Take a semester off until I can transfer or go back to my current school?

Transfer Students
1

This is very long post but you don’t necessarily need to read all of it.

Context: last year, I was in the enviable position of being salutatorian and accepted to a high ranking, selective LAC with all of my financial need met.

Then I had a horrible freshman year. I didn’t fit in with any social groups, so I had no social life at all for most of the year. My OCD flared. My RA committed suicide. I couldn’t get work study even though it was included in my aid package. On and on.

So the FIRST problem relevant to my transfer applications is that I had really negative experiences with 4 out of my 8 professors, and my GPA dropped to just below 3.0. No matter how hard I tried (I spent 10+ hours a week in office hours and in tutoring and supplemental instruction) I hardly ever did better than a B. So I couldn’t figure out how to improve my work, even incrementally, and my professors acted like letter grades were unimportant as long as I was “trying my best.” I guess they didn’t believe my best could get any better. It felt like I was just getting evaluated over and over again with no expectation that I would improve.

[[[No doubt some people will try to blame me or assume I’m just sore because I don’t get A’s all the time in college, so here is some optional, supplementary background. At my LAC, professors like to prove they have a normal distributions of As, Bs, and Cs by sending us all detailed histograms after major exams.They want to show that they are teaching a Rigorous Course. My professors seemed to have decided I was a B student to the point where in one of my partner presentations, the professor returned the exact same feedback to both of us but gave me a B and my partner an A. When I emailed him about it, he dodged the question and never clarified what I didn’t do that my partner did. This same professor returned a total of 7 out of 12 graded assignments over the course of the year, and by the time he had returned the first one we were on the fourth, so we didn’t receive any feedback for a lot of our work. My language professor was incompetent and fell severely behind on our syllabus, but we were still held to the same standards as the other language sections and had to take the same tests, despite being inadequately prepared. My academic adviser didn’t seem to give much of a crap about me and never had any substantial advice.]]]

The SECOND problem is that I was really trying to make it work at my current college, and didn’t come to terms with the fact that I really don’t want to go back in the fall until after the deadline for fall transfer admissions at other colleges had passed. Right now I’m looking at a college similar in many ways to my current LAC, but is known for having a less potent stress culture, and I actually know a few people from my high school who attend and have given me good reviews. It’s also closer to home, which is easier on my mental health.

The THIRD problem is that I can’t transfer into a new school until January, so I have to either go back to my current LAC for one more semester, or take a semester off. (I would hope that during that semester I would be working and saving money, but the job market in my hometown is notoriously competitive, even for entry level and unglamorous positions.) AND I really want to graduate in 2018 as planned so I would need to take an extra course here and there (which is permitted) or some summer classes to make up the credits. As a science major, I will be taking many labs, which are worth 1 extra credit, and that may make up some of the difference as well.

To complicate matters even further, I don’t have any guarantee of admissions or sufficient financial aid from the transfer options I’m interested in.

Finally, I go to a “”“prestigious”"" LAC. It has a strong program in my major. Part of me questions why I should leave when my school is supposedly so great. Some students hate it and are clearly miserable, but other students/alumns talk it up all the time and attribute all of their success to the school. It makes me think “maybe I should just go back and try for it one more semester…” On the other hand, I get panicky just thinking about September, and it’s probably not a good idea to go back to the place where I wanted to die for weeks at a time.

I would appreciate any advice, suggestions, or stories of past experiences that are relevant to my decisions here.

2

“On the other hand, I get panicky just thinking about September, and it’s probably not a good idea to go back to the place where I wanted to die for weeks at a time.”

Take a leave of absence for the fall. Stop feeling that you have to graduate on a particular schedule. That doesn’t matter at all. What matters is your own emotional health, and eventually completing your degree somewhere (maybe even at your first college) where you are happy and can do your own best work.

3

^ Good advice. Take a leave of absence. Sometimes plans and decisions just don’t work out. It is OK to make changes.

Can you afford this other school? If so, then apply for January admission if you feel up to it. If not, then look at your public in-state options. Please don’t worry about graduating “on-time”. In the long view, a semester here or there doesn’t really matter.

4

We are kindred spirits. I thought Wellesley was going to be the perfect school for me. And I tried so hard to love it there; I tried so hard to find people like me there; I tried so, so hard to be happy there. But I was completely miserable by the end of my first semester. I started drafting a transfer essay over winter break, but I still wasn’t ready to give up on my dream. I figured a lot of people struggled during their first semester, so I returned in January with a positive attitude, and I was determined that I could turn things around second semester. By the time I went home for Spring Break my first year, I was a mere shell of myself. My family was very worried about me. I was horribly unhappy, especially when I realized that it was too late for me to apply to transfer. It was unbelievably hard to go back and finish. Those last two months of my first year are a blur. I don’t know how I made it through the year. I spent most of last summer trying to decide if I would be able to survive another year at Wellesley.

I was fully prepared to take a leave of absence, but at the last minute decided to return in the hopes that I could make it through the year, knowing that it would be my last. I spent my second year completely focused on my classwork and my transfer applications. I think I was able to make it through the year okay because I knew that I would be leaving. Some people say that it gets easier after the first year, but Wellesley just isn’t the right school for me. It’s a very unique environment., and it really wasn’t what I expected. That’s why I started posting on CC.

Although I did return and completed my second year, I totally agree with what the previous posters say: your well-being is what is most important. Don’t worry about walking away from a 'prestigious" school or graduating in four years – take care of yourself now, and then figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. I hope you are getting some counseling/support to deal with the traumatic experience you had with your RA, and your anxiety. I completely understand how you feel and wish you all the best.