<p>Hi everyone. I also posted this at the transfer section of the board... I didn't see that there was a college search and selection area. Anyway...</p>
<p>I'm going to be a Sophomore in college this fall at a top 30-LAC and I've decided that I want to transfer out of my current college. While I have some ideas as far as where I'd like to go, I'd really like to avoid overlooking schools that could be a great fit but weren't on my radar, so if you could give me some suggestions based on the information below, that'd be great. </p>
<p>I'm looking for a school with an active student body, preferably one that has groups fighting for progressive issues, and has a strong department for international relations or political science. (Currently I am doing an internship in D.C. and I love the city. I actually live pretty close to D.C. but I don't know if I could afford the D.C. schools.) A strong linguistics, philosophy or communications program would also be on my radar so let me know if you know of any... I'd really like for it to be ivy-caliber (you can suggest ivies... I managed to get into Yale, but there were some issues with financial aid that I could not reconcile at the time... a long story, but maybe that gives you an idea of my High School stats?) though I can compromise on this so long as academics are strong in their own merit and students are engaged. While I enjoy my fair share of parties, I'd love it if the school had many things to do during the weekend, and if it had a good transportation system... if the school is close to a city or in a city where I could do community service or check out museums, that'd be amazing! (My current school has a HUGE drinking problem because there's nothing else to do on the weekends and students aren't very engaged. I'd like a variety of social activities.)</p>
<p>Financial aid is a big deal for me. Currently I have a full ride thanks to a great merit scholarship, but I'm not very happy in my school (which is hard to explain seeing as my resume and my gpa doesn't reflect unhappiness...) so I'm seriously thinking about giving it up in search of a place that will actively challenge me academically and provide interesting people with a passion for something in life....</p>
<p>Any suggestions? I'd really appreciate any tips as far as the transfer process goes... I'm completely lost. </p>
<p>^ I’d suggest Northwestern and Columbia. I don’t know much about IR/Poli-Sci but I know that both of them have good if not amazing programs. Also Northwestern has a strong communications school. Plus both NU and Columbia perfectly fit you’re type of college. I think both are need blind for transfers too so I don’t imagine that would be a problem.</p>
<p>I think if you have a good GPA and you can put your reasons into an essay, Northwestern should be easy to get into [~20% admit rate]. Columbia has a <5% transfer rate but I don’t see why you didn’t have as good as a chance as any other applicant.</p>
<p>And feel free to PM me regarding the transfer process.</p>
<p>Financial aid would work out. (But thanks so much for putting info on merit aid!) The problem with Yale financial aid was that they did not consider my css form complete because my parents are divorced. My father lives abroad and there would have been no way to have him fill the form, especially because we had little to no communication at the time. So it’s not that I’m not eligible for FA… my mother makes below 50k a year as a single parent, head of household, and I never received child support… the problem was that they did not accept the waiver for the noncustodial form at the time (and again, this is really complicated… and I’m not going to go into it.) By the time the situation was cleared up a bit more, I had already accepted a scholarship elsewhere. I know better now, obviously, as far as applying to financial aid, and how to deal with the CSS form considering my case, and I’ll be looking into a Yale transfer as well… Just thought I’d make sure people know that financial aid is applicable for me (for a lot, actually…) but in that situation, it just didn’t work out so I didn’t get to attend.</p>
<p>University of Rochester has very good IR programs and it is good with merit money. I don’t know about financial aid but Johns Hopkins, Claremont McKenna (near LA) and Tufts (near Boston) might be worth a look. Best of luck!</p>