I recently transferred from one top 20 school to another , however, I have come to the realization that I made a huge mistake. I am not currently enrolled in school right now (leave of absence) but the school I am at does not offer the language I want to take (removed the language just prior to my entrance) and I know that for my mental health going to a college near home would be best for me.
Problem is that I have already transferred once between Top 20 schools and I am not sure how it would be perceived socially and professionally if I transferred again this time to a lower T50 school or state school close to home. I feel like this is what I need to do to make my life right, but I am not sure. Will grad schools suspect there is something wrong with me? How will kids at the new school view me if I changed already out of elite universities - I was enrolled in two already? Please lend me some advice
If you have never actually taken any courses at your current college, no one will know professionally, and they only will know socially if you tell them. Your resume will only end up having the school that you graduate from and even if a transcript is requested by a future employer, you will only have two schools that you have taken courses at, if I understand this correctly.
Bottom line is don’t worry about this and should transfer closer to home if you think it would be best for you.
The thing I’m worried about is that the school I am at is one of the best in the field and the language thing is something I wanted to pursue out of interest to fulfill my core requirements. Would I look flaky to grad schools and just wondering, what would it look like if I went to my T100 state school and just said forget about prestige? Ik I’d probably be happier but can’t help but feel that everyone will look at me like an idiot for doing what I’m doing.
No, I am not a language major, it’s just that I wanted to study a certain language to go along with my main course of study. The schools are peer elite T20 national universities. But yeah, I don’t give a damn about prestige anymore - not to sound arrogant but I know that I can succeed wherever I go as long as I am happy and determined. These aren’t the schools I went to but I just feel like people might think I’m ungrateful if I go to Duke to Northwestern to average StateU.
I’m looking to pursue a career in business/government but I have a solid internship that I think will help me in the long-run. In any case, wouldn’t a top MBA program compensate? I’m not all that concerned about prestige in the sense of where it will and won’t get me, but rather more so about how the transferring looks. @Publisher
An MBA from an elite MBA program will compensate, but getting into an elite MBA program includes many factors some of which may be affected by one’s undergraduate school.
Without knowing the schools in question, I cannot offer a reasonable response to your second question.
Why did you transfer out of Rice? Would it make any sense to transfer back?
What language are you hoping to be able to study?
There are some summer language courses which are available where you would go to a different school only for a few weeks over the summer. One daughter did a 5 week summer program to learn her third language (the entire 5 weeks they only spoke French, even in breaks, at meals, and in activities) and it was a very good program. Of course you do not get fluent in 5 weeks, but she did learn enough that she and I could just sort of sit down and have a limited conversation in the language. My understanding is that there are similar programs in some other languages at different universities.
You are so busy worrying about what everybody else thinks but not looking in the mirror- which is where all of this starts and ends.
Not too long ago you knew Rice was your best option.
Even more recently, you knew NU was so much better of an option that you went through the whole application process again to be able to choose it over Rice.
Now the most important thing (apparently before you even go to NU) is that you know “going to a college near home” is best and where you would be happier.
Well, frankly, I “know” that I would be happier living at the beach, but I also “know” that until we stop paying for the Collegekid’s tuitions I need an income that I can’t get at the beach, so there we are. You want to be near your friends & family, and given that the college experience hasn’t been what it was supposed to be for your cohort, who can blame you? But besides that, what makes what you “know” this time different & better than what you knew the last two times?
No judgement from me: I know nothing about you / your choices & options / etc. And we all learn by trying things and then adjusting when we see how something plays out in real life. There is no magic number of times that you should / shouldn’t keep adjusting and refining your choices.
But: your post doesn’t show many signs of you having backed up and put some hard thought into the what and why. If you haven’t put all the excuses to one side and looked across the whole arc -from how you made each choice and how it played out, the lessons you thought you learned and then realized that there was more to learn- and thought through what you know about yourself and the world that you didn’t know each of the previous times, there is no good reason to think that you know any better this time than last.
My guess is, once you have done that thinking your anxiety about everybody else’s opinions will settle down, because you will know that you are charting your path the best way you know how, which is all any human can do.
Did you take any classes at Northwestern? If not, I don’t see why you would even need to put it on any applications, resumes, etc.
Regardless, I think with the covid situation there are lots of people making the decision to stay close to home. If you go to S. Carolina and do great, I don’t know why anyone would judge. It’s important you take care of your mental health at this point!
@collegemom3717 Thank you for your thoughtful response, I really appreciate it. With regards to why I know what I’m doing is right, for myself and my desire to pursue that language I want (which, being completely honest, is peripheral), transferring would be the right course of action. I understand that I should base my decisions based on how I feel, not on how others feel (which mostly guided my decision to go to my first university). But , I’m now in a difficult spot, because transferring twice raises a lot of questions about me (or so at least I think?) socially and professionally (I feel like kids at my new uni would view me as weird and I’m not sure how internships and future life relationships would work), but I just don’t know if enduring this is worth it I guess.
You really are not listening to the posters who keep asking you: how would anybody know that you “transferred” twice? there is no transcript if you haven’t taken any classes at the second school. You are missing the forest for the trees.
And it’s not just how you feel- a vastly overrated metric. You are making an adult choice about the next part of your path. It should be a considered look at what your options are: where the balance is between the pros and the cons, the costs and the benefits, measured against what you have learned about yourself from previous decisions- the ones that worked out and the ones that didn’t.
Let’s start at the beginning- where are you geographically right now- have you even met anyone at your second college? Have you taken any courses? What’s the financial situation there- loans, grants, etc?
I think you need to separate out what is important (can you afford to complete a BA at the new school based on what you know about the costs and your finances), how many credits will transfer, do they have the major you want (I wouldn’t transfer for a minor but that’ me).
Then you have what’s less important- what people think about you socially or professionally. Socially I can’t comment- people think what they think. Professionally, your first employer may or may not want transcripts from all your schools, and grad programs will want transcripts from all your schools. But they are looking for specific things- how did you do and which classes did you take, they aren’t sitting in judgement on you for transferring or taking a semester off. Some will also look at the W’s or incompletes but that depends on your university policy- at some, an incomplete goes away once you actually finish the work.
So clean up your transcript- make sure you complete whatever work is required for any course that you are registered for. Clean up the financial picture and make sure you have a plan which is affordable and doesn’t have you paying off loans years from now for a degree you never finished.
And then go in peace.
But if you find yourself becoming one of those “Grass is always greener” types- might be time to seek out counseling. It took me a lot of living and mistakes to learn “Bloom where you are planted” but that’s pretty much the key to a happy life in my book- along with “Eat dessert first”.
I get what your saying but Idk, I just feel like I have to tell people I transferred twice right? Otherwise I would be lying to them and would be starting off my next college journey on a shaky path? In any case, I think I need to tell the school I’m transferring to in order to avoid any potential problems. @collegemom3717
Don’t lie to a registrar, physician, police officer, probation officer, future employer. But not telling someone you meet in line for coffee at Starbucks your entire educational history is not a lie. And since that person doesn’t care…