Transfer from a top 20 school to other top 20 school

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

All right! I am a freshman at a school called Vanderbilt. And I absolutely hate it here.
Coming from a large city, I am really bored with Nashville. My major is definitely not a strength at Vanderbilt. I want a bigger city life. it doesn’t have any freaking double majors that i hoped to study. stem major is lacking. I don’t like south. as an international student, international social network sucks here. And so many other reasons. (believe me, there’s definitely a lot!) I dunno what made me choose vandy right now.

The schools I am interested in right now are: NYU Stern, Princeton(they’re taking transfers beginning in 2018 I heard), Chicago, Columbia, mit, upenn, northwestern, brown, cornell. Harvard, yale. I hate going to schools in the west, and I want to live near a city. (I know cornell is not, but I have reasons for applying.) personally, I would really love brown, Harvard, and other schools with grade inflation cause I’m really tired of competing all my fucked up life.

My parents said they will not pay the tuition if I go to a lower ranking school (yeah I know. plz don’t comment on this. I KNOW. thank god they like stern though, I want to live in NY) I won’t deny that prestige is still a factor for my transferring, but I want to tell people that it is a minor reason compared to my cursed life here.

I can’t transfer as sophomore cause I screwed up my 2nd semester senior grades thinking it didn’t matter a F***. (got like 3.1, though my 1st semester high school was 3.9) I’m transferring as junior so they weigh that less.

I think I’ll manage a 3.6-3.8 this semester, and probably in later semesters higher cause I took difficult courses this semester with the strictest professors (I didn’t think about transferring in the beginning, so I thought I would take a challenge.) I think I can manage b/w 3.8-3.9, which is like top 10% at Vanderbilt, cause this school doesn’t have goddamn freaking grade inflation. my sat was 2270, superscored. 9 aps, 3 of them 5’s, and rest 4’s. toefl 119(I don’t even know if this matters). 3 SAT subjects, 800’s. have other extracurriculars and stuff (too many to write, but Samsung intern, published article on wealth distribution, manager at social enterprise, etc)

I was wondering if you guys could tell me my chances at the schools I’ve mentioned above.

I’m sorry for some swearing from time to time. hope it didn’t offend anyone and I apologize if I did. also apologies if I offended vandy students, but everyone have the colleges that fit them, and Vanderbilt isn’t mine. I think I screwed up grammar to lmao,but who cares.

2

Just send the potential transfer school this post as your “Why X” essay.

3

no, I am a very serious person in that regards

4

focus on trying to like vanderbilt. i’m a freshmen too, and I think it sometimes just takes time to get used to.

honestly I hear the work is stressful, but my friend says it’s a lot of fun.

5

lol I mean, I do have some friends, and I tried out some things, both which I liked and which I didn’t. but overall, it feels like the school itself is just not meant for me. it feels like transferring is the right way to go.

6

fair enough, but don’t just transfer somewhere else with the expectation that everything is going to be better. i’m sure you’re aware, but the whole process of settling into a whole new environment where people your age will usually have decent friend groups isn’t the easiest thing. it seems like you’re primarily focusing on prestige… which isn’t really going to fix your problem either… nonetheless, transfer chances are always pretty crappy, so just apply and go from there.

but like i said, top schools in the south tend to hit a sweet spot with academics and social life. i would be wary of the grass is greener mindset.