Will attending honors college at Umass Amherst improve chances of transfer?

Transfer Students
1

I’m currently a freshmen at Umass Amherst. I plan to apply to transfer to colleges such as UC Berkeley, UCSD, UCLA, Georgia Tech, for Computer Science. I have the option of transferring into the CHC(Commonwealth Honors College) at my school. It means taking honors classes, and probably extra resources amongst other perks. What are your thoughts? Should I proceed to attend the honors college or stay as a regular student? The only benefit that I can think of is being able to list honors level classes on the CommonApp. Also, I’m worried that the difficulty of the classes may drag my GPA down.

Note: I think I may transfer to the honors college just for the better dorms and living experience. However, iIf transferring might somehow worsen my application, then I will reconsider my decision.
I don’t think there is a section on the CommonApp where I can state that I am attending the honors college at my school.

2

Do you have financial need? Can your parents pay for the UCs? There is always the college exchange program if a transfer does not work for you. I would go for the honors college as a great option just in case. What is wrong with UMass?

3

No financial need, I am out-of-state at Umass as well. If I move to Cali, I may be able to get in-state because I used to live there. Money is not an issue though, I’m more concerned about finding a school with the right fit. I’m transferring for many reasons, the most prominent reason being that I don’t think Umass is competitive/tech/challenging enough. I may be wrong but I think UC Berkeley and some other schools would probably be better than Umass for Computer Science, not just in ranking.