<p>I'm going to be a freshman at a peer university, and I want to transfer to Harvard next year. At my university, freshmen usually take a writing seminar. So in the event that I get into Harvard as a transfer, can I use that writing seminar in place of Harvard's?</p>
<p>[I</a> think I might wait to worry about this until you have an offer in hand.](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/6/21/transfer-admissions-one-percent/]I”>The Real 1%: Harvard Admits 15 Transfer Students | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Good grief!!! You are GOING to be a freshman at a peer university, yet you want to transfer to Harvard next year? You haven’t yet taken a single class at this peer university and you are already planning a transfer to Harvard next year? REALLY??? Is there any specific reason why, not having yet attended this peer university, you have already decided to give it the boot??? It couldn’t be a lack of “fit,” as you could not yet know whether there is or is not a lack of “fit.” If it is a peer university, it couldn’t be mere delusions of prestige, could it, as it is a PEER UNIVERSITY? </p>
<p>May I humbly suggest that you first attend this peer university and, after some actual experience as a student, THEN determine whether or not a transfer is warranted. And, for what academically LEGITIMATE reasons!</p>
<p>Frankly, as you have already been advised, your chances of a transfer to Harvard are slim to none. Therefore, I would further advise you to make the best of what has the potential to be an extraordinary experience at this peer university. Going into your freshman year with the presumption that you are just “place sitting” as you plot your transfer to Harvard is, in my opinion, a recipe for an absolute disaster of a freshman year. So, please give your home insitution a fair shot. Please!!!</p>
<p>^^ I wish CC had a "like’ button. I so agree!</p>
<p>aight, I know whenever threads like these come out, people will be all over it saying “DON’T TRY TO TRANSFER YOU ARE ALREADY AT A VERY GOOD UNIVERSITY YO.” Yeah, I’ll be going to an Ivy League University, thus makes it “peer.”
But seriously, I just want an honest answer without all this well-meaning but redundant (to the question) “advice.” Of course I’ve done my research and know that my chance to transfer in is very low, but I have my reasons to do what I want to do, and I dont know why you guys are trying to discourage me for it. What if I succeed?
On a related note, I received back the email I sent to Harvard and they explained the situation very clear. Thank you CC-ers for being so kind as to being very obscure in their answers. This thread is done.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Transfer Program](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/transfer/transfer_credit.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/transfer/transfer_credit.html)
You should email Harvard’s Registrar and ask them, as “Credit for work done at another college or university is granted to each admitted transfer student on an individual basis after evaluation by the Registrar’s Office.”</p>
<p>“I dont know why you guys are trying to discourage me for it.”</p>
<p>Because you aren’t doing this in a vacuum. Going to your first university with the intent to transfer before you even give it a try is a really good way to ruin your experience there.</p>
<p>but I have my reasons to do what I want to do</p>
<p>I have to ask: does it have anything to do with a girl?</p>
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<p>I am not.</p>
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No, ma’am.</p>
<p>I still don’t understand why you guys are trying to talk me out on something I want to do even though it wasn’t in the question I am asking. Whatever my motive is, please don’t worry about it, or preach on how I should give my institution a chance. (Btw, I am going to but I still want to transfer, whether or not you’re happy with that decision.) So, before you make any comments, the thread is asking for information, and please respect that and my decision.</p>
<p>Although I respect your decision, you are in a catch-22 situation: Once in college, your chances as a transfer student no longer have anything to do with your high school transcript, EC’s and recommendation letters; your college record is what matters. So, you will need to ace your classes, participate in various college EC’s and get letters of recommendation from college professors. To do all that, you will have to love your present college – or at least pretend to love it, and that is impossible to do if you can’t wait to leave before you even start. Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Meh, let the guy try. It’ll be his own responsibility whether he gets accepted or not.</p>
<p>I felt a responsibility as an informed adult to at least alert OP that his course of action --to determine upon transfer from a peer institution before even attending it – seems precipitate and ill-considered. However, as an alum who also taught at Harvard, I am confident that the College will require (1) an academically compelling reason, as well as (2) an academcially exceptional college record, as the necessary conditions of admitting OP as a transfer student. If he can produce neither – and the road he intends to hastily travel seems unlikely to lead him to either result – he will not be successful. We have been advising him, appropriately in my opinion, to at least beware the pitfalls on the road he has elected to take before he embarks upon the journey, so as to be better prepared to achieve a successful outcome. He can take, or he can ignore the advice offered. He has also been wished “best of luck.” All that can be said, has been said.</p>
<p>^ Not to be antagonistic, but there are a few things I would like to comment on swingtime’s post:
With all due respect, sir/ ma’am, you said my course of action seems “precipitate and ill considered?” I’m sorry? How do you know me enough besides that one post, which did not ask whether I should transfer, but requested the technical information regarding transfer? Your making decision to “advise” me on this is indeed precipitate and ill considered, because you assumed certain things. Again, I’ve thought through my decision. My motive to transfer? I don’t feel the need to share, and I don’t think you need to know. Here, are you implying me that I’m not “informed?”</p>
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How, again, do you know that I hastily travel on “the road?” You are making assumption once more. Was that because you were a Harvard alum who taught there, you can afford to think highly of yourself and not about others? With all due respect, you seem very haughty to me.</p>
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<p>As a prospect transfer student, I am certainly aware of the “pitfalls on the road” that I have “elected to take.” Did I in any point during my posts state that this will be a piece of cake? No, sir, and you don’t need to worry about that.</p>
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<p>about…? I’m sorry, but I did not ask for a how- to transfer piece of advice. I was asking a technical question, that if you did not like to answer, you did not have to, instead of missing the point just to mark your presence. I am certainly aware of my odds, but I am going to try whether you are happy or not. Sir, how do you know my reasons are not compelling, and how can you predict I will not have an exceptional college record? </p>
<p>Sir, I was going to leave the thread alone because almost everyone here really doesn’t care about what I think, and you were one of them. However your last comment put me back on this again. Now, let’s put yourself into my shoes. Will you be frustrated when you come here to ask for advice on one thing but receive a bunch on unrelated issue? Case closed.</p>
<p>@melody:</p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Students go to college everyday knowing they are going to transfer me as you I scored a very low act score and Didnt care about my gpa in high school didn’t care 1 bit about going to college and at the time I graduated I couldn’t get into a good school so I eventually grew up and wanted to go to a good school and love UT so I got enrolled into a university that was close to home and concentrated on getting good grades and doing extra stuff such as student government senate because I was willing to do anything to get into Texas. I understand that thu are two different schools my point is he isn’t the only person who plans to transfer he obviously has good goals for himself and should be given advice not put down and treated like an idiot</p>
<p>I agree. People need to get a life rather than jumping from Ivy League forums and tell people to bequeath their dreams.</p>
<p>Sorry, but from up here in the adult world I see a lot of kids doing stupid, stupid harm to themselves with their Harvard dreams. So, yeah, almost all of them should be learning how to have better dreams, the kind of dreams that actually help the dreamer accomplish something. Almost certainly including you, “therage”.</p>
<p>Seriously, you started this post to find out whether, if you are one of the handful of people out of thousands of applicants accepted for transfer to Harvard, clearly not fitting into or having any chance to fit into any of the categories that actually give people a meaningful chance of acceptance for transfer to Harvard, Harvard will give you credit for your freshman writing class so you don’t have to take another freshman writing class there? What was going to turn on the answer? Having already decided you were going to most likely waste time, energy, and emotion on trying to transfer to Harvard, before even starting college elsewhere, you were going to change your mind because you might have to take one course over? (And not even the same course, just a course with similar objectives?) Of course not! (Of course, they aren’t going to make you take another freshman writing seminar, so the whole thing is moot. Which you would know if you had any common sense, but we already know the answer to THAT question, no?)</p>
<p>It’s like asking what the wi-fi connections will be in the Olympic Village in 2016, because you might try out for the U.S. swimming team.</p>
<p>If you want to be treated like an adult, start by asking mature questions. If you ask stupid, immature questions, people are going to answer you like a stupid, immature kid.</p>
<p>Hi there JHS,
Thanks for calling me “stupid, and immature.” I know, I know. You clearly must be one of those very wise adults who can afford to call people out via the internet.</p>
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<p>And, how do you know that?</p>
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<p>Nope. Not going to waste time. Where did you come up with this assumption?</p>
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<p>Sarcastic, no? If not, then the answer is yes. They ARE going to make me take another freshman seminar, so the whole thing isn’t moot.</p>
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<p>hahha, but no? Policies differ from school to school, so applying “common sense” doesn’t work here.</p>
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Nope, not at all. Nice try morphing it into an analogy, though</p>
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<p>Thanks for the advice. I’m going to cherish this one so much!</p>
<p>*In all seriousness, I don’t see the point of pursuing this thread further, since most of the posters here is only caring about “giving me some unrelated advice” just to prove that they’re almighty at Collegeconfidential. The responses are clearly drifting away from the topic of this thread, which has been solved. So yup, this is my last post right here in this thread. Keep dispensing advice,and thank you if it’s not meaningless, and have fun!</p>
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<p>You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.</p>
<p>Honestly, JHS is exactly right: it is a silly question. You’re obviously hell-bent on trying to transfer to Harvard, so what does it matter? If it’s so incredibly important to you that you go to Harvard instead of some peer institution, taking a semester of Expos shouldn’t dissuade you. And if being required to take a semester of Expos would be enough to dissuade you, then the uphill battle to win admission as a transfer seems kind of excessive.</p>
<p>And swingtime is right that it is ill-considered and counterproductive to enter a world-class university already planning your exit strategy.</p>
<p>But you clearly don’t want to consider what these very sensible posters have to say. Maybe it’s an indication that you really do belong at Harvard. You could live out the old saying, “You can always tell a Harvard man…but you can’t tell him much.”</p>
<p>As long as this thread hasn’t died, I may as well point out for the benefit of other potential transfer students that the Harvard policy as represented by the OP is contradicted by the sensible policy on Harvard’s website (which says they will evaluate a student’s need to take Expos after he is admitted) and the experience of actual transfer students (who are regularly excused from taking Expos if they have a portfolio of the sort you would accumulate in a freshman writing course at any similar institution and it looks like they have learned what they need to know).</p>