Ideas please for transfer student

[Anonymous]

My son is looking for a college to transfer to after an unexpected gap year due to illness. He's is now Okay but did poorly last spring at a selective U (that he doesn't want to return to)and it brought his GPA down to a 3.0. He has almost 60 credits including 26 AP credits with 4s and 5s. His high school GPA was 3.9 (unweighted) and had 2240 SAT/ 34 ACT. He wants a school in a city or good college town with self designed majors and/or not stringent requirements so he doesn't have to spend extra time to graduate. He prefers warmer weather. I'm helping him research and I would like a school with a good support system in case he has medical issues (and he became somewhat depressed due to these issues). At this point cost is less important than finding a good fit, but I'd prefer less than $35k tuition (he had a big scholarship prior). He is interested in foreign language, graphic design, videography... He's looking internationally too but I want to give him solid US options. Please help!! Online searches not too helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is looking for a college to transfer to after an unexpected gap year due to illness. He's is now Okay but did poorly last spring at a selective U (that he doesn't want to return to)and it brought his GPA down to a 3.0. He has almost 60 credits including 26 AP credits with 4s and 5s. His high school GPA was 3.9 (unweighted) and had 2240 SAT/ 34 ACT. He wants a school in a city or good college town with self designed majors and/or not stringent requirements so he doesn't have to spend extra time to graduate. He prefers warmer weather. I'm helping him research and I would like a school with a good support system in case he has medical issues (and he became somewhat depressed due to these issues). At this point cost is less important than finding a good fit, but I'd prefer less than $35k tuition (he had a big scholarship prior). He is interested in foreign language, graphic design, videography... He's looking internationally too but I want to give him solid US options. Please help!! Online searches not too helpful.

Not sure of the current cost, but the one which springs to mind first is UCLA.

[Anonymous]

For videography, it's hard to beat southern California. In addition to UCLA, there is USC and Loyola Marymount. The latter might be easier to get into with a 3.0.

Another warm weather option is University of Miami.

Surprisingly, American University shows up on the top ten lists for videography. Would staying in the area be an option he'd consider even if it's not looking terribly warm right now? It would be a plus for medical issues.

I have two college age children with medical issues, and both have opted to stay in the area for continuity of medical care. One is now seeking to transfer to a more competitive university in the area, and we have sought out the advice of the transfer student specialist at Marks Education in Bethesda. My DC found the one session we did extremely helpful.

[Anonymous]

Wow, I would not recommend a foreign location if his medical condition is still impacting his ability to handle the stress of college. Stress can have wide repercussions on grades and mental health and dealing with an unfamiliar country can add a layer of anxiety. My daughter is at an enormous university far away, but still in the US and the medical community there is twenty years behind the times. She comes home for treatment as opposed to following the backward advice she has received at school. There are numerous threads on CC that deal directly with handling a chronic illness from afar. I think if you query the parents on that forum you are much more likely to get useful suggestions on the right college as well as tips on how to make it work. I do think you are looking at closer to $60,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I would not recommend a foreign location if his medical condition is still impacting his ability to handle the stress of college. Stress can have wide repercussions on grades and mental health and dealing with an unfamiliar country can add a layer of anxiety. My daughter is at an enormous university far away, but still in the US and the medical community there is twenty years behind the times. She comes home for treatment as opposed to following the backward advice she has received at school. There are numerous threads on CC that deal directly with handling a chronic illness from afar. I think if you query the parents on that forum you are much more likely to get useful suggestions on the right college as well as tips on how to make it work. I do think you are looking at closer to $60,000.

PP here.

Thanks for validating in part my DCs' choice to stay to close to home, which, I have to admit, wasn't my preference.

Maybe OP's son should be putting AU on his list.

[Anonymous]

How about Cal Tech?

[Anonymous]

You're dealing with a complicated situation, and for this reason, I'd recommend that you get in touch with Brie Jeweler-Bentz at the School Counseilng Group. She was enormously helpful to our son who successfully transferred after his first year of college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're dealing with a complicated situation, and for this reason, I'd recommend that you get in touch with Brie Jeweler-Bentz at the School Counseilng Group. She was enormously helpful to our son who successfully transferred after his first year of college.

PP who has gone to Marks Education. I first called up School Counseling Group (based on what I think was a previous recommendation you might have made) and they told me she was unavailable and put me with someone called Jewel for a prescreening call.

She was ten minutes late for the conference call I arranged with my child, by which time we had dropped off, and nothing in her resume screamed experience with college transfer students. In addition, it was unclear to me that we needed a package, which is what I think they prefer over a few hourly sessions.

For these reasons, we went with Marks Education. We were happy with Robert Clark, who worked in transfer admissions at Georgetown for a couple of years. Our initial session went very well, and we will stick with him. We may end up taking their package rather than doing a few more hourly session--we have not yet decided.

I agree that an advisor may be a good option for OP, and she should check out both options to see what might work better for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is looking for a college to transfer to after an unexpected gap year due to illness. He's is now Okay but did poorly last spring at a selective U (that he doesn't want to return to)and it brought his GPA down to a 3.0. He has almost 60 credits including 26 AP credits with 4s and 5s. His high school GPA was 3.9 (unweighted) and had 2240 SAT/ 34 ACT. He wants a school in a city or good college town with self designed majors and/or not stringent requirements so he doesn't have to spend extra time to graduate. He prefers warmer weather. I'm helping him research and I would like a school with a good support system in case he has medical issues (and he became somewhat depressed due to these issues). At this point cost is less important than finding a good fit, but I'd prefer less than $35k tuition (he had a big scholarship prior). He is interested in foreign language, graphic design, videography... He's looking internationally too but I want to give him solid US options. Please help!! Online searches not too helpful.

If he needs support, then he is probably better off closer to home. I do not think weather should be a factor in his decision. That's completely frivolous. I would suggest looking for something within driving distance (even up to 6-7 hours) of your home with the majors he wants (mainly the tech areas, which you can't find everywhere). Once you find the best schools in that area, with those majors, start reading reviews of the campus culture and then narrow it down from there. But start with the location and the major (and price, of course). The rest needs to be secondary.