<p>Hi. This is my first CC thread so please forgive me if I break a rule, thanks!</p>
<p>Here is my story:
I'm a rising junior who was at a very, very lowly public university in the past two years. I applied for transfer to many colleges last semester but got accepted to only one public school, which is way much better and very well-known (probably more for sports than for academics?), but I'm not still satisfied. So what I'm thinking is take a year off, do a lot of research and internships, and re-apply for transfer as a junior.</p>
<p>My cumulative GPA is 3.3 (it was 3.61 when I applied for transfer but went down to 3.3 b/c I did so poorly in the last semester due to family emergency; missed almost a month. If I re-apply, I'll explain this on my application).</p>
<p>I know my GPA is not even considered competitive since I wasn't even from the top 20 university, but I am really willing to do a lot of research and internships to make my application look competitive.</p>
<p>Does anyone has an experience of taking a year off and re-applying for transfer? I really appreciate anyone's opinion and help. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>You didn’t mention what field of study you are in or where you intend on performing research at(The public or state uni?)</p>
<p>Research is easy for a junior to come by if they are engineers or in the sciences, depending on the size & endowment of the school’s research programs.</p>
<p>Also, research is soft money and as an undergrad(read: not graduate student), you are low on the totem pole for a year long research position, let alone a full-time one.</p>
<p>Internships also are usually not a year long, although I was offered one for a power company in California and currently have one at a local engineering firm but generally, those are both very different cases compared to the majority of engineering.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for all intuitions but for the UCs research and internships aren’t given much weight in the application process. I think doing internships (or working part-time) would really help you land a job after college but not necessary help you get into a university. </p>
<p>I would be very concerned about this plan and encourage (or make you, lol) take the transfer if you were my kid. I think your results speak for themselves. Where would this research come from? As a non enrolled student how would you get supervised research. I don’t think anyone will pay attention if you do it on your own. Internship is something you do for yourself, not college applications. If you were taking a year off to work on your startup that would be one thing but I don’t see a year off makes you more attractive. Really do you have these researches and internships lined up? And the risk, what is Plan B if no better school works out? Where are you then, do you have a plan? I’d go with bird in hand and take the step up.</p>
<p>If you care to discuss the school and major you might get better yea or nays.</p>