a bit painful to transfer to a much more expensive school and pay that higher price for the same study abroad experience that Colby could give you.
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Colby’s Presidential Scholars program is described at https://afa.colby.edu/academics/scholar-programs/presidential-scholars/ . The financial benefit mentioned is “Opportunity Grants of up to $3,000 enable successful applicants to design their own academic, research, internship, or service experience” and the cost of music lessons for first year undeclared students and music majors.
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One thing about Barnard that has popped up on this thread and reddit is that Barnard does not guarantee housing for transfers and you apply for housing each year. It seems to be a big complaint that Barnard accepts transfers, but they are not treated the same with housing and maybe even registration. I would suggest you dig into this more to see how that would impact you.
Congrats on your 3 wonderful choices.
Our S20 transferred from a LAC to Northwestern, and could not be happier about his decision. He had no issue with transferring all his credits with the quarter system. Also, he found NU to be very flexible in having courses that were not exactly matched count towards requirements. His main reasons for transferring were finding a school where more students were academically interested and wanting a bigger school with more students. Good luck with your decision.
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Specifically…
“While the College always hopes to be able to house as many applicants as possible, housing is not guaranteed for new transfer students. Prioritization for housing depends on a combination of deposit date and geographic distance from campus. The numbers of spaces in singles and/or rooms that do not require participation in a more comprehensive meal plan are typically limited.”
Doesn’t sound right - certainly never heard anything how precisely this would “work”.
Below a certain number of credits, a student is considered “first year” and subject to first year requirements (like any other first-year students).
Other that than, some departments reserve certain entry level courses for first-years and transfers - so they can show up as full, even though they do have spots (which initially can be confusing), e.g.:
When you preregister in the Spring for the Fall semester (and occasionally in the Fall for the Spring semester), you may see a course listed as full before it reaches 15 students. This is because we normally hold a certain number of places for incoming first-year and transfer students.
Just don’t feel bad about having second thoughts now, after having gone through the effort of applying for transfer months ago, and been offered admission, if since then you’ve been able to “make more roots” at Colby.
Maybe ask yourself:
Given my social and academic situation today, and my outlook at Colby, would I still start a new transfer application today?
I think one objective reason stated was the absence of a CompLit major at Colby.
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I viewed this as not especially consequential, partly because of context within the OP’s posts and partly because of the relative ease of constructing the equivalent of a comparative literature major at colleges without formally designated programs.
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I majored in CompLit at Northwestern, although it was 50 years ago. As I recall, I basically constructed my own curriculum. I took a Russian Lit course, and Italian lit course, lots of French lit (that was my second language), ancient Greek lit, and very few English lit courses. Consequently I’m illiterate when it comes to Shakespeare!
Are you at college to make a small group of social friends or to prepare for a career in the real world ?
At Northwestern, it is likely that the size of your classes will be smaller than at Colby College and the brainpower, as well as the motivation of the students, is astonishingly impressive in a quiet, understated manner.
The quarter system at Northwestern gives you flexibility as does the ability to easily transfer among the schools–other than the audition based music school. One can triple major at Northwestern, double major with a minor, or major with multiple minors. Upscale suburban campus on a massive lake with easy access to Chicago. Easy to fly to either coast for interviews.
Barnard College has the beauty of being a small school attached to a sizable private university. Either you want to be in NYC or you don’t, but might be a culture shock coming from Waterville, Maine.
Northwestern offers a compromise between your current fairly isolated location and New York City.
It appears that you have a solid reason for wanting to transfer and little reason to stay.