Is it worth applying to transfer?

annalogies
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 00:42:23 +0000

Sorry, this is a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.

I’m currently in my second year as an English major at UC Berkeley and have not enjoyed my experience so far.

As a kind of side note: mental health reasons kind of play a role. I don’t know how I would classify my mental health status as I’ve never been “officially” diagnosed with depression but have been struggling with mental health for years. In July I finally made an appointment at the school health clinic for a consultation, where they told me I was “likely” depressed. I couldn’t stand the therapist they set me up with (yay for large institutionalized health care) and because I was what they called “high functioning” and hadn’t shown any need for urgent aid since I didn’t hint towards anything life-threatening during the consultation session, I was able to opt out of treatment, which I did.

This semester has been exhausting mentally, but on paper it looks like I’m doing fine - I’m actually getting pretty good grades in my classes (which has been the case during my time here - I have a ~3.7 GPA) but I’ve been struggling with making connections with people, staying motivated, feeling like I don’t belong, etc.

I do have academic reasons that are calling me to transfer: Berkeley is a gargantuan institution and I feel like I’ve just gotten lost in it. There are certainly resources I can utilize to make the school feel smaller, which I’ve tried out (such as signing up for smaller-sized seminars, seeking out graduate mentors, going to office hours), but it doesn’t help all that much. Since I’m interested in doing a PhD in English and then going into academia it’s great that Berkeley has so much research going on, but I’d much rather save that for later in my academic career - right now, I just want to go somewhere with a stronger emphasis on undergraduate education (aka more handholding) and that is definitely not Berkeley.

Socially, it’s been difficult too: I’ve tried several student groups and while I have many acquaintances, I haven’t made very many genuine connections. Every day I see a slew of new people, most of which I’ll never encounter again for the rest of my time at Berkeley and it just sucks (esp when I have mental health issues to begin with)

For all these relatively common reasons I would much rather prefer a mid-sized or smaller school. However, my problem is that I am financially dependent on my parents, who are not okay with me “transferring down” to a school with lesser prestige (yes, I am aware that this is a terrible outlook on life but I am not looking to independently support myself through college if I can help it). Realistically, I would only be able to apply to and attend a school of Ivy League/top-ranked LAC caliber.

But I know I can’t fool anyone. I’ve seen the numbers and the harsh reality is that I’d be average at best in the applicant pool (Asian female, ~3.7 UW gpa in high school, ~3.7 gpa in college, 34 ACT, a solid and “safe” set of extracurriculars but nothing head-turning - I can post stats if that would help). I can definitely write specific essays (e.g. I want to study under Professor X because of his research on temporality in American modernist literature, I like that your school has an emphasis on seminar-style learning, etc) or maybe find a way to turn in some writing/research samples but I have no idea if that would even begin to set me apart.

So in summary: I’m pretty miserable but if necessary I can just suck it up for another 2 years here because that’s what I’ve always done. Parents wouldn’t be okay with me “transferring down” to another institution that isn’t as prestigious but I’m probably not good enough to have a shot at anywhere else of equal or higher caliber. Should I even bother with the transfer process or would it just yield a ton of rejections?

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