Transferring Unis

You have a conflict between head and heart. Your logical head is giving you reasons to stay at Birmingham - RG uni, already have a good group of friends there. Your heart is telling you about your family being so far away, and that London feels more like home being close to your boyfriend and closer to your parental home.

Royal Holloway is a very good uni and perhaps may be seen - by some - as a step down from Birmingham but it's not like you are moving from Birmingham to the university of scumsville. You also have to consider the stress and mental anguish you will suffer staying in Birmingham. Follow your heart and move to be closer to your boyfriend and family.

So am I correct that your boyfriend lives a few hours from where you go to university?

Hi, I'm currently a second year at Birmingham trying to decide whether or not to transfer to Royal Holloway to retake my second year. (My course is 4 years at Birmingham and 3 at RH so I'd graduate at the same time, and student finance should be covered). I've sent UCAS and everything off, just weighing up the pros and cons of staying/leaving. Sorry for the essay in advance!

I have really struggled with my mental health being in Birmingham as its quite far from home. I had some family stuff over the summer that made me quite anxious being away from home - especially as with the virus there was a really restrictive period of 3 months where I couldn't see family. While Birmingham is a good 4-5 hours away by train from home, Royal Holloway is under 2 hours, and only 40 minutes from London (I live about 40 mins further out). As someone who commutes to the city a lot to visit friends/my boyfriend I think it would feel a lot more like home. I also have two really close friends from school there, which is nice.

Royal Holloway was my insurance choice for first year but the only reason I never went was because I felt pressured to go to a Russell Group. But being at Birmingham I have struggled with the work load and pressure to meet the standards of other people on my course. Maybe transferring to RH would help with some of my anxiety related to this.

However I have a really good group of friends at Birmingham, and am scared I might lose them if I left. I also feel like maybe it would be a cop out leaving the Uni I worked so hard to get in to, just because I'm struggling at the moment. I know I shouldn't but I do worry about what people might think of me. And what if I regret the move?

Any help would be really appreciated - if anybody has experience of transferring or any advice about Royal Holloway that'd be great too. Thanks in advance!

hey,

I'm kind of going through the same thing actually haha. I'm at UoN but I want to transfer to King's because I live in central london and want to be closer to home. But for me I'm in my second year and in sep I would be going into my 3rd and final year whereas if I transferred I would have to go back into my second year + 3rd year all over again.

I know rationally it makes so much more sense to stick with Nottingham and graduate from there, and then for postgrad study apply to a London uni if I want to but I feel this overwhelming sense of like I need to move. I don't know if that's a side effect of being at uni during the pandemic though.

All of that aside, for you its a bit of a different situation. Objectively, both are good universities but Birmingham is better, maybe transferring to RH would have an impact on your employability prospects? Also consider moving unis during a pandemic i.e. you're probably going to find it difficult to make friends just because of restrictions etc its difficult to meet people. But personally I think if its not going to affect when you graduate if you really really want to you should move, I don't know if I'm biased because I'm in a similar situation to you.

That sounds very similar to me, yeah! It sounds like a much harder decision for you though - I wonder if what Mikey said about choosing between head and heart applies to you at all as well?

And I know what you mean, I have wondered whether me feeling this is maybe just down to the pandemic, too. But even when I look back over first year before the virus was a thing, there were still times I desperately wanted to be at home and couldn't be - there was one facetime with my parents during reading week where I just broke down about this very same thing, ahaha. Even then I wondered if Birmingham was right for me, I think.

I have friends who already go to RH, so I'm hoping making new ones won't be too hard - but you never really know with the virus I guess. In terms of employability I'm looking into teaching, so I have definitely wondered whether having a RG degree will make much difference since teachers are so in demand atm!

I'm not 100% set until I get an offer from RH but I'm leaning towards transferring atm. I guess I've just been so unhappy at Birmingham that I want to take any chance I can to change that. And I really do get that overwhelming need to move you mention!

Yeah I felt the same way as you pre-pandemic too. I'm not sure about you though, I personally don't cope well with change so I think that's why I struggled with uni in first year. I had really high expectations and when uni didn't meet those I felt deflated, so I'm not sure for me whether its worth transferring to kings bc I'd probably end up regretting it.

I do think maybe you should consider the whole reputation thing though, you wouldn't want to move to RHUL and then regret leaving a more 'prestigious' uni, whatever prestige really means.

Yeah I felt the same way as you pre-pandemic too. I'm not sure about you though, I personally don't cope well with change so I think that's why I struggled with uni in first year. I had really high expectations and when uni didn't meet those I felt deflated, so I'm not sure for me whether its worth transferring to kings bc I'd probably end up regretting it.

I do think maybe you should consider the whole reputation thing though, you wouldn't want to move to RHUL and then regret leaving a more 'prestigious' uni, whatever prestige really means.

You're right, it's worth thinking about for sure

As in from Birmingham? He lives just outside of London so currently it's quite a long journey - 4 hours door to door maybe? He would be about an hour and a half from Royal Holloway.

Just get to the point. How far away is he from your current university? How far away is he from the university you plan to go to. I do not care which university you go to or which one you plan to go to.

hello5789,

Why redo a second year? Will transferring allow you to wipe the marks clear if you had bad marks in 2nd year at your current university?

Hey,

I'm wondering whether there are any updates on this situation? Just because I'm now seriously considering transferring and redoing my second year, so I have a few questions? Does your current university know about the whole thing?

Hi. I'm currently still waiting for an offer from Royal Holloway. Because of this I haven't informed my current uni of anything yet - apart from my personal tutor who wrote my reference for UCAS - and probably won't until I know I'll be transferring. Sorry that's probably not very helpful info!

No that is helpful thanks. I'm thinking of transferring to kings, but the information online is a bit unhelpful. It says to contact the admin office and when I did, they told me to check the student self-service portal thing. So basically now I'm unsure of whether to just add KCL as a choice in UCAS or whether to contact the department directly that I want to transfer to? What did you do?

yeah partly but also i'm really unhappy with my current uni. They've changed everything to 100% coursework but they're not setting us any essays before the real coursework is due in, so we can't get feedback until we hand the real thing in, by which point its too late and that coursework mark is on my degree transcript.