Transferring state universities, undergrad, extremely confused

[supposedlyfun]

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[StoicJosher]

I'm not satisfied at all here and I'm not satisfied with most of my teachers so far. I was thinking about transferring to the University of Virginia. I'm a huge idiot for not applying there as a senior in high school, I wasn't thinking at all and basically my parents had to push me to even apply to any college. UVA is a much better school prestige-wise and they have their own medical school too. All of my stats are exactly average for UVA except for my high school GPA which might be slightly below average, my college GPA is average for transfer students there. My high school was in the top 25 in the country according to newsweek, I'm not sure if that's important.

It seems like you want to transfer to UVA for all the wrong reasons. Prestige and an associated medical school is probably the last thing to look for when you apply for UG. Prestige plays very little role when it comes to applying to medical schools. Graduating from a big name school is not going to help you when you apply to medical school if your numbers/EC's aren't good. Similarly, graduating from a no name school is not going to hold you back if your numbers/EC's are good. Stop focusing so much on rankings and prestige.

-I'm worried about getting rejected, if I did, I doubt I'd apply again.

If you get rejected, you got rejected. That is it. If you didn't apply the first time, then you can never know can you? Fear of failure should never keep you from trying something.

-I can attend summer courses while at GMU to speed up my degree, cannot do that at UVA, best I could do would be maybe to get permission to take courses from UVA to take them at GMU or my local CC, but the courses wouldn't get factored into my GPA.

Graduating early is not going to help your application. I graduated in 2.5 years but looking back, I regret doing it. You are still held to the same standard as a four year applicant and you (usually) don't get points for graduating early. Take your time, get good grades and get a solid application.

My GPA would also start over which worries me because with AP courses and transfer credits, most of my entry-courses are done with, all I have left is a couple GEs, small amount of pre-med stuff, and the rest of my required courses for degree which will surely lower my GPA. Do med schools look at GPA from all institutions?

Yes. When you apply to medical schools, you have to fill out all your college level classes in AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service). They calculate your GPA (which is usually different from your UG GPA) and they take into consideration every college class you have ever taken.

"...which will surely lower my GPA." If you plan on going forward with this defeatist attitude, it will end up being a self fulfilling prophecy.

-I'm worried about the costs too. With dorm and board, cost would come out to slightly below $20,000/year. At GMU, we're paying about ~$10,000/year + gas costs which I doubt comes out to that much. I'm currently taking a loan for $5,500/year, so about half the cost and my parents pay the rest. I'm extremely worried about the additional cost my parents would have to take on. I don't want to divulge too much financial information, but we might be slightly above middle class, and my parents make something like ~$140,000/year before taxes. But to go to UVA, assuming that my loan doesn't go up too much, they'd have to pay somewhere around $8,000 more/year which is a good chunk of money...

I don't see a question here and I would like to reiterate my initial advice to not switch to UVA if you are doing it for those reasons. If you wanted to go to UVA for better research and EC opportunities, then great - I say go ahead.

-I'm worried about not being around my family, even though I really want to live in a dorm and live on campus, which is probably what drove me to apply to only GMU when applying for colleges in high school. My dad is in his mid/late fifties and is not very fit...I'm worried about his health. Since I commute right now, I'm home nearly the whole day 4 days a week...what if something happens to him while I'm away? I'm just worried about things like that.

Things like this is your personal decision. You will have to weigh the pros and cons and decide for yourself.

I'm hoping someone can help me out...sorry for all the rambling and pure crap.

Honestly, a lot of it was just rambling, whining and pure crap. Weigh the pros and cons, make some decisions and accept the consequences of your decisions. Good luck.

 

[supposedlyfun]

Disregard

 

[StoicJosher]

Are you sure about names not mattering? Seems like many of the people who get into top 20s are coming from ivy leagues. Looking at stats, people from ivy leagues seem to be way overrepresented.

Also, I don't see why, if two people have near equal stats, a state university wouldn't take their own graduates over someone from a different (and lesser) state school.

If I transferred, would that be a negative in the eyes of adcoms? Also, lets say that I transfer and a certain course isn't offered at UVA, so I don't get credit for the equivalent course, can I still count it as part of my premeds? For example, bio-statistics is an offered bio course at GMU, apparently it does not have an equivalent transfer at UVA, could I still count that as part of my prerequisite biology courses?

1) It is not the prestige or name that causes that - it is just faulty logic. People who get into Ivys for their undergrad are those that worked hard in high school. They carry the work ethic and do well when they are the Ivy's which results in the acceptances. Of course - you will find people who disagree. This is a thread where this topic has been debated a lot (with significant contribution by current attendings, residents and medical school students). Feel free to read it and make your own decisions.

2) The transfer will not be looked negatively. And yes, it can count as a pre-req. Like I said, the schools don't see your individual transcripts until you get accepted and have to send it to them prior to matriculation. What they will see is the AMCAS form which will have all the classes you took at both UVA and GMU. The only consideration given here (the only one I have heard of) is to pre-reqs taken from community colleges - they are looked down upon because they tend to be easier.