<p>Transferring to another college should have many pros and cons. If I transfer from a community college to Harvard, that’s an obviously profitable step for my chances. But, what if I transfer from a college which is already promising about the chances, like Reed College, to even more promising college such as Duke, Cornell, or Columbia? Is the profit obtained by this shift large enough compared with the loss, such as the obligation to take some extra classes to suffice the credit requirement? In general, is there any major, negative effect of transferring which people always regret after transferring or right before the PhD admission? </p>
<p>What you need to understand is that LOR’s from the professors that you have done research with during your UG years are the single most important factor in PhD admissions- all else being equal- [great GRE scores and a GPA above 3.5 in your major.]. Transferring in the middle of your UG year in an attempt to “impress” professors in prestigious PhD programs wont work. If your intention is to go on to graduate school, you should try to attend a college that has professors that are well “known” or heavily cited in their field. Where they got their graduate degrees is much more important than where they currently are now teaching or doing research.
The academic field is relatively small and scientists know who is who among their academic colleagues .</p>
<p>Thanks for your helpful remark. I’m actually a high school student and having hard time to choose Reed or Grinnell, both of which accepted me two weeks ago. Grinnell has two professors whose field of interest matches with mine and who got PhD in the schools of my choice (Harvard and MIT); on the other hand, none of the professors in Reed with the same field of interest as mine didn’t get PhD in the schools of my choice. Since these schools are small liberal arts schools, I don’t think any of the professors is so influential in my field. However, both schools are strong suppliers which send many its graduates to great PhD programs. </p>
<p>I understand that transferring means that my LORs won’t reflect my work in the former school. (if there’s anyway to show my work during REU/SURF or before I transfer to another school in PhD admission, could you tell me that?) So, it may totally depend on my later situation whether I will not transfer at all or just be careful in choosing a college to transfer to as much as possible. </p>
<p>If I will decide to transfer, I’m going to try to transfer to a school where I can find more influential professors and is at more or the same level of academics as Grinnell and Reed. By following your advice, I will decide a school to transfer to, based on professor as well as rigor of academics. </p>
<p>“Grinnell has two professors whose field of interest matches with mine and who got PhD in the schools of my choice (Harvard and MIT”]
That in itself is a REALLY, REALLY good reason to go to and STAY at Grinnell for your UG degree.
DS decided to go to USC, even though he was accepted at many more prestigious U’s, in GREAT part because 2 of USC’s top scientists in his field of interest received both their UG and PHD’s at Caltech [ which was DS’s ultimate goal for grad school ] .One of the scientists had been lured to USC from MIT, where he was dept chair, to start a new earthquake program. DS was able to work with him at USC, and get a great LOR from that Prof and he is now at Caltech, which has the top Geophysics program in the country. </p>
<p>The second thing you NEED to know is that TRANSFERRING “up” to a more “prestigious” U is far far harder than trying to get into those same U’s as a freshman. There are only a few spots available for transfer students at the most “prestigious” U’s- USC and Columbia being the exception. Check the transfer threads on CC for proof. </p>
<p>Bloom where you are planted! Do what ever it takes to impress those profs at Grinnell - research, great grades, etc. </p>
<p>Your anecdote sounds amazing to me. From your comment, I got more inclined toward Grinnell than Reed. However, I believe these two professors in Grinnell must be quite less influential than the professor in USC which you referred to. So, I can’t be completely sure that I will be able to stay in Grinnell if I will be accepted by some school with more influential faculties and more attractive features in transfer admission.</p>
<p>I understand that transferring to the colleges of my choice is insanely hard. But I have strong confidence in getting high GPA in Grinnell (not in Reed, though, and I will be totally fine even if I will be rejected by all the schools because I understand that staying in Grinnell is great idea, too, as you told me. Also, there’s large possibility that I will not transfer to any college even if the admission will be successful, if I will feel staying is a better choice or if I can’t transfer many credits. I can’t expect my situation at my Sophomore year. But I think it’s better to consider the possibility of transferring than not thinking such possibility, since thinking more simply expands my “choice.” </p>
<p>From your recommendation of staying in Grinnell until graduation, I got more inclined toward staying than before. But I don’t think I can decide what to do until my Sophomore year, since I need more information through my own experience. Thank you so much for your excellent advice! </p>
<p>I feel like you have asked several very similar questions. I only mention this because you sound extremely anxious about a decision that shouldn’t be so anxiety-provoking, and you sound like you are trying to plan ahead for every eventuality in a way that is simply not possible. You got into two very, very good schools; you can build a successful life and career from either one of them. It doesn’t matter which one you choose. And by that I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter personally to you, but it doesn’t matter in terms of your career plans. Either one will be an excellent choice.</p>
<p>You don’t need to select colleges with people who have PhDs from your departments of interest and do research in your field. You are specializing WAY too early. Those are things that you do in graduate school, not undergrad. You may change your area of interest, or you may change your major completely. You also don’t need to work with influential, famous, or well-known faculty members. You just need to choose a good, solid undergraduate college that will adequately prepare you for graduate school and where you can get research experience. Grinnell and Reed can both provide that, so you should choose your college based on other quality of life factors.</p>
<p>I would also argue that in terms of grad admissions, Duke, Cornell, or Columbia are not “more promising” than Reed or Grinnell. Don’t go to college planning to transfer. Choose somewhere you’ll be happy and see yourself spending the next four years. Otherwise you’re going to be stressed out and distracted in your first two years when you should be putting down roots and forming deep relationships - both with peers AND with the professors who will be recommending you in 3-4 years. I have a friend doing research on this, and they’ve found that students who go into college planning to transfer out in 1-2 years are unhappier and form fewer social bonds than students who weren’t planning to transfer - regardless of whether they actually transferred or not.</p>
<p>But no, transferring doesn’t negatively impact graduate admissions.</p>
<p>If your intention is to go on to graduate school, you should try to attend a college that has professors that are well “known” or heavily cited in their field. Where they got their graduate degrees is much more important than where they currently are now teaching or doing research.</p>
<p>None of this is really true.</p>
<p>-While a letter from a well-known professor can help, it’s more like a cherry on top, not the actual banana split. You do not need to get letters from well-known or influential professors to get into graduate school. Most successful graduate students worked with the worker bees of academia in undergrad, not the superstars. That’s totally fine. Success rates from elite LACs wouldn’t be what they are if this were true. You just need excellent letters from professors who know you well, and think highly of your work. For reference, I’m at an Ivy League, top-5 PhD program in my field and for undergrad I went to a mid-ranked LAC and worked with a professor who is not well-known in my field. If I can do that from a mid-ranked LAC, imagine what you can do from a top 10 elite SLAC.</p>
<p>-Where a professor got their graduate degree is not more important than where they are now, especially if they’ve been out of grad school for years and years. They may have little extra clout in their home department, assuming that anyone who trained them is still there, but other than that, no, not really. In academia, your post-grad school reputation - once you get past the first few years on the tenure track - is predicated upon your current department and the work that you do, not where you went to graduate school. For example, my advisor earned his PhD in 1987 - from an excellent program in my field, but still, 1987. His PhD is almost as old as I am. He’s most widely known and associated with the department we’re currently in. No one cares where he went to grad school anymore.</p>
<p>@juillet is absolutely correct. You can get into an excellent graduate program from just about any undergraduate school as long as you do the right things to prepared yourself and get the strong letters of reference that you need. Transferring does not appreciably improve any of that and if it costs you extra time in an undergraduate program, it is not really worth it.</p>
<p>I often write letters of recommendation for our undergraduates applying to graduate school. There are a few universities which will absolutely accept anyone I recommend and it is not because of where I got my Ph.D. but because they know I am honest about a student’s abilities.</p>
<p>Starting at a university with the idea of transferring means that you are not committed to that school and that is a horrible way of starting an undergraduate career. As an anecdote, 7 years ago a Freshman physics major asked me, in the first week of classes, if I would write him a letter of reference so he could transfer to a “better” school. I was a bit taken aback but I responded neutrally. After 4 years he was still at Illinois Tech and he is now at a top Ph.D. program and doing well. Not only would it have been very hard to transfer to a “better” university but he got an excellent preparation for graduate school at IIT and did not regret it at the end. If you are not convinced about either university, then don’t go and wait another year to try to get into the one you really want. However, if you do go to either Reed or Grinnell, then do it with the right attitude, everything will be fine.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry for bothering you by my continual inquiries with similar topics. Today I could convince myself to go to Grinnell and probably not go to anywhere else until graduation because of both of other people’s posts and yours. So, I don’t think I will continue to ask this kind of questions again, but I will enjoy my college life by rallying my habitual anxiety. From many people’s advice, I felt Reed’s humanities and strict distribution requirement may have catastrophic effect on my GPA, so I decided not to be bothered by such problem by attending Grinnell, which will probably make me able to enjoy college life as well as research experiences in campus.</p>
<p>From now, I will try to focus on studying itself, not where I will study. So far I have been so unproductive that I sometimes can’t focus on studying biology and other sciences. But by well-recognizing that Grinnell is one of the best places where I can take undergrad education, I will try to construct strategies for doing well in class and a clear plan of research from the first year, so that I will be able to utilize that experience in some nice REU/SURF. </p>
<p>You weren’t bothering anyone, least of all me. Asking questions is a good thing! I was moreso concerned about your anxiety and how that may have been distressing you at a time that was supposed to be happy for you. (I work with undergraduates, and I’m trained to notice signs of anxiety; sometimes I can’t help it.) I’m glad that you’ve settled on Grinnell - it’s an excellent school, and you’ll have great opportunities and prospects there. Congratulations.</p>
<p>Studying in college is important. But so is forming friendships and getting into a little trouble, as it were. So make sure that you take some time out to develop the important soft skills, too, like interpersonal relationships and such.</p>
<p>Developing a clear plan of research in your freshman year is extraordinarily difficult, as you haven’t been exposed to much of the field yet. I think most students start to get an inkling for what they might like to study in their sophomore year, and maybe solidify those plans towards the end of their junior year. Even in graduate school, your exact interests are likely to shift a bit within a broad range. So don’t stress too much about identifying some clear, linear plan of research - research doesn’t really work that way anyway, but even if it did it would be difficult to do that while taking intro classes and learning foundational knowledge. Instead, take the opportunity to explore a bit and figure out what you like by trying different stuff.</p>
<p>Since I can’t take many bio classes as a freshman in Grinnell, the first year will inevitably be a period of exploring various scientific subjects. But since the intro bio classes in Grinnell reputedly focus on lab technique and teach some advanced topics of one’s favorite field of biology, I will be probably prepared for SURF even if I will not conduct any independent research in the first year. So, I will primarily focus on intro bio classes and consider research stuffs after that, as you told me. </p>