@TheTennishNinja : I am going to keep it real and just point out that your STEM classes (at the intro. level at least) would not have even been like that at most other top universities, especially those below 10 or 12. Very hit and miss and messy at a lot of places. You have to be very focused and deliberate about getting a strong education from basically all of these places. They aren’t trying to give you anything. Even when you become a junior or whatever at main…as a STEM major, you have multiple choices for multiple classes and experiences could be night and day depending on who you choose as two offerings of the same course may have a completely different syllabus content wise and pedagogically (I notice that at Oxford, at the intro. level, maybe exams differ, but syllabus is exactly the same and the content and assignments are normalized). At Emory, this is both good and bad as one instructor may feel like one of the upper Ivies/Ivy + schools and another may pitch the same course as if it is for an open admissions public university (and this happens at other near peers no matter what students at them like to claim about their schools). You get the flexibility, but ultimately you can almost easily choose at a big place focused upon research and professional/graduate education to just not get a 60k+ education.
And coming into a good school with the intent to transfer in mind can be very toxic. I am impressed that you got past it, because often those folks tend to create or at least look for reasons to justify their mindset as opposed to trying to enjoy or appreciate their experience. It often leads to self-sabotage that could potentially weaken what would be a transfer application.