Drawbacks of Transferring?

[MayWakyu]

Hey!

 

I am thinking of transferring to a school closer to home and was wondering if there are any drawbacks related to academics—i.e. will your GPA get transferred to the new school, will you be nominated for different awards at the new school, etc. 
 

Anyone have any experience with transferring and still winning academic awards at the school to which you transferred? 
 

All answers are appreciated!

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

29 minutes ago, JohnAppleseed said:

Anyone have any experience with transferring and still winning academic awards at the school to which you transferred? 

If this is a concern, you should probably reach out to the school you are currently attending and ask. It’s unlikely there’s a standard answer from each school, although most schools seem to give awards before a transfer decision would be made.

You will almost certainly be forgoing any merit based scholarships from either school. The new school also won’t be giving you any awards, since you didn't attend any classes there. 

That said, you’re not terribly likely to be winning any course prizes anyways, so this shouldn’t be a major concern. 

[Avatar Aang]

It is better to be top of the class in law school than average or above average, even if you transferred to a better law school. As an example, I've seen students with grades that may have got them a medal upon graduation at Western, Queen's, and Ottawa transfer to U of T and Osgoode. They may still perform very well, but will not win any major course prizes or medals. I think they would have been better off just staying at the school they were at. 

So think about what you would gain from the transfer. OCIs take place in 2L where employers would only have your 1L grades. They may group you with your transfer school still, as opposed to the school you attended in 1L which may mean increased competition if there are better candidates at your transfer school. If the school you are transferring to is a higher ranked school with more competitive admissions requirements, then chances are that you may not be the academic superstar that you were at your previous school. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

@Avatar Aang

I’m all for saying Osgoode students are smarter than Western students, but I don’t think it’s correct to say a potential medallist from Queens wouldn’t pick up a course prize or two during their upper years if they transferred. 

[Diplock]

41 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

It is better to be top of the class in law school than average or above average, even if you transferred to a better law school. As an example, I've seen students with grades that may have got them a medal upon graduation at Western, Queen's, and Ottawa transfer to U of T and Osgoode. They may still perform very well, but will not win any major course prizes or medals. I think they would have been better off just staying at the school they were at. 

So think about what you would gain from the transfer. OCIs take place in 2L where employers would only have your 1L grades. They may group you with your transfer school still, as opposed to the school you attended in 1L which may mean increased competition if there are better candidates at your transfer school. If the school you are transferring to is a higher ranked school with more competitive admissions requirements, then chances are that you may not be the academic superstar that you were at your previous school. 

Reasoning of this nature is essentially a form of game theory, which incorporates two assumptions. First, that students in law school can and should try to work the system in a way that they appear better than they actually are relative to all students in all law schools. And second, that students in law school can do this successfully enough that they actually out-game, and deceive, other people who are motivated to try to identify the best students in all law schools - notably legal employers.

I consider the first assumption to be dubious. I consider the second assumption to be so obviously ridiculous that anyone believing it really needs to check themselves. Game theory rests on a basic premise - that you can operate with better information than the people you seek to out-game. Legal employers are very aware of the relative strength of different law schools, what a particular award or distinction means or doesn't mean, etc. They are highly motivated to understand these things because they do want to recruit the best, and they have decades of experience doing this. To imagine you're going to confuse them - either accidentally or deliberately - by changing the immediate pool of students you are surrounded by is frankly pretty dumb.

[Avatar Aang]

54 minutes ago, Diplock said:

Reasoning of this nature is essentially a form of game theory, which incorporates two assumptions. First, that students in law school can and should try to work the system in a way that they appear better than they actually are relative to all students in all law schools. And second, that students in law school can do this successfully enough that they actually out-game, and deceive, other people who are motivated to try to identify the best students in all law schools - notably legal employers.

I consider the first assumption to be dubious. I consider the second assumption to be so obviously ridiculous that anyone believing it really needs to check themselves. Game theory rests on a basic premise - that you can operate with better information than the people you seek to out-game. Legal employers are very aware of the relative strength of different law schools, what a particular award or distinction means or doesn't mean, etc. They are highly motivated to understand these things because they do want to recruit the best, and they have decades of experience doing this. To imagine you're going to confuse them - either accidentally or deliberately - by changing the immediate pool of students you are surrounded by is frankly pretty dumb.

You would know better than me but I don't think you can group all legal employers as knowing the difference between a medalist/top 10% ranking at a lower ranked school, versus being average/above average at a higher ranked school. OP asked about drawbacks to transferring and this is one that I've anecdotally seen with a few people. It didn't matter to the Windsor grads that transferred to Queen's or Osgoode, but it may matter to the Queen's Gold Scholar that transfers to U of T or Osgoode - because Queen's is already a renowned school and I'm not sure if this transfer is worth the effort. 

1 hour ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

@Avatar Aang

I’m all for saying Osgoode students are smarter than Western students, but I don’t think it’s correct to say a potential medallist from Queens wouldn’t pick up a course prize or two during their upper years if they transferred. 

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/clive-ewan-7a35a062 

He did get two course prizes at U of T, but I wonder if there are examples of people who made a transfer like this and didn't perform as well. By the way, I think his career is fantastic and profile is quite strong. I am just wondering whether there are people who did perform top of their class at Windsor, Ottawa, Queen's, Western, TRU, etc. that transferred to  U of T, UBC, Osgoode, etc. and didn't perform as well. 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Avatar Aang

[luckycharm]

18 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

If this is a concern, you should probably reach out to the school you are currently attending and ask. It’s unlikely there’s a standard answer from each school, although most schools seem to give awards before a transfer decision would be made.

You will almost certainly be forgoing any merit based scholarships from either school. The new school also won’t be giving you any awards, since you didn't attend any classes there. 

That said, you’re not terribly likely to be winning any course prizes anyways, so this shouldn’t be a major concern. 

I transferred to OZ and won a few course awards. 

[MapleLeafs]

I think it's fair to say the average law student is smarter at Osgoode/U of T than Western/Ottawa/Queens. Getting top grades at the former is at the very least slightly more difficult than the latter. 

[LMP]

22 minutes ago, luckycharm said:

I transferred to OZ and won a few course awards. 

I don't think he's implying transfer students are less capable of winning awards. Rather I believe the point was that anyone is so unlikely to win that it shouldn't be a factor.