<p>I am a freshman at UW-Madison this year (hoping on going to law school after my undergrad), and I have already applied for transfer to 6 other schools for next fall (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Carleton, Rice, and Dartmouth). I was just looking for a little bit of input. </p>
<p>As an in-state student at Madison, my total costs are around $21,000/year. If I manage to get into one of the other schools, my chances for much financial aid are going to be slim at best (so, I figure I will be paying $40-45 grand/semester). My parents are clearly encouraging me to stay at Madison, where I will not have to take out loans to fund my education, but I'm not happy here. Class sizes are huge and the overall atmosphere is just a terrible fit for me. The problem is, as a practical person, I know that spending all of my money on my undergrad is going to leave me in an uncomfortable situation when I start looking at law schools.</p>
<p>So, my question is this: Would you give up financial security in order to be happy with your undergrad experience? Or would you suck it up for four years and hope for better luck in grad school?</p>
<p>The latter. You won’t have to suck it up much as far as large classes because as you start taking higher level coursework, classes will get smaller. The positive point about a large place like UW is that even though you may not be in the majority culture, there are likely to be other people like you attending, so next fall redouble your effort to find your ‘people’ by getting more involved in activities you like.</p>
<p>I’m in the exact same boat as you. Hopefully I’ll qualify for quite a bit of aid if I get into the schools I’ve applied to, so any loans I do need to take would (hopefully) be small. I’m also considering post-undergrad study so that will definitely be a factor in my decision in a few weeks! I understand what it’s like to just hate your current school though, as I’m at a rather large state school myself. However, if I do end up needing to stay here, I’ve applied to live in a single in upperclass honors housing, figuring that this will be a more studious environment than the one I’m in now, so maybe UW has something like this too?</p>
<p>You might as well apply and see what your options are. Applying to about five schools won’t take too much time and will only cost about $300. Even if you get in to some of the schools to which you applied, you’ll still be able to stay at your current school if you think that’s the best option.</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation as an undergraduate, but upped my efforts at researching specific courses and programs that were smaller. Have you looked into Honors sections? Or the ILS program? Some of the dif. residential living/learning communities? One of the things I liked about UW is the fact that as an undergraduate you can take many graduate level courses - which are small.</p>