<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I'm going to enter my sophomore year at UC Riverside, and a couple of months after I sent my acceptance, I have been planning to transfer out. It was only after I graduated that I realized that my counselor did absolutely nothing to help me and didn't take into consideration the environment I wanted to be in, plus she thought I was stupid and had no hope. Even though I love it at UC Riverside (mostly the people), I feel like I could use a more challenging environment, and one that has more classes in my area of interest (European/Nordic studies). And I cannot tolerate the heat. I had no idea it would be that hot, or so far away from LA (I don't have a car, nor 5 to 6 hours to take out of my day for a day trip to LA).</p>
<p>Generic background information:
I'm half white half Vietnamese, with French citizenship, and grew up in San Francisco. I went to a private French immersion school from pre school to my senior year, so I speak fluent French. My dad has a six digit income, but since most of our money went towards rent (2 bedroom apartment, had/have to share a room with my mom (marital issues) and brother for a bit over 10 years) and education, there wasn't much left for vacation or other expenses, so I definitely sympathize with lower income students, and definitely advocate for a stronger welfare state, for which my passion for Nordic studies comes in.</p>
<p>Academics:</p>
<p>High school:
3.2 GPA, unweighted. Very rigorous program (French Baccalaureate). 12 classes a year (the way it worked was that we had a different schedule every day and kept it for the whole year), with an emphasis in social science. No APs, as my school didn't offer them, but I got a 5 on the AP French exam, and I had honors Sociology, French, Economics, and Political Science.
No major extra curricular activities. Did judo but stopped a year into high school due to scoliosis. Writing was something I did constantly, but I never did any contests or stuff like that, but I guess I made enough of a deal of it on my applications that I got a hand written note from the Editor-in-Chief of the literary newspaper at Wooster in my acceptance. I also volunteered at the public library for 150 hours one summer.
The year before entering my freshman year of college, I interned at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission under the Secretary. Went to meetings, digitized files with sensitive information, the usual secretarial stuff. There were about 110 other interns, and we were placed into groups of 9 to 11. We were asked to come up with an idea that is environmentally friendly, realistic, and had to be possible to do in San Francisco, or a surrounding area. My group came up with a health fair that would provide basic health services and potential follow-up services to poorer populations, with incentives such as giftcards or bus passes. There's more, but that's the gist of it. We ended up in 2nd place (1st place being underground garages for bikes, modeled after the Japanese invention).</p>
<p>College:
I'm a current double major in Political Science and Sociology, and have a 3.76 average GPA, 3.77 polisci GPA (which I hope to raise with the last requirement I have), and 4.0 in sociology. I took one upper division class my last quarter, in European Politics, got an A- in that (and I think I did a lot better than the other students in that class), and am on the Chancellor's List. I definitely plan on raising it, though the highest I can possibly get it is to a 3.89, with all As. Realistically speaking it might be around 3.79-3.85. I'm also planning on taking various online non-credit courses from accredited universities (Emory University, Lund University, HEC Paris, Université de Genève), and will attempt to learn basic Finnish, since it's a culture that I'm quite interested in, and would love to study more in depth in all its aspects.
EC wise, I don't have much. I've always been shy, and my shyness carried into my freshman year. However, I'm now a member of the Sexual Assault and Violence Education group on campus, so I'll be tabling and giving presentations, and ASUCR (student government) might have an anti sexual assault committee so I'll probably join that as well. In addition, I plan on joining the Make-a-Wish foundation as a volunteer, a Wish Maker if possible, and helping out at the Rape Crisis Center. I don't have the possibility to do much this summer since I'm taking two classes, and I'll be getting surgery for scoliosis, which knocks out six to eight weeks of my summer.</p>
<p>Recs/Applications</p>
<p>I like to think of myself as a strong writer, though I can definitely get my words jumbled up, so I don't think I'll have much trouble with the personal statements. I think it was those that got me into where I got into (Sarah Lawrence, Wooster, Whittier, University of Redlands, University of La Verne, Gonzaga, and waitlisted at Fordham), moreso than my grades. I wrote about how I use writing as a means to escape my world and to research different time periods (because we can't have a teenage female walking around in jeans and a tank top and speaking the way a teenager in then 21st century would during the 40s without attracting much attention), and then some essay about my heritage or something like that, I can't really remember.
As for letters of recommendation, I have a solid one from a political science professor I've had this entire past year, and who invited me to take his upper division European Politics class, and probably another one from a Sociology TA who said I was one of the best performing students in his class and who I saw a lot during office hours. If a third letter of recommendation is needed, I can probably ask my old Comparative Politics TA, the sociology professor who leads the honors program, or the program coordinator for the sexual education group I'm part of, if she's eligible.</p>
<p>With this information, what are schools that you would recommend a transfer to? I'm looking for schools in an urban area, preferably near a body of water bigger than a pool (lake/bay/ocean). New England would be my preferred area, anywhere too hot is out of the question. I'm also not big on anything that's not (near) the coast. I'm not too iffy about whether it's private or public, though I would prefer a bigger institution. Oh yeah, and preferably a more qualitative rather than quantitative focus, I can't do math :P
Some of the schools my boyfriend recommended are Columbia, Boston College, Boston University and NYU. He also said Georgetown, Penn, and Brown, but I'm kind of iffy on those.</p>
<p>Anyway, thank you so much for reading through all of this, I really appreciate it!</p>