Transferring from UC Berkeley to an Ivy

Transfer Students
1

Long story short (ish): I am an international student who went to boarding school in the UK but have always dreamt of going to college in the States (Harvard specifically, since I was a little boy). So I applied to 16 American universities (8 Ivies, Duke, Stanford, UChicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Berkeley and UCLA) and 5 UK ones (Cambridge, LSE, King’s College, and two more safety schools). With a 2400 SAT score, IB predicted score of 45 (perfect score) and pretty good extracurriculars, I thought: “Hey, I’ll probably get into one Ivy, hopefully Harvard, Yale or Columbia” - God I was so wrong: I was only accepted at NYU, UCLA, and Berkeley, put on waiting list (and then rejected) by Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn, and straight out rejected by the rest. Basically, I only got accepted at my “safety schools” (Yes, I know it was extremely cocky and dumb of me to regard Berkeley as a safety school, but I genuinely thought I would get into at least one Ivy - I know, serves me right). So yeah, sob story, poor me. My reflections on the process and what went wrong? They saw through my BS essays, my application wasn’t specific enough to each school, they saw I was wishy-washy in terms of my “passion” (I applied as undecided and the courses I took in HS and extracurriculars I did showed no specific passion or direction). In the UK, things went slightly better: I didn’t get into Cambridge (I was close!) but I was accepted (conditional offer) at LSE, to read Law (third best school ranking and reputation-wise after Oxford and Cambridge). My parents were very keen on this, although I personally have no passion for Law and applied for this subject because I was completely undecided and you HAVE to decide on a major in the UK. LSE is a great school and getting a Law degree in three years is, according to them, the “practical” and “professional” choice in the sense that I can definitely get a job back home, happy days (yes, one of my parents is Asian). So, cheesily put, I was faced with a choice between my brain and my heart: the practical route (brain), LSE Law or the fun, American Dream route (heart), Berkeley Undecided. Though both are great schools and I really shouldn’t be complaining, it was a very difficult choice because I wasn’t “in love” with either schools, like I was with Harvard and Columbia. I visited neither Berkeley or LSE and applied, in all honesty, to both because of their good name - I never envisaged I would actually go to these two. Finally, I decided to “follow my heart” and live the “real American college experience” and attend Berkeley. However, I can’t help but still have some doubts: will I regret not making the “practical choice - LSE Law” later on? In typical me manner, I’ve found a way of pushing my ultimate decision (Law vs not Law, US vs UK) to some point later in time: I’ve decided that I will go to Berkeley for 1 year, decide if it is what I imagined and whether it is a good fit for me, and definitely stay if it is. But if it isn’t, I will reapply to Cambridge (I’ve deferred my place to LSE meaning I can still start in 2017-2018 if I don’t get in) or try to transfer to one of my initial US choices (specifically Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Brown). Preparing for the worst (I’m very worried that it won’t be a good fit because of its size - though I will definitely go in with a positive mindset and give it a real shot), my question is: what do I need to do if I want to be able to transfer to a smaller, Ivy League college, if Berkeley isn’t what I expect and not the right fit for me?

I apologise if me or my actions sound cocky or entitled. I realise that the way I approached college apps the first time (applying to so many because of reputation) was completely wrong and that that is probably why I didn’t get in. But I’m thinking that if I turn over a new leaf and actually put more effort into my essays and do more research on the unis I actually want to go to, and perhaps even become passionate for a subject at Berkeley, I may be luckier in transferring to a better fit school.

2

Academically speaking, Berkeley is fully a peer of the other institutions on your list. Yes, it is a public university. Yes, it is on the US west coast. But it still is one of the very top institutions in the US and the planet as a whole. It was never a safety for you. You were fortunate to have been accepted. You could have been waitlisted, and eventually rejected there just like you were at Cornell, JHU, and the others.

Your strategy of planning to spend one year at Berkeley while considering law at LSE is reasonable except for the fact that this requires your family to shell out something in the neighborhood of USD 60k for that extra year of education/transportation/etc. Since you have no clear career goals at this moment, you may be better off taking a gap year to think about what you want to do with your life, and then applying to places that are good matches for your goals rather than just the very top places on someone’s “Best Universities in the English-speaking World” list.

3

Thanks for you advice happymomof1. However I don’t really see myself taking a gap year, I think I wouldn’t know what to do and would feel like I’m wasting my time. I’ve already had to think about my future career goals applying to the UK and the best (or at least most “practical”) path I came up with was Law.

I know that Berkeley is an amazing school; I’m just worried that it might not be a good “fit”. In the same way, I also know that LSE is a great school but it’s also not where I saw myself going initially. Either way I know that I am extremely fortunate to even have the choice between these two top schools; it’s just that I’m not really excited about either which I know I should be. I’m torn between wanting to continue with my “American Dream” by attending Berkeley and wanting to (for once) do something that is “practical”, like a LSE Law degree that will always be useful. I’m hoping that if I manage to transfer to these “better fit” schools in the US that perhaps have a better reputation internationally I won’t have to make this choice because a degree from these schools will open as many doors as a “professional” Law degree.

4

OP:

In addition to essays, grades/transcripts are extremely important to highly selective schools. (Perhaps that was a bigger impact on your rejections?) A 2400, while excellent, is only a single piece of your app to US colleges. Test scores are really just a threshold to clear, after which the reader goes looking for other things. There is a saying in the US: " top scores won’t get you in, but low scores will keep you out."

Transferring from Cal will be difficult for two reasons: the Ivies accept very few transfers every year (with Princeton taking none); 2) the college will expect a recommendation from a Cal faculty member, and given the large size of the Frosh classes, an excellent rec will be hard to come by.

5

You don’t actually know whether any of the schools in question are a “better fit” than any of the others- unless you mean a better fit with your desire for a big name school.

Harvard specifically looks for academic need when evaluating transfers- that is, they want to know what you can’t get academically where you are. Coming from Berkeley that will not be an easy question to answer.

Moreover, as far as I can tell from your post you don’t have any idea what you want or where you want to head in life- except that you want to go to a fancy school in the US or the UK. Most of those schools want to be your stepping stone to something else, not an end in themselves.

6

Something is “off” here and I think you have to do a “re-think.” You say that you haven’t visited Berkeley, and yet you have already determined that it is not a good “fit” for you? You also hope to transfer to what you deem one of the “better fit schools in the US that perhaps have a better reputation internationally” (than Berkeley). Are you aware that THE has repeatedly dubbed UC Berkeley one of the “six superbrands” in international higher education? What “better reputation internationally” are you chasing here?

7

As a California taxpayer, I’m torn on my advice to you. On the one hand, I appreciate full pay international students (we desperately need their funds) although there is another thread discussing whether Berkekey is lowering the admittance standards on internationals for that reason.

On the other hand there are many students in the waiting list who very much want to attend Berkeley and if you give up your space you’ll make someone else’s dream to attend Berkekey a reality.

8

It doesn’t sound like you know any more about your choices today than last fall. If you can recognize your prior approach wasn’t mature, now you need to do more than continue to speculate. That’s more than saying H (or presumably another private tippy top) was a “boyhood” dream. It may very well be time to rein in these “dreams” and accept what is.

9

The ivies accept very few transfers, except Cornell and most of them are from NYS community colleges. If the school rejected you as a freshman applicant the chance of transfer acceptance is extremely low.

You seem to have a mindset that Berkeley is not good enough for you. This will make it hard to establish relationships there and excel academically.

10

OP: like many have already mentioned; you don’t seem to have a goal other than wanting to attend a "bumper sticker " school in US or UK. I agree with the idea of taking a gap year to figure out why you are pursuing a college degree and what is that you hope to achieve. While it is common to go undecided, it is absolutely useless to study Law for three years at LSE just because it’s brand name school.

You weren’t able to convince the Ivies in the US that you would in any way be a contributing member of their society despite your perfect scores. What were your “pretty good extra curriculars”? Did you change lives? Did you win prizes? Did you discover something? Or was it something you participated in because someone paid for it. Did you show leadership? All this matter other than perfect scores.

Like ^^ comment, Ivies accept very few transfers, the classes you take as freshman would make it hard to prove your passion. It would be harder to have EC’s to show your passion in any one field, and you wouldn’t have made a mark on anything in one and half semester to prove yourself worth of these schools when you apply. You would be held to a much higher standard coming from a top rated school like Berkely than if you were coming out of a community college.

think hard as to what it is that you want, if you are still undecided, and don’t want to take a gap year, finish your undergrad at Berkely and go to your dream school for masters.

11

I would love to attend Berkeley… California is MUCH cooler than Boston, New Haven, New Jersey, or anywhere on the East Coast, subjectively.

Fitting-in in California may be more difficult for a British person – the overall attitude is quite laidback – so the East Coast is probably a better fit overall, because we are much more fast-paced, with a ‘get-shit-done’ attitude.

Have fun… You should feel lucky for attending the third best school in California.

12

For someone who’s seemingly very bright, you don’t seem to have put a lot of thought in to what you want to do with your life after uni. Why not focus your energies on that rather than on seeking a transfer? What would you gain from one? How do you know anything about fit anyhow?

The simple fact is that for any goal in the world you can think of, you can get to there from Cal if you apply yourself.