<p>Well, since it seems that at the undergraduate level Cal is a second-rate institution compared to the elite private schools (less support, student-faculty interaction; lower acceptance rates to grad programs, etc.), what's the best advice to transfer out after two years into a better institution? How do you get faculty letters of rec. when all the lower-div classes are gigantic and impersonal?</p>
<p>Sakky? Anyone?</p>
<p>Have you actually taken classes at Cal? What year/major are you in and what major do you want to be in?</p>
<p>Are you making this decision to transfer based on the two posters on this site?!?</p>
<p>Student--</p>
<p>No offense, but if you were smart enough to be at an "elite private" you would've got into one last year.</p>
<p>I suggest you actually try Berkeley out before thinking too much into trasnferring. There are a few (vocal) people on this board who bash Berkeley into the ground, in my opinion out of proportions. Sure Berkeley has its problems, but so do many private schools. The benefits of the private schools over Berkeley may not be significant enough to go through the trouble of transferring.</p>
<p>What makes those "elite" private schools elite? </p>
<p>If you really are a Cal student, then you're obviously a failure of one. The place where you get to call home is home to the Free Speech Movement that gave America its 1st Amendment Rights back after the McCarthy era, home to the first anti-Vietnam war protests on a college campus, home to the first campus-organized protests against Apartheid South Africa, home to the only school that protested the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2, and home to the Disabled Persons' Rights Movement. Berkeley is a landmark in the history of human virtue...but according to you, it's not "elite." Berkeley is home to countless scientific achievments and is the breeding ground for more to come in the future. Berkeley students have gone on to make invaluable contributions to humanity, utilizing what they learned to push the frontiers of science and technology. Every year, more students from Berkeley students go on to get PhDs than students from any other school. But to you they're not "elite" because their BA/BS degree is not from some pompous "elite" east coast school. Great figures in arts/humanities have found inspiration at Berkeley...Gregory Peck is known to have said that he was inspired to pursue acting while studying literature at Berkeley. But apparently you can't find inspiration in anything at Berkeley because it's not "elite" enough for you. There are some people in this world who will not contribute to society in any meaningful way, and will walk around with a smug look on their face because of a deranged sense of accomplishment. Are you telling me that going to an "elite" school is going to make you a better, more productive person? I wouldn't buy it for one second: The difference between a monkey with a tape-recorder around its neck repeating the words "look at me, i'm smart, look at me, i'm smart......" and you with an Ivy League diploma on your wall? No difference...both are equally worthless. </p>
<p>So the best advice for you transferring out of Cal is this: do it quickly, because you are not good enough for Berkeley, and you are stealing from the opportunity of much more deserving, accomplished potential/current students. Whatever your test scores say, you obviously don't know jack about what matters in life. You're a thief at worst and a moron at best. </p>
<p>With that said, allow me to expedite the process of you leaving Berkeley:</p>
<p>Let's not be too cruel guys. If he wants to leave he wants to leave- no school is perfect for everyone. No need to insult him so much, even if he feels the need to insult.</p>
<p>You need to talk to faculty, just like you need to do at any other school. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>This is what bothers me: "Well, since it seems that at the undergraduate level Cal is a second-rate institution compared to the elite private schools..."</p>
<p>I know how you feel. He (or she) is just frustrated, bitter and angry. Hopefully he or she will feel better elsewhere. No one is going to convince this person to change his or her views. If the person doesn't understand that the succesful cal students do amazingly well, then he or she is choosing to ignore reality.</p>
<p>Try the transfer board, but haven't transfer deadlines passed for fall 2006? (Especially if you are contemplating ivies.) Unless you're looking for a future transfer, in which case, it's ultimately your decision, but you've already completed two years, what is the motive to move now? Unless you've undergone an absolutely horrific, Berkeley-induced trauma, seriously consider the effects of transferring. So you're unhappy here - but it's just as likely that your transfer school has flaws of its own, perhaps even bigger ones that you can't cope with. Friends at Stanford and Penn tell me things about their schools that I'm glad I don't have to experience here, so trust me, there's no perfect palace of a university. I guess what I'm really saying is, don't be a quitter unless it's absolutely necessary. : D</p>
<p>I can sympathize somewhat with the OP. I had a lot of the same feelings my first year and a half, not too mention a string of horrendous luck. Then I got into upperdivs, and found out that was what Cal really had to offer. The Cal experience can be salvaged. Have you thought of looking into a fraternity/sorority, co-op or a student organization? It might turn your opinion around. Otherwise, if you are dead set on transfering, why don't you take a year off and look at your options/reconsider Cal. Sometimes time away, and looking at other schools and actually talking to the students there with a clear, open mind towards the school and Berkeley can give some clarity.</p>
<p>DRab, I think that "Student" is making an assumption that Cal is bad based purely on some of the comments he's read here, basically the constant bashing of the lone pair of disgruntled Cal people here. </p>
<p>It's kind of ironic that someone posted the Penn transfer site, since I had a friend who transferred into Cal from Penn, which she found to be too confined and stuffy an environment. She loved it at Cal.</p>