Is it worth transferring schools? - Page 2

Has Cam Newton chimed in on this chat?

what about Cornell arts + sciences and engineering compared to Columbia? I recon the difference would be significantly smaller when we compare apples to apples. To be fair, Cornell's numbers are dragged down by the Hotel school and Art/Arch school (and to some extent te ag school) as both tend to put much less emphasis on SATs than other measures (art/arch is all about the portfolio, while Hotel is heavily slanted to students with hospitality/restaurant experience). Not to knock the schools, necessarily, the arch program has an admit rate on par with HYP anyways.

One thing to keep in mind about transferring to either UCLA or Berkeley from a 4 yr university is that transfer priority is given to community college transfer students over students at other 4 year Universities. That is due to California's 'Master Plan' on Higher Education.

Being that you are a sophomore, you really have to apply now before Nov.30 for University of California. You pretty much need to transfer in as a Junior and UC does not offer rolling admissions. UC (to the best of my knowledge) does not accept transfer applications for people starting their Senior year. To get your degree from Cal or UCLA you have to complete a certain number of upper division Units at that University so you pretty much need to go in as a Junior.

If you still want to try it this year, you really need to make sure you have IGETC fulfilled since as Philo you'd be going into Letters and Science at Berkeley (not sure the UCLA equivalent off top of my head).

The best resource to check your current courses is Assist.org:
http://www.assist.org/web-assist/welcome.html

If you want more information you can PM me and I will send you email to the transfer counselors/admissions officers you'd need to talk to which I would really advise you get on ASAP if you are serious.

Since you are considering Law School, it might just be better to stay at SC, get the best grades possible and prepare for Columbia, Uof Chi or Boalt law schools.

Exactly this.

This is true, with a caveat--if you want to work in SoCal, the USC alumni network can get you a great consulting or banking job, on par with top-5 universities. (UCLA can't...even though it's comparable academically, it lacks the strong alumni network).

Outside of SoCal, you'd need to go to a school with more national prestige (Ivy's, Stanford, etc.).

I also have a consulting / banking background, and this was one of the interesting things I noticed while working in different cities.

Of the schools you listed...

Cornell, Brown, Darmouth, Northwestern --> Yes, I would transfer.

UChicago, Berkeley --> Depends. If you're planning to work in SoCal after graduation, USC's alumni network will oftentimes get you better jobs than either UChicago or Berkeley, and you wouldn't have to deal with the trouble of transferring. If leaving SoCal, I"d probably transfer.

UCLA --> No, unless you're doing it for the reduced tuition. I don't think the cost-benefits would add up.

i hope that's a joke . . . don't be a fool that is some high quality advice. not sure it's accurate but i do recognize that not many people have that knowledge on the tip of their tongue. not sure what you'd want to do with your degree but in general i think the "quality" of a BA is overrated. you either have one, or you don't. and it can be an advantage to have the BA that a lot of people have, since in general all that matters to employers is that you have it. and if you have a BA from the same school as the person doing the hiring, that's a plus. for this reason the value of any given BA degree is much higher in the geographic region where the alums typically live. the idea that an ivy BA will help you in the average case, in CA, over a USC degree . . . i really doubt that. ivies like to say think their degrees are more respected by everyone but that is not the case. there are industries where this matters but it is not standard. the best BA you can have in almost any hiring situation is the same one as the person doing the hiring. one other thing with transferring . . . i am sure your first two years at USC included a lot of general education work. because colleges and unis are independent, the gen ed programs are different everywhere. transfer students are almost always screwed. your 40 credits of gen ed at one place is received as 30 of the 40 gen ed at another place, plus (this is the killer) 10 credits of elective. transferring mid-stream is worse than changing money at the airport. you might be 50% done at USC but it's likely you'll transfer in as 40-45% done at the new school. not sure how the california system works though. perhaps you could go to cal and the gen eds are the same. nationwide the trend is for govs etc. to pressure the state systems to get on the same page and offer more the same in terms of gen ed requirements. i would stick it out at usc and make the best of it. get your BA and enjoy it and then do what you need to do to go to your graduate school of your choice. if grad school, law school, etc. is not the immediate option then do internships and gather professional work experience however you can.

This. Ultimately if you want to do anything outside of undergrad (which, with a BA in philosophy seems likely) kick ass wherever you are and you'll be a strong contender anywhere you apply. Nobody, other than people that either are jealous of Ivies or went to Ivies, gives a shit if you went to Harvard or USC.

I would tell you sure, go for it transfer. Except isn't it pretty fucking late to be trying to transfer in as a Junior?

read the op. he said he didn't have great stats out of hs. you need to pull down A's for more than a semester if you want dartmouth, brown, and other schools of that caliber. additionally, ucla and cal only accept junior transfers.

he made it sound like he got into both UCLA and NYU? can't be that bad...

well the hs stats needed to get into nyu/ucla are a lot different than the ones you need to get into places like columbia and berkeley (lol). applying as a sophomore transfer is pretty much like applying from high school because you haven't done much other than take a semester of freshman courses. op didn't have the grades/scores in high school, so yeah... one semester of college grades isn't going to change their minds.

nitpicking here, but the average berkeley sat is like 2030, so 2050 isn't like AUTO ADMIT or anything. also, 25% of columbia admits have an sat of around 2050 or lower, so not a complete joke. you never replied. i must say i'm pretty butthurt, no homo.