does transfering schools affect ur app in a bad way?

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amena

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Im not sure if this q has been asked before, but im at the point of deciding whether or not i should transfer from my current university to another. I really dont like mine, and feel that transferring would solve alot of my problems. But i was wondering if this could affect my med school application. Some have said that if ur grades go higher, that the adcoms will just think that particular school was easier and so wont credit u much with the improvement.
Is this true? Does it really matter or should i just stick to my school and suffer these few years cuz i dont want to regret anything later. Thanks guys if anyone can answer ill be grateful!
 
Do what you have to do to get better grades. Med schools want the letters, they don't care where they're from, unless we're talking Harvard.
 
Transferring did not hurt me. I had transcripts from several different schools and no one mentioned it. At one interview the interviewer asked me why I transferred, I told him why, he agreed I had good reasons and we moved on. If you are unhappy you should go somewhere else because you will probably be happier and do better which will help you in the long run.
 
thanks so much for answering,
if you wouldnt mind answering ..what did u say to them when they asked u why u transferred? id just like to know ;] thanks alot u relieved my tension.
 
question tho: do adcoms see the average GPA of the school?
 
o ya thats a good one...does the average gpa come seperately for each school in the transcript or what? how does that work..
 
AMCAS calculates a total average GPA from all your coursework, regardless of the school. This is the GPA that ad coms look at. You will send in separate transcripts from each school to AMCAS though.
 
bigbassinbob said:
AMCAS calculates a total average GPA from all your coursework, regardless of the school. This is the GPA that ad coms look at. You will send in separate transcripts from each school to AMCAS though.

but do adcoms know the avg GPA of the school you attended?
 
By the way, I transferred from a school that had a medical school, and after I had my interview at that med school they rejected me a month later.... even though my GPA was four tenths of a point above their average and my MCAT score was 3 points higher than their average. Draw your own conclusions with that.
 
Ad coms only know your total average GPA, which includes all coursework done at all schools. They don't know your GPA at a specific school unless you tell them by sending in a transcript from the school.
 
i transferred after my freshman year and my grades went down cause my current school is a million times harder than my first school. but i'm not worried about it. if you have good grades i don't think it matters whether they come from one or two schools. and saying you transferred cause you weren't happy there or whatever else should definitely suffice.

laura
 
I don't know if I'm reading this correctly, but I think you are asking if the adcoms see the avg gpa of a particular school, like of all students at UCLA the avg gpa is 3.XX?

I am fairly certain that there's no real up-to-date list giving all these, because grade inflation is a problem, etc. If you are going to a school where you feel the avg gpa is high, easier A's for you. congrats 🙂

clevertooth said:
but do adcoms know the avg GPA of the school you attended?
 
bigbassinbob said:
Ad coms only know your total average GPA, which includes all coursework done at all schools. They don't know your GPA at a specific school unless you tell them by sending in a transcript from the school.

what do you think if someone transfers from a private school after a year if they are unhappy, and goes to a state school and does well..would adcoms look down upon that given the fact that you have good enough reasons for transferring in your personal statement..
 
they just have your overall gpa from all schools averaged together, which is what is important for cutoffs and stuff like that, but since you have to send a transcript from each school, they will see your average gpa from each school as well.
 
Entol said:
If you are going to a school where you feel the avg gpa is high, easier A's for you. congrats 🙂

are you being sarcastic?
 
LauraMac said:
they just have your overall gpa from all schools averaged together, which is what is important for cutoffs and stuff like that, but since you have to send a transcript from each school, they will see your average gpa from each school as well.

ah i see
thanks
 
clevertooth said:
what do you think if someone transfers from a private school after a year if they are unhappy, and goes to a state school and does well..would adcoms look down upon that given the fact that you have good enough reasons for transferring in your personal statement..

No way! Their main concern is that they want your grades to go up, regardless of the schools. So if you have a higher GPA than you did before you transferred, you should be fine. The only problem would be applying to the school that you transferred from, like I did. I think it's kind of hard to convince them that although you were unhappy there as an undergraduate, you will be happy in med school there. They didn't buy it in my experience anyways..
 
clevertooth said:
what do you think if someone transfers from a private school after a year if they are unhappy, and goes to a state school and does well..would adcoms look down upon that given the fact that you have good enough reasons for transferring in your personal statement..


i think going from hard to easy but getting better grades is better than my situation of going from really super easy to kind of hard and getting much worse grades... just my 2 cents.
 
Not at all. I just graduated from a huge state school where the average grade in nearly all classes is C+. This is BS if you compare it to schools where they inflate grades so the humanities avg is A- or B+. Unfortunately, the adcoms don't know about (or ignore) this flagrant grade inflation. It's sad for us from these top state schools, but looking at it from the point of view of someone benefiting from grade inflation, it's an easy way to boost their GPA by doing considerably less work than you might do in another university.

Sorry to say but grade inflation is documented and not just bitc*ing. I guess I could complain, but it's easier just to be happy for the people who benefit from it since complaining doesn't seem to do much.

clevertooth said:
are you being sarcastic?
 
Entol said:
Not at all. I just graduated from a huge state school where the average grade in nearly all classes is C+. This is BS if you compare it to schools where they inflate grades so the humanities avg is A- or B+. Unfortunately, the adcoms don't know about (or ignore) this flagrant grade inflation. It's sad for us from these top state schools, but looking at it from the point of view of someone benefiting from grade inflation, it's an easy way to boost their GPA by doing considerably less work than you might do in another university.

Sorry to say but grade inflation is documented and not just bitc*ing. I guess I could complain, but it's easier just to be happy for the people who benefit from it since complaining doesn't seem to do much.

agree with you totally
 
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