Transferring from American University or Richmond International University in London

Hi, everyone!

I am trying to decide which university to go to: American or Richmond in London. I plan to transfer to NYU no matter where I go, so I am trying to decide which is the best stepping stone.

Keep in mind that I am highly considering Richmond because living in Europe for a year would be an amazing experience. Although American is a better university, perhaps the experience (and getting a solid GPA of course) at Richmond would still get me into NYU.

Thoughts? Any other people thinking of transferring to NYU after next year?

Since American is a better overall university, I’d go there to maximize chances of getting accepted as a transfer student. You may not be able to explore Europe your first year, but NYU offers more chances to study abroad than any other school. So, if you really want to go to NYU, American would be your best shot.

Having lived in London, go to American. Richmond is not a British university and is virtually unheard of in the UK. It is full of students who want to go to university in Britain but couldn’t qualify for British universities. The other big problem is that Richmond isn’t part of the University of London, and so you won’t have access to other University of London colleges (LSE, UCL, Kings) or their facilities. Richmond’s “campus” in Kensingon is also an office building.

If you want to go to university in London and don’t want to try for a British university, apply to NYU and ask to attend the campus in London. You can then transfer back to the NYC campus for your junior year.

I am a current AU student trying to transfer to NYU. I hate the business environment here.

@hershey789 Care to provide more information? What precisely do you mean by “business environment”? Is that a comment on tuition, financial aid, student demographics? NYU also practices “preferential packaging” when it comes to FA and may people have noted that this results in a higher percentage of rich students (or students taking on a large amount of debt). It does however have a great location.

@widgetmidget well i am a finance major, a part of the Kogod School of Business. It is the smallest school on campus so people team up from other schools and have a negative perception of it. I know for a fact that I made a mistake coming here and I am trying very hard to transfer. I came here because of the money, and I felt like they cared. They lie a ton, the food sucks, and business majors are constantly trashed. Greek life… it consumes the campus and people like me that cannot afford it tend to struggle to make friends

Sorry that Hershey789 is having a bad experience at AU and his/her experience is his/her experience, but my daughter is a sophomore there and is having a great experience. She is majoring in psychology and minoring in Marketing, is finding the teaching and experience to be very positive even tho neither is one of the fields that AU is known for, like international studies. And Kogod actually has a very good reputation in general and on campus.

I have heard plenty of complaints about the food, though she likes it and there are many other options in the area, but that isn’t a great reason to pick or not a school. I can’t find the exact percentage of students who are Greek but in 2011 it was only 20% of all undergraduates so doubt it has increased too much since then, and as there are no greek houses students all live together. My daughter is in a sorority but her three roommates are not, so there is much intermingling.
Not being in Greek life will not have an impact on making friends…

Richmond is not a reputable university. If d you want to live in Europe, you can pick of the 'free’or near-free schools, or schools that cost about 15k in tuition and are reputable (highly reputable sciences po has a special program for Americans on itsreims campus -45mn from paris- and it’s accepting applications. Higher ranked than Richmond, taught in English.)
Or pick American.
Be aware that if you need financial aid, fa for transfers is severely limited.
All in all, one shouldn’t pick a university with the goal of transferring though. Choose either a university where you can study four years or a gap year I’d those are two unsatisfactory choices for you.