LondonCircle

So, I'm currently a freshman at Rice University, and while I am open to staying here, I don't really enjoy the culture of my current institution. I'd like to transfer to a top public school like UVa or UNC for my sophomore year (or maybe Vandy), somewhere with a bit more school spirit to it and stronger humanities programs. I do have a few questions though...
1) What should my gpa look like? Rice would be a peer to any of my potential school, and I've heard that as long as you maintain a 3.5 at a peer school getting in shouldn't be a problem. Is this accurate? I had a pretty good gpa in high school and I'm active on campus here.
2) I have struggled a bit with adjusting here, so some of my grades aren't quite perfect. In particular my Poli Sci class looks like it might be a bit iffy as I don't think I did too well on the last test (22% of my grade), but Rice lets first semester freshmen drop a class up to the last week of class. If I dropped it, I could be looking at a 3.7-3.8 most likely; while, with it, I might be closer to a 3.4-3.5. Without it, I'd be down to 12 credit hours though (with six of those hoes being in theatre classes)...how bad would that look? (theatre isn't my major)
3) How much will my second semester classes/grades count. While putting together my schedule for next semester I got a lot more ambitious in terms of course load and difficulty (I.e. most of my classes are 300 levels and I'm taking 19 hours). Could this make up for a fairly ho hum first semester?
4) Will my major be taken into account? My prospective majors are a bit on the obscure side (classics and medieval studies) and one of my bigges reasons for transferrin is that the departments at Rice are practically vestigial. Could the fact that they might not have too many students in these programs help me better my chances?

entomom

1. Applying to transfer to a top school, I would feel much better with a 3.7; not saying 3.5 is out of range, but it is on the edge IMO.

2. Since the only full term of grades they will see is this fall, having half theater classes out of the minimum full load is not great as far as rigor of courses. The problem is that they want to see your performance in academic classes.

3. At most they will see an unofficial progress report. So it may help, but it's hard to predict how much.

4. As a soph transfer, major is not that important because you still have a year to change. You can say that you want to transfer for stronger programs, but unless you have shown some support for your interest in classics/medieval studies in HS, ECs, etc., it doesn't seem like your fr coursework supports it.

Sorry if this is less than positive. I think you got some very bad advice to take so much of your first sem schedule as theater classes.

LondonCircle

I was originally only signed up for one theatre class (Acting I), but Rice has an option that you can work on a show through the Dramatic Arts Dept for a 3 credit hour class. Since I was going to be in the show anyway, I saw no reason to pass up free credit hours. I started the semester with 20 hours, but I dropped a Hindi class early in the semester because the class was very poorly taught.

warblersrule

I hope you're taking Greek and/or Latin this year. It gives you a good idea of what you're in for, plus you'll need at least 3-4 years of your primary language if you're going for the language track.

I'm not personally familiar with UVA's classics program, though I have a friend in it who likes it a lot, but I can vouch for UNC's program being AWESOME and definitely a better option than Rice if you're serious about classics.

Both UNC and especially Duke (whose courses are open to UNC students) have pretty good offerings in Late Antiquity...possibly something to consider if you like both classics and medieval studies.