Hello everyone!
My nephew was a student at UC Riverside studying Business for two years and then applied to transfer/got into UC Berkeley and UC Irvine. He decided to transfer to UC Berkeley to study Economics starting Fall 2021 back in May prior to the SIR deadline. But then, a couple weeks before going to UC Berkeley, he felt that UC Irvine would have been a much better fit for him overall and requested UC Irvine’s admissions office to reinstate his admission, which they did for him. Unable to decide which school to pursue, he proceeded with UC Berkeley and his classes started on August 25th, 2021.
After having been at UC Berkeley for about 2-3 weeks now, he really dislikes it and is unhappy there/is considering either going to UC Irvine or returning to UC Riverside. At the moment, he has not formally withdrawn from UC Riverside and also still has an active SIR at UC Irvine. Additionally, he is still able to enroll in classes etc at those two schools. Since classes at UC Berkeley already started, he would have to withdraw from the university rather than cancelling his 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.”
My nephew wants to attend grad school for an MBA or Law school in the future and worries that withdrawing from UC Berkeley/attending three different schools would leave a black mark in his resume/transcripts. Additionally, we also worry that withdrawing from UC Berkeley would change/negatively impact his 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 his actual classes on any transcript, but we wonder if his withdrawal from UC Berkeley itself will be a problem at UCR/UCI as well as any potential future graduate school applications.
Please give us advice on whether it’s a bad idea to withdraw at this point and pursue another school. My nephew is really concerned!
Thank you so much!!