Need help deciding universities to apply to for junior transfer

Transfer Students
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Hello! I am currently a freshman (undeclared engineering) attending a predominantly white big 10 university, and have been thinking about transferring because of the following reasons:

  • I feel really unwelcomed as a queer woman of color (though I recognize that this would probably be an issue everywhere)
  • I have friends but I don’t vibe with the social and sports culture at all
  • I want to be closer to home (upstate NY) or just somewhere more similar to my hometown
  • I don’t feel challenged despite currently taking sophomore-level coursework
  • There aren’t a lot of opportunities/connections for the field I want to go into (solar system planetary science/remote sensing) other than what I’m already involved in

During my senior year of hs I went through multiple family emergencies and didn’t focus on college applications as much as I would have liked. I did end up with a full-ride at my current university, so I could deal with being here for three more years if I really had to.

I’m also not sure what universities I would want to transfer to. Cornell was my dream school, but I got rejected ED for COE. Columbia, Georgia Tech, CU Boulder, Stanford, and UC Berkeley sound cool (didn’t apply to those) too but may be too far or too expensive. I’m open to applying for other majors like earth/atmospheric sci given my experiences in engineering so far, but would like to keep engineering (mechanical or ee) open as an option.

Stats: 4.0 college GPA, 3.9 HS GPA, 1590 SAT (800m, 790e), junior standing (got a lot of AP credits), FGLI minority
ECs: engineering competition team in a nontechnical leadership position, astrophysics research lab, a lot of volunteering, national and state-level awards in HS, multiple leadership positions in HS (regional/state impact).

TLDR: Any suggestions for universities to transfer to? Thank you all so much in advance!

Side note, does the combination of statics/dynamics/mechanics of materials count as a calc-based physics 1 equivalent? I’m currently taking/have taken those classes, but not an actual physics 1 course, so I’m worried that I won’t meet the basic prereqs. Haven’t been able to find info online either. I’ll have english, calc 3, lin alg, diff eq, stats, and physics 2 done by the end of next year too.

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Probably not. But doesn’t an engineering statics / dynamics course usually have calculus-based physics 1 as a prerequisite?

Often, your in-state public universities will be relatively receptive to transfer students.

Do you have cost constraints?

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Hello! No, they only have calc 2 as prereqs. Would I not qualify for most engineering transfer programs then? Cost-wise, I’d like to keep it under 40k/year. My family has a lot of college savings, but I don’t want to burden them too much.

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I think a few things:

  1. For Junior year, your SAT likely won’t matter.
  2. Do you want to be an engineer or not? There’s great space schools - but engineering is different. You can certainly try to intern at Solar companies, etc.
  3. Given you have a full ride, what is your “comfort” with having to pay something.

I think you have to get to budget first - then you can find schools provided your have a budget substantive enough.

OK - $40K a year - would you achieve that at Cornell - did they do the NPC? You might look at U Arizona (you’ll be close). It’s tops in Space Science/Physics.

Since you note you’re from NY and want to be closer to home, you might look at Stony Brook or Binghamton.

You can try for Cornell, etc. but these would give you in state costs.

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Hello! To be honest I’m not too sure. In an ideal scenario, I want to double major in earth science (w/ planetary sci concentration if offered) and likely mechanical engineering, but as a junior transfer I would probably have less room for that. I’m okay with doing only one or the other though, no preference right now as to which–although I think it might be better to get in for engineering first if I do at all?

Pretty sure my NPC for Cornell last year was under $30k/year; I don’t remember the exact details. Stony and Bing weren’t that appealing to me before since a lot of my high school classmates were attending, but I’ll definitely have to look into their transfer admissions. I wanted a fresh start at my current university but it hasn’t been going that well, haha.

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So you have admissions difficulty (Cornell) vs. Cost difficulty (in-state).

It may not be any better - is the issue.

You just discuss finances with your folks. You said they have money but you said you’re on a full ride - and that’s tough to pass too.

Just so you’re all on the same page.

If they can go higher, RPI might be a fit.

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If you were rejected ED by Cornell then your chances of getting in as a transfer student are probably not good. Columbia and Stanford take very few undergraduate transfer students. They do however take lots of graduate students who graduated from a huge range of undergraduate universities. Stanford for example has some very good one-year master’s degrees (I have one of them). UC Berkeley would be very expensive as an out of state student. I am guessing that GT would be unlikely for admissions as a transfer student and probably also expensive out of state.

My best guess is that your best chances would be at in-state public universities.

This sounds right to me, although I am not particularly familiar with the SUNY’s (I have heard good things about them, but do not know one from another). While you have missed the priority deadline, isn’t Stony Brook University still taking transfer applications for this fall?

I took calculus based physics rather a long time ago, but I am pretty sure that the answer is no. I actually took “mechanics of solids” at the same time as calculus based physics, and these were certainly different courses covering different material. I recall harmonic motion and electricity and magnetism from my freshman year calculus based physics classes (including the professor pulling multiple-feet-long sparks off of a Faraday cage after first putting a student inside the cage and telling them not to tough the mesh walls – I am not sure whether they would let a professor do this today). You might want to look at what specifically is covered in the physics class that you did not take, and think about whether any of this is a loss. You might be able to take it out of order.

I am a bit jealous. This is very good.

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