Thinking of transferring from uga to brandeis - thoughts?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brandeis University
1

hi, all. i’m currently a freshman at the university of georgia, but i’m finding myself incredibly unhappy here. it’s a party school, for one, and while i don’t necessarily feel “overqualified,” i see a wide range in terms of ambition/intelligence/etc. i didn’t want to go here from the beginning - it was simply the closest and cheapest school. i’m currently considering brandeis among others (upenn, columbia, possibly others) for the following reasons:

-location (i’ve been living in georgia for several years but am originally from new jersey and miss the northeast greatly)

  • its jewish population and general diversity
  • its academics of course
    -it seems like the social life is much more relaxed. i really do not like the party scene, and the greek life scene in athens was suffocating.
    -near boston so presumably if i have time off i can Do Things. athens, georgia, on the other hand, is mindnumbingly boring.

i think this school is the right fit for me. do you guys think i have a chance? also, any suggestions on other schools that might be a good fit for me?

hs gpa: 3.6
9 aps
college gpa: 3.95
act: 32 (36E, 35R, 30M, 27S) (willing to retake)

hs ecs:
hebrew teacher, french tutor, meme club president/founder, french national honors society, latin national honors society

college ecs:
active member of 3 clubs and involved with outreach and education for one (lambda alliance aka gay club), but spend most of my time working at a local pizzeria.

2

Look at Case Western Reserve U, very strong well ranked school with strong Jewish community. Cleveland
is way way better than Athens Georgia for stuff to do, including Art, Music, theatre. Case Western is balanced for science, engineering, business and nursing and a very serious school with small Greek life. Nice kids and east coast feel, University Circle reminds me of Cambridge.

Other options Northeastern University in Boston.

Penn and Columbia are not near Boston, but I think you know that. Very few Penn students would go all the way to Boston for entertainment, they might go to NYC if they get sick of Philadelphia which is just a city that is not doing well. Penn is located in a sort of bad area of Phili near Drexel, and its a very tough school both academically and socially, just really fast paced kids headed to Wall Street.

Cleveland feels more prosperous than Philadelphia. NYC and Boston are the top of the economic heap and will cost a lot to live there as a student. Northeastern offers merit based awards if you need that, though.

Columbia and Penn are high powered and much harder to get admitted than Case Western, Brandeis or Northeastern as well as being a lot more expensive.