I’m a undergrad student looking to transfer, although I never finished my second semester at a small highly-ranked LAC. I made the Dean’s List the first semester (earned a 3.67 GPA) and took 15 credit hours plus I have some credits from APs.
I’m looking at applying as a transfer applicant to some other semi-competitive colleges (with transfer acceptance rates that are generally around 25-40 percent from what my online research has told me) but I’m worried the fact that I left mid semester will reflect poorly upon me. I don’t really know how to explain my reasons for transferring in my essay because I have a lot of them, but many sound stupid. I felt the environment at the college I went to was sort of “high school” in terms of drama. I also left mid semester because of unrelated mental health issues related to life events (including the loss of a family member to suicide) that prevented me from feeling like I could finish the semester with the grades I wanted while taking care of myself. And while those may be legitimate reasons for not completing my semester, they sound sort of excuse-y especially in combination with the fact that I’ve decided not to return to that college due to the other reasons.
So I guess my question is, for my Common App essay, how can I frame my thoughts about transferring in a way that is appropriate for a college application?