Thoughts on transfers
I hear that transferring has a lot of demerits due to the hyper accelerated recruiting timeline for IB however I wonder in what cases is Transferring worth it and when the optimum time to transfer would be.
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If you are open to doing 4.5/5 years instead of 4 years then you get access to an extra round of recruiting. I did that and I would totally do it again because the better alumni network and OCR for internships/FT roles at my new school far outweighed what I was getting at my old school. In the long run (and even the short term) no one's going to care if you spent an extra semester or 2 boozing in college as long as you used the extra time to your advantage. I transferred at the 1.5 year mark, but if I waited an extra semester for fall transfer I would have been able to apply to a lot more schools since several targets don't do spring transfers. If you can transfer after exactly 1 year then that would probably be most optimal
So if I transfer end of freshman year and have a summer internship lined up for me already would you say I'm in a bad or good position
How could that possibly be a bad position to be in?
The ideal transfer is after 1 year...where you have a 4.0 and transfer to a top 20 school
This usually does not extend college beyond the standard 4 years. College is career prep...you pay a lot of money and time to secure your future...this is the investment...use it wisely
what schools could you transfer into? also...scholarship money could be an influence here....
I did this last year actually - transferred from a top 25 UG business school to a top 5 as a first semester sophomore. it’s very possible to stay on top of recruiting for sopmhphore and junior year internships. There are some caveats though.
To answer the original question directly of when is it worth it to transfer, I would say it’s only worth it when: 1. When you can’t get to where you want to be post-grad at your current school 2. You hate your current school Other than that, your just putting yourself through tough shit for no reason. If you’re worried about investment banking recruiting, then you should aim to transfer right after your freshman year ends as that gives you time to adjust to the school before it starts.
Regarding the caveats of recruiting as a transfer, a lot of the business clubs at my school are extremely competitive and difficult to get into, so being a transfer can be hard to navigate those tough recruiting processes and if you don’t know anybody in the clubs it can make it that much harder to get in since a lot of the sophomores you’re competing against know people in these clubs by their second year. Not impossible, but it’s a significant obstacle to overcome especially since clubs tend to look for majority freshman. This is something I struggled with and it hurt my internship recruiting as I didn’t have an organization to lean back on. Again, it’s still very possible to be successful in either club recruiting or internship recruiting as a transfer - you just need to work hard for it and put yourself out there.
The most concerning thing for me about transferring was making new friends. The freshman group thing that was mentioned in this thread is very much real and hurt my mental state more than anything. It made me doubt whether I should be there and it was something I was constantly thinking about until I made close friends - basically took up a lot of my energy that would have been better used elsewhere. It really helps to have a good friend or 2 at the school your going to that can take you out places and introduce you to people - I didn’t have that and it was extremely hard to meet people who were interested in hanging out. Joining clubs can help with this though.
I also had to leave behind a lot of great friends and experiences at my former school which made the decision to transfer very difficult. For what its worth, I feel that If I stayed at my top 25 business school I would have ended up in a similar place career wise and would have had a more enjoyable, comfortable college experience. But transferring had a lot of benefits to it I didn’t think of. It forced me to step outside of my comfort zone, talk to tons of random people (I’m an introvert so I’d always be nervous/bad at starting conversations), and stay focused among other things. Being in this very uncomfortable situation and working hard to meet people and integrate myself in the school, I feel that I learned a ton and I’m grateful for the experience I gained. And now that I’m 3 semesters in as a junior, I’m fully integrated in the school and am absolutely loving it.
To touch again on internship recruiting since this is WSO after all, if you transfer as a 1st semester sophomore like I did it’s not necessarily going to be more difficult as a transfer than a non-transfer at the same school, but there are caveats that come along with it that do make it harder. Just work hard during the recruiting processes and you should be able to get what you want out of it. Also, transferring gives you a really interesting piece of your story to talk about during interviews, so that is a nice bonus :)
Take this all with a grain of salt since the schools you’re looking to transfer to are all going to provide different experiences and depending on how you are as a person you could have a wildly different experience than me.
I have heard from other transfers at my school and other schools that it is a tough and uncomfortable transition wherever you go though, so if you decide to transfer be ready to face some big challenges
Thank you very much fir that insight on your experience .I would like to ask you some thing would you say assuming I had a relatively prestigious firm to intern at lined up for me. would you say I do it freshman summer before I transfer or sophomore summer after I have already transferred? The firm is based in the UK ,meaning I would have to travel but in my opinion: I feel like it would be better to do it freshman year so I have something to put on my resume for my sophomore summer and I could do intern somewhere in the us because ultimately this is where I want to work I would like to ask for your view on the matter.
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