Transfer Dilemma- Please Help me out!

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi guys</p>

<p>So I'll just jump into things...
I am a sophomore at USC (in SoCal). I have been trying to make the school work for me, but it just seems to keep slapping me in the face and bringing me back into a depression. Its got great opportunities and great for what I'm studying but I don't belong in LA and the USC environment. I come from a USC, SoCal family, helping me pick the school over UC Berkeley, spiraling me through the worst decision of my life. </p>

<p>I am now looking to apply to transfer to other top tier, comparably competitive schools. However, I just found out that my GPA TANKED to a 3.1. So with a 3.1 GPA is pretty damn hard to transfer to a "good" school with that. No, there wasn't a particular reason for it. I just got B's and a two C's in big lecture classes. I am involved with other things and can get a decent teacher rec and write a decent essay, but Im afraid theyll just look at my low GPA and my average white girl suburban status and immediately knock me off the list.</p>

<p>Should I stick it out this next semester at USC and make better grades? drop out and go to a community college for a semester and bring my GPA up and then transfer (with 60 units)? take a semester off and "find myself"? I am just really confused and don't know what to do.</p>

<p>I am currently a Communications major, film minor, and marketing minor. Looking at schools like Michigan, Texas (Austin), Wisconsin, Tufts, and the smaller Colorado College and Oberlin.
HELP!! DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO! And need to decide in the next two weeks!
Thanks</p>

2

<p>I don’t know that your first year experience would have been much different at Michigan, Texas, or Wisconsin. As students progress into the second year, then into the next two years, classes tend to get smaller at any of these schools (including USC).</p>

<p>What you are describing is exactly why I’m not too keen on private universities outside the top 20 or so (schools like USC, NYU, GWU, NEU, BU, etc.) What they offer is something like a large state universtity experience but at private school prices. On the other hand, among private LACs, even the ones ranked well below the top 10 or 20 give you essentially the same classroom experience as the most selective ones. At Kenyon or Earlham, just as at Williams or Bowdoin, even in the first two years you get many discussion seminars, easy access to professors, essay exams and term papers that come back with thoughtful comments (not just a grade).</p>

<p>I recommend you fill out a couple of applications to LACs that you’re pretty sure you’d love to attend. However, I’m not sure your grades will get you into Colorado College or Oberlin. Try to stick it out at USC at least for another semester and get better grades. If the transfer apps don’t pan out, I think you can look forward to a much better time at USC for your last two years. It might help if you avoid over-subscribed majors.</p>

3

<p>“I have been trying to make the school work for me, but it just seems to keep slapping me in the face …”</p>

<p>How? What happens there?</p>

<p>“I don’t belong in LA and the USC environment.”
What is “the USC environment” and why don’t you belong there? What about it seems to be the problem?</p>

<p>What is the “theme” behind your transfer schools choices? They seem all over the map, geographically, size-wise and even curriculum-wise; some of those schools don’t have programs in the fields you currently identify as your major.</p>

4

<p>Agree with Monydad. Until you figure out why USC doesn’t work for you, you have little chance of finding a good match for what you need to succeed.</p>

5

<p>Hi</p>

<p>Thanks for all your responses! Really appreciate the help.
Well over the past year and half I’ve come to discover that there is a lot more I want to get out of college than an academic education. I’ve come to value whatever makes me happy the most and my happiness I’ve found is based off of the people that surround me and my geographic environment the most. I love the outdoors, the rain (weather in general), coffee shops, and adventure. SC doesn’t really cater to any of those. As for the people aspect, I’m looking for more down to earth, “chill”, adventurous, liberal-leaning people that like being open minded, just casually shootin’-the-**** at a bar or passing around the bowl or something (yes, I said bowl as in weed, I’m trying to be honest.) but still intelligent and academic-minded. I feel CC has most of those components in its student body and a perfect geographic environment around it for me which is why I am so interested in CC in particular. I’ve found (not absolutely everybody of course) that SC really fosters a sense of shallowness, social climbing, and arrogance that I hate. I do thoroughly enjoy partying, which is great at SC; its just that stereotypical type of social climbing, fratty, rich daddy’s girls that make it seem like high school that I don’t like partying WITH though. Ya, there’s the artsy kids too, but I don’t really fit there either. I have been in the greek scene, then dropped out, I’m on the ski club, I’ve tried things, trust me… it just feels off still but I don’t know where to go/where I can get in that will fill in that “gap” im feeling. </p>

<p>I really enjoy smaller, discussion based classes which I know I can get at SC still, but I strayed away from the LACs originally mostly because I hated my small Orange County K-8 school, and loved my HUGE public Long Beach high school, so I thought such a small school would be stifling and leave me with less options. However, I am totally willing to give em another look.</p>

<p>My major is not set in stone for me, so I am willing to give wiggle room for my undergraduate studies a little. I plan on going to grad school for business, so anything that is in the journalism, film, comm., philosophy realm I would love to study and get a background in for undergrad.</p>

<p>Sorry this is SO long, I’m just still in a pickle here as to what to do next. Thanks!</p>