<p>I was wondering what my transfer chances are for schools like Swarthmore, UPenn, and UC Berkeley. </p>
<p>Background Information: </p>
<p>I’m a Korean-American born in US that lives on the East Cost. For high school, I went to a pretty prestigious private school, but struggled academically in it, landing only a 3.5 GPA (downward trend in GPA - freshman year was all A’s, sophomore year had 2 B+s and rest A’s, junior year had 1 B- in APUSH, 1 B+, and rest all A’s, and senior year, one B+ and rest A’s. My SAT composite was 2080 and for my college admissions, I wrote a terrible personal statement despite starting it early. I just couldn’t capture what I wanted to say about me well, and before I knew it, 6 months flew by, and I had to send in a statement that everyone was disappointed in. I only got into my safeties and rejected or wait-listed at the rest of the schools I applied to. I ended up going to Rutgers, and am currently a freshman.
I think the biggest problem for me here is that it doesn’t have the major I want which is Medical Anthropology. And though I’m pre-med and major doesn’t matter, medical anthropology is something I really enjoy, and would love learning while in the pursuit of a medical career. There are other reasons such as lack of motivation due to the majority of people here who don’t really care much about school, but those aren’t as important. </p>
<p>At Rutgers though, I screwed up. My first semester grades were average with a B in Korean, B+ in General Biology, B+ in Psychology, a Pass in Honors Colloquium (Pass or Fail), and an A in Honors Seminar: Biological Basis of Cancer. My first semester GPA ended up being a 3.46. Right now, I’m taking Calculus, General Biology II, and Chemistry I. I anticipate A’s in those classes, but where I screwed up second semester was withdrawing from one of the classes: Korean. I didn’t do well in Korean first semester and withdrew my second semester which just looks really bad. I’m not fluent so I took intermediate courses but struggled greatly because the majority of the students there were fluent kids looking for an easy A. I managed to get a B despite studying, and second semester Korean, no matter how much I studied, I was failing each test while the fluent kids in my class passed with flying colors. It was too hard for us non-fluent kids that two of them dropped, and finally I decided I can’t afford a D on my transcript and dropped . . . leaving me a withdrawal on my transcript. I wanted to apply for transfer my sophomore year to Swarthmore (was my number one choice during high school), UPenn (has a great Medical Anthropology program), or UC Berkeley (one of the best Medical Anthropology programs), but I think I may have screwed up my chances. Help? :(</p>