Chances at transfer - Cornell, UMich, Carnegie-Mellon, etc.

Transfer Students
1

Hi All,

First off, thank you for your time!

I am a sophomore at the University of Minnesota: Twin Cities, and I am looking to transfer for my junior year and beyond. My reason is that I am not happy here, It’s very demotivating. I want to go somewhere where my peers are as driven as I. In my Electrical Engineering classes, most people just complain about the professor and how they are confused all the time. The EE building is empty after 10 pm, very few are working on projects or research. I want to be somewhere inspiring, with classmates who are more interested and involved.

My Profile:

3.88 GPA in Electrical Engineering ~60 Credits, Almost a semester ahead, overloaded myself by taking post-requisites with the pre-requisites.

Working in one of the professors’ lab (J.P. Wang) on a novel disease detecting the medical device. Publishing a Paper for the Design Of Medical Devices Conference 2020.

  • Pretty Famous Guy, Wrote one of my letters of recommendation. The other two are from my mentor at the rocket team (PhD Chem.) and an EE prof.

Ignition Systems and Data Collection Systems Lead at the UMN Rocket Team, my first year we won the 30000ft SRAD competition at Spaceport America Cup, the most competitive category.

Work as an entry-level Antenna Engineer in a small R&D environment part-time during the School Year. Products I touch are intended to go to the market.

Hired by the College of Science and engineering to tutor freshmen in Calc I-IV, Phys I-II, Chem I-II during this school year.

College of Science and Engineering Orientation Leader over last summer.

I have not finished my essays yet, I am curious if you all think I have a chance (Particularly at Cornell and Carnegie). Is it worth applying?

Thank you so much for your time again,

2

I’m not sure that transferring is going to solve anything, especially when you have 60 credit hours. When you transfer, you lose credits, and it’s going to tack on a year or more to your degree. That’s going to set you back around $60k if you’re lucky, and that’s assuming you could pay for it. Financial aid has limits.

Also, I don’t want to sound too blunt, but to do well in the workforce, you need a good attitude. The attitude starts now. If you can keep a positive attitude now, then that attitude will serve you well in the workforce.

There’s so much more to life than the college you go to. It really just amounts to training for marketable job skills, and in the end, it won’t matter. Your goal now is to get your foot in the door to start a job as an engineer. You’ll find a good entry level job just as easily going to UM as any other university. After that, your work experience will do the talking for the rest of your career. You don’t want to start a career drowning in debt. That’s a set-up for failure.

You have 2 years left. Just hit the books and finish your degree.

3

While I do think you have a very valid point,
My goal is not to get an entry-level job as an engineer, but I want to go further into academia. A lot of my credits I entered university with, and I am not sure that I will end up as far behind as you believe. At most a semester behind, but I think that’s unlikely.

I think it’s worthwhile to submit some applications just to see what happens, I can make financial choices and evaluate my transfer credits after.

I’m just asking about my chances, and while I appreciate the advice-- For now I think I can evaluate the usefulness of the transfer myself.