A future community college transfer who overcame hardship seeks advice

Transfer Students
1

<p>I apologize for such a long post; I feel that I cannot fully describe my circumstances without writing a story about my life.</p>

<p>As a child, I felt a strong attachment to intellectual matters, and disinterest in simple, routine tasks and socialization. Such mannerisms typify my diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. Even in the face of such brilliance, horrific levels of internal stress and pain manifesting itself in the form of uncontrollable tantrums defined my childhood and preteen years. At school, I needed my own self-contained room for the safety of myself and other people. My parents knew my future would likely involve a psychiatric hospital. </p>

<p>The stress and pain that triggered my unacceptable behavior finally eased by the time I arrived in the eighth grade. While still considered a “special education” student, I finally got the chance to enter into a classroom with other students. Miraculously, I entered mainstream classes for my freshman year of high school.

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<p>Even though I finally felt a “normal” life within my reach, I would face even more stress and pain of a different variety during my high school years. While I maintained mostly As and Bs during my freshman and sophomore years, my stress tolerance finally broke down during my junior year when faced with bullying and harassment from my peers. A mere nuisance in the eyes of school officials, my mind viewed this otherwise minor bullying quite harshly, especially considering the multiple stress factors I faced throughout my life. I knew of nothing else but to avoid the source of my stress; I would miss school for weeks at a time in an effort to avoid the harassment. I almost gave up on high school altogether.

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<p>One opportunity kept me motivated enough to stay in school: the chance to help special needs children at a local elementary school. I felt great satisfaction in helping children I thought of as miniature versions of myself overcome their own adversities and motivating them to succeed in school and life. If I decided to quit school, I would sacrifice my shot at pursuing my passion in life.

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<p>I finally graduated high school, one year late, after fighting tooth and nail to overcome my misconceptions regarding the bullying and harassment. After pursuing a “gap year” opportunity to continue helping special needs children in my area, I finally enrolled in community college part-time for the Fall 2011 semester. Ever since then, I have earned As in all of my college courses. I also came out of my shell and became a social butterfly in the process. Starting with the Spring 2013 semester, I decided to pursue a full course load, and I have every intention of maintaining a GPA as close to 4.0 as possible, while still participating in extracurricular activities.</p>

<p>Although I continue to hold a special place in my heart for children in special education classrooms, I feel a calling to help gifted and talented youth from disadvantaged backgrounds overcome their own social and emotional challenges through discovering their life purpose. To satisfy this desire, I would like to transfer to a university with summer programs or talent identification programs for gifted youth with the intention of helping such programs reach at-risk gifted youth from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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<p>Since I do not plan to transfer for another year at least, I would like some guidance and suggestions on where I should apply for transfer. I understand that some universities with talent identification programs and/or summer programs for gifted youth are prestigious schools with very low transfer rates (Duke TIP, Johns Hopkins CTY, Northwestern CTD, as well as summer programs through Stanford EPGY immediately come to mind), and thus would not be realistic choices for considering transfer admission, especially for a community college transfer with a less-than-stellar high school record. Assuming I continue my streak of As, does anyone have any suggestions on what schools I could consider applying to? I am not restricting myself to schools with education programs; in fact, since I have multiple interests which span across disciplinary boundaries, I may want to pursue a liberal arts major. Additionally, the politics inherent in public K-12 education reduces my interest in the teaching profession. My college transcript with letter grades and commentary is below.

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<p>Summer 2009:</p>

<p>Elementary Spanish I (F)
Elementary Spanish II (W)</p>

<p>A little explanation: During high school, I felt that my foreign language classes did not engage me since they did not actually teach conversational language. In search of greener pastures, I petitioned my high school to allow me to take dual-credit Spanish classes through my local community college. A few weeks into the first four-week Spanish class, my stress levels reached a breaking point, and I simply stopped attending class. Given my ongoing issues in high school at the time, I was unprepared for the level of personal responsibility and maturity I would need to function in college, nor did I understand the process of dropping a course until after the first course ended. Simply put, I did not understand how college actually worked.</p>

<p>Fall 2011 (4 credit hours):</p>

<p>Elementary Spanish I (A)(repeat)</p>

<p>Given my past issues with college coursework, I decided to take only one course plus a developmental math course (earned an A) not listed at the urging of my psychologist.</p>

<p>Spring 2012 (10 credit hours):</p>

<p>Elementary Spanish II (A)(repeat)
Fundamentals of Speech Communication (A)
College Algebra (A)</p>

<p>Fall 2012 (10 credit hours):</p>

<p>Biology for Science Majors I (A)
English Composition I (A)
Intermediate Spanish I (A)</p>

<p>Increased the rigor of the part-time course load with a Biology for Science Majors course.</p>

<p>Current classes (14 credit hours):</p>

<p>Biology for Science Majors II
English Composition II
Intermediate Spanish II
Intro to Computing (required for Associate degree)</p>

<p>College ECs:

  • Officer position with my college’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter
  • Future plan: work with local public schools on creating a campaign that would leverage middle and high school students’ voices to encourage the development of their talents in the school setting, with a plan to possibly spread the campaign nationally


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<p>Note: I will need to take the SAT/ACT since I never took either test in high school. Assume that I would make a high score.

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<p>Any help, advice, or assistance to help me continue my journey of achievement would be greatly appreciated.


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2

<p>I’m just bumping this post to increase its visibility.</p>

3

<p>I think your interest and aspirations are very much in tune with your experiences and the knowledge you have gained from them. There are so many talented students who just don’t “fit” in the curriculums that are out there, and as you have told in your story, suffer tremedously as a result. Someone who has gone through this and is now managing to also handle mainstream life would be ever so valuable in this field.</p>

<p>WHat the schools you have listed will do to further your goals, I don’t know. Have you looked at the programs they have? How do they dovetail with what you want to do? In the areas I have lived, most of those in public education have gone through the state schools, many of them the former teacher’s colleges that now days offer so much more in additon, but still have some of the best preparation for those wanting to go into fields of education. </p>

<p>I suggest you peruse the catalogues of the schools you have on your list and also look for other schools that are not so selective and pick out degree programs, courses and opportunities that can help you get where you want to be and in the jobs where you can do what you want to do. Also bear in mind that the selective schools take few kid which is what makes them selective, and even fewer transfers. Even those with perfect records are not assured spots in those schools. They are not Match schools for anyone. I’m not sure they are even the right schools for getting you into the direction you want. Though they may have “talent” programs for young people, those programs focus on those who tend to be talented in traditional ways, and are not the type of kids that you are seeking to help. </p>

<p>Of course, do not exclude them from your list, if after more examination, you feel they are what you want to make a try for, but also make sure you include some schools that have far more likely acceptance statistics. Also bear in mind the costs of going to such schools, and that transfers sometimes do not get need met even from schools that guarantee this for first year applicants. </p>

<p>Congratulations on that outstanding and impressive upward trend in your grades! That is truly the way to go!</p>

4

<p>I’ve actually noticed that those highly-selective schools I mentioned in my first post with the “talent search” programs also tend to lack undergraduate education programs. </p>

<p>I will probably put in an application to Vanderbilt as a reach school (there is a professor there that studies gifted underachievement), as well as UT-Austin (a realistic choice for a Texas resident), and I will search for universities with research relevant to my interests. I also intend to apply to a couple of safety schools (public for financial reasons) along with a few private schools in my region.</p>