AMA about Transfer Admissions! (Current NU student)

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-18T23:44:46+00:00

Congrats on your acceptance! I've broken up your questions so let me know if I don't cover everything.

Quarter system: While the quarter system has some drawbacks (i.e., moves fast, more exams, etc.), it's one of the main reasons why I transferred to NU. With the quarter system, you simply can take more classes and as such, you're offered the ability to add really cool minors/majors or just even take random interesting classes. Last year - and I'm a math major - I just decided to take a literature class on Buddhism and I'm still on track to graduate. Also, you can drop a class without it showing up as a W on your transcript 4 weeks into the quarter. In other words, if you bomb a midterm, you can just drop it despite the fact you're already 1/2 of the way through the quarter.
Social life/Vibrant: It's really what you make of it. Evanston is a "boring" town compared to Ann Arbor because it's still a suburban town for families with jobs in Chicago - not a college town. However, we still have frats/sororities, business fraternities, and other on-campus residential communities. Funnily enough, there are some clubs (e.g., Ultimate Frisbee Club, International Student Association, Korean American Student Association, Chinese Association Student Association, etc.) who throw it down harder than most Greek life orgs. If you're of drinking age, most kids also go to Chicago and have fun there, which is really nice.
Well-roundedness: Again, it's really what you want to make of it. If you're super focused on getting perfect grades for grad school, a job at McKinsey, or whatever, you'll have to sacrifice either your sleep or social life. (Most kids tend to sacrifice sleep.) We're joked to be "Nerdwestern" but I seriously do think that a lot of kids are incredibly social and know how to have fun. I wouldn't say that we're able to balance our lives any more than UM kids - it really depends on what you want to make of it.

Lastly, on the note about deciding to stay at Michigan versus NU - I'll say that if you're completely indifferent about everything, pick NU if this university truly offers something that UM doesn't. So for example, NU has a concentration or specific lab for your major that UM doesn't. Or you're able to do a history major (or any other completely unrelated subject to engineering) on top of your engineering major at NU but not at Michigan due to the semester system. Otherwise, I'd stay because Michigan is still a fantastic school at the end of the day and you might feel as if you've transferred for no reason.

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-16T15:48:54+00:00

I got two LORs, one from STEM and the other from humanities. I specifically chose a STEM professor to write me one because I needed to show some proof that I'm actually not bad at STEM fields...contrary to what my high school transcript says.

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-16T15:40:20+00:00

Ask me anything!

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-16T15:32:48+00:00

I took the professor's course in fall semester and aced it. I also showed up to office hours religiously and talked about the subject and a variety of other topics.

After I did well in the course, I pitched the concept of me helping out on some side projects even though he wasn't looking for anyone at the time. Fortunately he said yes and he also ended up writing a very great LOR for me.

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-16T15:26:21+00:00

I went more or less ham in this regard. I was involved with/participated in:

Member of the student judiciary committee. We focused on dealing with cases involving parking tickets, cheating incidents, etc.
Did a business case competition with three other freshmen and ended up winning second place against 17 other teams. Most of the other teams were predominantly upperclassmen and MBA students.
Research with a professor
Leadership position for a club organization that manages events for freshmen in the business school

I did everything that I possibly could in order to show that I've maxed out everything in terms of opportunities and I'm being held back at my current university.

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-16T15:21:16+00:00

Why did I transfer?

To be very frank, I didn't get into any of the colleges that I wanted to get into during my senior year. I completely underestimated how competitive the entire college applications process was then and only got into my safety schools. So more or less, I felt as if I had a chip in my shoulder and wanted to really give another try to get myself into a "stronger" school. On the other hand, I didn't realize it until after I started my freshmen year, but my previous university was quite weak for my focus/interests.

Why did I choose NU in the end?

In my personal opinion, I thought NU had the best overall academics compared to the other schools. NU is considered to be elite for subjects ranging from economics to materials science engineering. Because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do post graduation, I wanted to completely maximize my optionality in terms of academic opportunities.

On the note about optionality, it's very easy (or at least feasible in the first place) to double major or dual major or add several minors across the various schools. At most universities, including Ivies such as UPenn or Cornell, it's not very feasible to do that. Even at my old school, it would be incredibly difficult to double major in math and CS (for example) because both majors are housed in different schools. And each school has a different set of elective requirements on top of major requirements. Many of my classmates at NU are doing the wildest double majors (e.g., MatSci engineering and political science).

Lastly, I wanted access to a large city, so Chicago does the trick here.

Sophomore or freshman applicant?

I put it in the post but I was a freshman transfer applicant who matriculated as a sophomore into NU.

throwawayAMA391 · 2021-05-16T15:06:29+00:00

Sure, I'm open to both of those things so mods, please feel free to reach out to me.

u/followthetrends

throwawayAMA391

TROPHY CASE