Last day to decide: Transfer to UPenn vs UChicago

[ucbalumnus]

@whippymop

UPENN
(+) great academic offerings in what I’m interested in (compbio and CS). I’ll be double majoring in computational biology and computer science at Penn, which surprisingly will lead to a very light schedule due to course overlaps and me being ahead in classes.

UCHICAGO
(+/-) Upon learning more about the Core, I’ve developed more mixed feelings towards it. I like the huge variety of courses i’ll have the chance to experience - especially civilizations courses. but a lot of what I liked about the core was the shared experience between students, which is not really a thing at chicago compared to other core curriculums.
(-) too much work. I’m willing to grind, but i feel like im far from your typical uchicago student. i dont savor in grinding homework till 3 am every night and all that.
(-) I don’t love the CS curriculum here. They teach it in a really weird theory-heavy approach. Also not a lot of compbio / ML courses.

The primary purpose of college is academic study. It looks like Penn is a better academic fit for you than Chicago. How does your current college compare in academic fit?

@happy1

IMO the social landscape for transfer students at most colleges can be challenging as many friendships are foemed freshman year.

Of the OP’s listed colleges, UCB takes a substantial number of transfer students (albeit mostly from in-state community colleges). However, the secondary admission to L&S CS with different lower division CS courses from those already taken is an understandable concern, and CS classes are huge because of the enormous student interest (the OP seems to want smaller class sizes).