Withdrawing From UC Berkeley as a UC to UC transfer student

Hello everyone!

I’m a 19 year old male transfer student.

I was a student at UC Riverside studying Business Administration from Fall 2019 for two years and then applied to transfer/got into UC Berkeley and UC Irvine. I decided to transfer to UC Berkeley to study Economics there this Fall 2021 back in May prior to the SIR deadline. But then, a couple weeks before going to UC Berkeley, I felt that UC Irvine would have been a much better fit for me so I requested UC Irvine’s admissions office to reinstate my admission, which they did for me. Unable to decide which school to pursue, I proceeded with UC Berkeley and my classes started on August 25th, 2021.

After having been at UC Berkeley for about 2-3 weeks now, I honestly really dislike it and wish I had picked another school, as I’m unhappy. Therefore, I’m considering either going to UC Irvine or returning to UC Riverside. At the moment, I have not formally withdrawn from UC Riverside and also still have an active SIR at UC Irvine. Additionally, I checked this, and I’m still able to enroll in classes etc at those two schools. Since classes at UC Berkeley already started, I would have to withdraw from the university rather than cancelling my admission. According to UC Berkeley’s L&S policies, it states:

“The withdrawal date will appear on the administrative transcript and all courses for the semester will be removed. The reason for withdrawal is confidential and does not appear on the official transcript.If you submit your form before the first day of instruction for the term, your request will be processed as a cancellation. There will be no notation of a cancellation on your transcript.”

I have plans of attending grad school for an MBA or Law school in the future and I’m worried that withdrawing from UC Berkeley would leave a black mark on my resume/transcripts. Additionally, I’m worried that withdrawing from UC Berkeley would change/negatively impact my admission/status at either UC Riverside or UC Irvine. The deadline to add/drop courses at UC Berkeley is September 15th, so there will be no trace of my actual classes on any transcript, but I wonder if my withdrawal from UC Berkeley itself will be a problem at UCR/UCI as well as any potential future graduate school applications.

Please give me advice on whether it’s a bad idea to withdraw at this point and pursue another school. I’m really concerned and don’t know what to do!

Thank you so much!!

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If you are enrolled in more than 1 UC, it is just a matter of time that the schools will figure it out and may rescind your admissions to all.

Regardless if you withdraw from UCB, it will be on your permanent college record since you have officially enrolled and it may require an explanation when applying to Grad school. Hopefully others can chime in, but what is more pressing is that you need to withdraw from 2 of the 3 schools now or face the consequences.

What is it that you dislike about Berkeley? How do you know you will like Irvine better? If you’re happy to go back to Riverside, what compelled you to leave in the first place? You seem to have a flawed decision making process. Have your read “Thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman? I highly recommend it.

As for being enrolled at three UCs at once…seems unethical to me and I have no idea how it might impact you down the line.

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If you were my child I would tell you to bloom where you are planted. Make a decision and decide to be happy at that university.

I wouldn’t take this advice. If you’re so sure you didn’t like UC Berkeley that you’ve reinstated admission at UC Riverside, you should leave. You’ll definitely have feelings of discontent again if you are already having these thoughts that you really don’t like it in only 2 weeks. Definitely transfer, it’s a large school with limited resources. I had same feelings of dislike and waited for it to get better, but it didn’t, and I was told this same advice to bloom where I was planted, but it didn’t work after a long period of time of trying, so you should trust your initial feelings!! Do not let anyone stop you!!!

Closing since there is an updated thread