I see all the time how colleges don’t like people trying to transfer into a more prestigious school, but I could never find out why. What’s wrong with transferring to trade up?
Maybe you were just under the top students in high school but were able to prove yourself in college, getting a 4.0 or almost a 4.0. Or maybe you are/were top caliber but still couldn’t get in anywhere good as a freshman despite high GPA, test scores, EC, etc. due to the competition being so fierce and everybody applying to 20 schools.
BTW, this isn’t about me specifically, just a general question I’ve had for a long time.
I think that OP is talking about experience poster’s on CC discouraging students from trying to transfer to higher ranked universities primarily because they are higher ranked. I have seen this, and I am pretty sure that I have done this.
There are a few issues here.
One is that a lot of people associated with highly ranked universities, including alumni, understand that these universities can do, but more importantly understand what these universities cannot do. Those of us who graduated from highly ranked universities have at least some vague sense regarding what we got out of it, what we didn’t get out of it. Admissions wants students who want to go there for the right reason.
Some of us have a good sense of just what “prestige” feels like after you have been slogging through piles of homework and hard exams for four years. One thing that I still remember well is students who thought that they were better than me because they attended a famous university, even though I attended the same university and lived in the same dorm (weren’t there supposed to be smart people here?).
There are a lot of opportunities at universities that you might not think of as “prestigious”. There is cancer research, environmental research, students learning skills that will help get them into medical school or veterinary school, and a huge range of other important work being done at several hundred universities and colleges in North America. Most students at a “top 200” university would be better off looking for the opportunities that are all around them.
Some of us old folks have had the opportunity to work with some people who have made great accomplishments. We see that they come from a very wide range of universities, especially undergraduate universities. We also see what they did that allowed them to accomplish great things. At some point they saw what they wanted to accomplish and figured out how to get there, or perhaps they just went down a path that seemed like the right thing to do at the time and it turned out that they were right.
It is an unstated assumption that transfer applicants to highly selective or prestigious colleges are usually trying for a prestige upgrade. So the admission readers don’t want to read about it because that is what they assume applicants are trying for anyway.
I think they are tying to use the rare spots for transfers for unique situations and people. They don’t need your high stats to pad their rankings. They know you are only paying two years of costs for the same degree. The students shut out of this college for economic reasons originally, community college students, veterans , college closings, change in academic focus that the school is also interested in supplementing.
So someone who thinks moving from state flagship x to prestigious private u “y” isn’t particularly unique or interesting. Also the 4.0 at some other school may not translate to the same at school y. They want the transfers to really add something to the class.
So I believe the advice here is to help a student craft a more interesting narrative. Obviously no one intentionally wants to go to a school they think offers them less. They get that already.
Ivies are great recruiting grounds for investment banks. Yet they don’t like to admit students who are overtly eager for investment banking opportunities. They kill the vibe and are “pre-professional”. End up at Tufts, that sort of thing.
In the same way, if you’re obviously prestige-hunting, no one is going to want to be around you.
I’ll come at this from a different perspective. For students, transferring is sometimes worth it and sometimes not. Are there valid reasons to transfer? Of course. Should students be transferring for a lot of the reasons they do? Nope. I, myself, am a transfer student and it’s been fine, nothing earth-shattering. I think people need to take a step back, breath and make the most out of their situations. Would I have been fine returning to my old school? Yes. The right attitude and getting involved/being a leader is far more important than trying to jump in prestige. Also transferring is academically, socially and financially costly. In hindsight, I’m not even sure I would transfer again if given the opportunity to go back. It’s a stressful process.