Transferring colleges with a poor transcript?

I currently attend Bryn Mawr College as a freshman. I am currently taking 3/4 courses because I had to withdraw from one of my classes for mental health reasons. I might fail my calculus class too, but hopefully I am able to just pass. My main problem is that I am really unhappy here and have mental health problems which affect my work. I really want to transfer but I’m afraid I wont be able to get accepted into an equal or better college because of my first semester grades. I think I can get good professor recommendations from my two other class professors though because I’m doing exceptional in those classes, and I will do better next semester because I will be taking classes that arent math based.

How big of a role does college transcript play in transfer admissions?
Any advice on how to improve my situation and possibly transfer to a decent school?
I’m not even sure what college I want to transfer to, I just know I cant stay here.

If you take a leave of absence at the end of this semester, you will have less than a full semester’s worth of credits. Your high school transcript will still be a significant part of your college application.

Whether or not you can be admitted to a peer of BMC is another question entirely. Maybe. Maybe not. Where were you admitted last year? Sometimes a simple phone call can reactivate an old application.

In any case, given your mental health issues, a semester (or longer) off might be the best plan for you right now. Go sit down with a counselor at student health, and get some ideas about good options for getting your life on track.

Also, see if you can get a retroactive withdrawal for the semester based on medical issues if needed. Then maybe you can take a break and start totally afresh.

I know you cant just start over because there’s a U.S. collection of student data or whatever. But what if I applied to an EU university with my hs stats? Is that a way to get a clean slate and beat the system?

No. You will be expected to report all coursework honestly and correctly. If you do not, and they find out, you can be expelled, or your diploma revoked - you don’t want that, do you?

Welcome to the adult world. Dishonesty has immense consequences.