Unable to fall in love...

Transfer Students
1

Hi everyone,

It has been about five months since college has begun for me, and I must say that I don’t feel that my school is just right for me. I do not necessarily even know why (I mean I do have a few concrete reasons but in my heart of hearts, I am just unhappy here.) I will admit that entering the school year I did not want to be attending this university, and instead wanted to attend some other school that I had applied to, which just felt right and just seemed like it would be home but I was denied admission. However, I decided that I should definitely make the most of the college I am currently attending, and I am trying my level genuine best to do so. Yet, at the end of this, in spite of really loving my friends here dearly, I am just learning that I am unable to be myself, and more so, that I am more unhappy than happy here, in spite of all the good I do encounter. I was wondering if anybody else had felt this way about college. I often find myself thinking about that other school, and beat myself up on not doing a good enough job in high-school to get in there. The school I do go to now is very selective, and while I would consider transferring to my dream school, my grades (though in tough courses) aren’t up to par, nor can I acquire satisfactory recs, and quite frankly, I am not at all a competitive applicant to my dream school, especially as a transfer. I am keeping that as a last resort though–and that would be dependent on my grades rising. I was wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation, and could talk about anything they decided to do to move on and improve their college experience. Or if you chose to transfer, talk about what led you to do so, and how you managed to improve your stats to reach that goal. Any advice to deal with my situation would be helpful. My school is incredible, and I in fact feel ashamed and ungrateful for not enjoying it, and I feel petty for wanting “another top-school” when I already attend such a prestigious university, so yes I do understand the whole “over-privileged” perspective many folks may have about my situation, and that is totally cool, and I am sorry if I have offended anyone by posting this.

Thanks for reading, and for your response. Have a great day whomever you are.

2

You need to walk into the counseling center on your campus and get a meeting with one of the counselors there. It is not good that you are still beating yourself up over failing to be admitted to your “dream” school last year. You need help sorting through this so that you can get on with your life. You will not be the first student with this problem. The counselors will have good ideas for you. They will be able to help you determine whether staying or transferring makes the most sense.

3

“while I would consider transferring to my dream school, my grades (though in tough courses) aren’t up to par, nor can I acquire satisfactory recs, and quite frankly, I am not at all a competitive applicant to my dream school, especially as a transfer.”

It sounds to me that you are still beating yourself up about not getting accepted to your “dream school”.

It is generally a very bad idea to even have a “dream school”. You have never been a student at your dream school. You don’t know the other students there, haven’t faced a large pile of homework there, and haven’t taken exams there. Your dream is not a reality. You don’t even know whether you would be happy if you were at your dream school. If you did get to attend there my guess is that you probably would discover that in reality it is not what you expect.

If you dream school is in the northeast of the US (I am guessing), then you have not yet walked to class through what we in the northeast call a “northeaster”. This is a storm where the center of the storm is just offshore. This means that the eastern edge of the storm picks up moisture and power from the gulf stream, and the western half of the storm drops all that moisture on our heads, often with a strong driving wind from the northeast (thus the name of the type of storm).

In terms of transferring to your dream school, your best approach at this time is to just forget about it. It is not going to happen.

“am just learning that I am unable to be myself,”

You can be yourself in a large cardboard box sitting in the middle of a field of wheat in Kansas. Your current school is not stopping you from being yourself.

I agree with @happymomof1 that you should be talking to the counseling services at your currently school. You also had better be attending all classes, taking every class seriously, and keeping ahead in your course work. You are at a demanding university. You need to deal with what you have. You need to make the most of the huge opportunities that have been given to you.

And you need to learn to write in paragraphs.

4

Agree with above posts. Can’t be yourself at the current school – you haven’t given any information that makes clear why you would be yourself at another top school and you can’t be yourself at the current school.

Also you don’t need to fall in love with your school- why is can’t you just like it a lot?

5

I think it’s fine to see a counselor but I honestly think you’re just having a human reaction to a big decision…you’ve spent one semester at college and you can’t help but wonder if you would be happier if you had landed at the other college instead. And then that leads to beating yourself up because why didn’t you study harder junior year in calculous and then you could have gotten into that 2nd school! It never ends. :slight_smile:

Regrets in life are common and fine…the big moment is simply accepting the reality of now. I am in this college. I absolutely do not know if the college would have been better (or maybe worse…also, you will never know this). Given this reality cannot be changed, I’m going to mourn and move on.

Write back 2nd semester of your sophomore year…I have a feeling you’re going to feel much differently.

6

If you are attending a very prestigious university that many students would give their eye teeth to attend, try to be grateful for the great education you are getting and resolve to make the best of it. Go to the counseling center to try to understand why you are stuck on the rejection from the other school, and try to move forward.

No school is perfect. If you have good friends at your current school, that is a plus. Perhaps you can attend your dream school for grad school.

7

Hi everyone,

I am closing the discussion because I am finding many of the answers to be from perspectives I have heard before, and the unhelpful ones as well. Sincere apologies if this statement offends anyone who took the time to write back to me.

The stuff that you have all written about is all stuff that I have considered. I do indeed feel that “yeah, maybe I would not necessarily be happier at BLANK school that I want to intend,” but I am really just looking for options. I already attend outside counseling, and the school counseling services are short-term and I have considered them. I am indeed hoping that my school days do get better, and am hopeful that things will change.

I feel immensely grateful, and proud, of myself for getting into the school that I go to. The reality is that I am just not that happy here, and that I do indeed have many reasons as to why I feel the other school that I may want to go to could be a better fit. I have tried many things, such as looking for student clubs to join, taking classes I truly enjoy, and taking the initiative to reach out to new people, talking with several of the college supervisors, etc.) but I am finding that nothing is working just yet.

To, @DadTwoGirls, specifically I have found your comment to be a bit harsh. I do understand where you all are coming from but your answer in particular just came off as very intense, and quite frankly, entirely inconsiderate. To particularly address your comment about “being myself in a cardboard box in the middle of Kansas,” I personally feel that the environment that one is in changes the way that one may behave. That is what I have found in my first semester of college as well; it is different than my high-school and I do not just feel at home at all here, and thus I am finding myself behaving differently.

I once again want to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by my comments, especially to @DadTwoGirls who I picked out. I did not give any specifics as to my particular situation just to preserve anonymity and because some of it is quite personal.

My reality is that I attend this school now and that I should definitely be trying my best to make the most of it. You will not believe me, but that is what I had accepted a while back, and still hope for. I would rather stay here for four years, and excel, than transfer to that other school that I wanted to attend. It is just that, I feel that I should be a bit happier in college than I currently am, and I do have some reasons as to why I feel that attending that other school would allow me to be happier. Yes, I also quite frankly feel that it will be near-impossible for that transfer to happen, but really, my life is in my own hands and I should be making efforts to make my life as good as I can. If that means trying to transfer to that school, then so be it.

Thank you for anyone who is taking the time to read this right now. If anyone else who is reading this now feels similarly to me, know that you are not alone. I know how it can feel when almost everyone else says “it all worked out in the end” and they talk about how they really like their schools, when you don’t feel the same. And to those who disagree, that is totally reasonable, and I fully understand why you feel the way you do. It is the reality 99.5% of the time, and it does indeed work out for virtually everyone. It’s just that when you are in that VERY SMALL minority, it really does get rough some times. Take care.

8

@CocoaKing - Right now you seem to think that your choices are limited to staying at A or transferring to B. You have many more options than just those two. You can take time off from college entirely. You can transfer to another place that is neither A nor B. You can consider a semester or year abroad or in an academic exchange elsewhere in the US. Talk through some of those options with your counselors too.

Wishing you all the best.

9

Princeton is not for everyone. If you feel somehow unqualified for your dream school, my best guess is that it is among Stanford, MIT or Caltech.

As you have clearly identified your current school in prior threads started by you, why not reveal your dream school so that you can generate some more meaningful comments.

P.S. If pressed to guess, then my guess would be Stanford University–a school well known for crushing dreams.

10

When taking the Proust Questionnaire during his candidacy for office, the now current Massachusetts governor disclosed that his choice of college has been his “greatest regret.” The point for you in this example of notable candor may be that it offers perspective on the great depth of feeling, much like that which you’ve expressed, associated with a college decision:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/15/charlie-baker-takes-proust-questionnaire/p2B2GsYFIUnYnVLsZCiX3I/amp.html

11

@merc81: Interesting & thoughtful post. Because college years are such a sensitive growth period for many young adults, it is easy to understand long held regrets that may become long held regrets or even emotional scars.

In OP’s case, it is easy to understand his dilemma. Princeton is almost always ranked as the #1 National University in the country. He should be overjoyed with his success at gaining admission to Princeton & attending, arguably, the best school in the country. And Princeton is a very demanding school.

12

@Publisher – I wanted to not reveal my school on this thread, just because indeed Princeton is an incredible school and I did not want to explicitly state its name because there are many people who truly dream about going there. I feel bad about saying that I am not that happy about Princeton. And if I had to be honest, the reason I was upset about not getting into my dream school, was not that I was sad about not going there, but because I was going to Princeton and things weren’t working out. Also, the school I wanted to attend was not MIT, Stanford, or CTech, though out of those I likely would have wanted to go to Stanford, or possibly Caltech for its small community, over Princeton because of its west coast location and access to Silicon Valley. I have noticed that these recent posts are a bit more objective and fair than the ones from before, and I want to thank the recent posters for being more fair in their response.

13

The identity of your current school was just a simple click or two away. The earlier responses were frustrating to you because posters had no reasonable basis or context for assessing & understanding your situation. Still tough without knowing your dream school.

Folks want to help by offering meaningful advice based on experience as well as on their knowledge of specific schools.

Communication is important. Effective communication requires an element, at least, of trust as well as some reasonable understanding of the specifics of your issue.

14

And it’s better just to ignore responses you don’t like. There’s no point in alienating the people who are trying to help you.

15

Have you made friends at school?

16

I hope it gets better for you at your current school. It is hard to transition from high school to college, even to a dream school. If you are unhappy, it doesn’t matter how prestigious the school is. You are obviously a very intelligent and talented student or you wouldn’t have been admitted to one of the best schools in the country. You can always put in a transfer application to the dream if the school takes transfers just to see what happens. Maybe you will be admitted, If you don’t try to transfer you may always wonder “what if.”

17

Yeah, I have decided to try and transfer after sophomore year no matter what happens. I lost a lot of everything that I had accomplished by matriculating to Princeton, and applying there early over my dream school was the biggest mistake I have made in my entire life, and I regret it every day. I don’t find myself being able to work nearly as hard as I was before because of my perpetual unhappiness here, and I find this to be a massive problem. I cannot blame myself for knowing that it would be like this, but it is what it is. Hoping for the best!