I know all about the stress of transferring and adjusting to a new school. When I began my undergraduate career, I wasn’t content with attending the state university that 83% of my classmates were enrolling in. Oh, no – I had to get away. So I enrolled in a small private school in London, England.

My freshman year was a blast– I was in a major city, surrounded by hot men with hotter accents, and I didn’t even need a fake ID. But eventually, reality sank in, and I opted to transfer back to the same state school that I’d once adamantly rejected in order to prevent graduating with student loans up the wazoo.

My first semester at the state university was miserable. I’d missed out on all of the freshman year bonding, got stuck with a lame random roommate, and when I did go out, it was because one of my high school friends was kind enough to let me tag along with her group. It was so bad that I took a semester off to figure out if I wanted to go through the transfer process again. I ended up going back to the state school, and – thankfully – things got better. In fact, college kicked some major ass.

So, having been on the Maybe-I-Should-Transfer fence and a member of the Transfer Students Association, I thought I’d share some pro’s and cons with anyone who isn’t quite sure that they are attending the right school.

Pro’s of Transferring:

You’ve already gotten a taste of college, so you might be able to make a better choice for yourself. Maybe you thought a big campus meant 10,000 new friends, but after failing a Stats lab where the TA didn’t even know you’re name, you’re opting for a smaller institution.

You might save money. I think more often than not, transfer students end up at a school that is more in their price range, rather than deciding to switch universities and take out a massive student loan. Maybe you started at a private, out-of-state school, but realize you can get just as good an education as an in-state student for a fraction of the cost.

You might end up closer to your friends and family. I’ve seen homesickness play a part in the big T many a time. I was definitely homesick when I first arrived in London, and there was no way to take a weekend trip home from across the pond. If you thought you were ready to spread your wings, only to realize you miss your hometown, there’s nothing wrong with applying to a closer school, whether it’s a mile from your parents’ house, or a reasonable drive.

You can start fresh. If your first semester was a disaster, You can make up for it. Sure, if you’re on academic probation, you probably won’t be invited into Harvard’s incoming class, but you can transfer to a community college and bring up your GPA while you look for a four-year school that will better suit you and your academic needs. Besides, a lot of transfer essays detail the reasons you did poorly, so your chances of admittance to a new school haven’t necessarily been shot. Once you’ve gotten a change of scenery, you can kick your old bad study habits (or whatever other bad habits you got into your first semester on your own) and focus on restarting your academic career.

Cons of Transferring:

You might lose credits…or more. I think only one of my 10 courses from England replaced the gen eds I needed at the state school. I took a junior/senior-level Shakespeare class a few blocks from the freakin’ Globe Theatre, and had to retake Shakespeare I. I was not happy. I also couldn’t transfer directly into my major, so I had to choose a new plan of study. While this worked out in the end, at the time, I was more than slightly pissed.

You’re the new kid. My high school friends had already made their own new college friends, so I was stuck living with a random roommate. Not only did our personalities clash, but the floor was full of her thirteen best friends, so even if I had wanted to hang out with her, she always had plans. Even after I (finally) made friends, I couldn’t participate in the “remember freshman year when…” stories.

You might get a culture shock. I went from living in a city where I could go clubbing every night or buy my own six pack and stay in to a small college town where packy runs had to be planned days in advance. The first time I borrowed a fake ID to go to the campus bar, I was stunned that this was a popular hangout.

Whether or not transferring is the right decision depends on the person. If you are miserable every day and cry yourself to sleep, it might be worth it to lose a few credits and start over. However, if you just broke up with your first college boyfriend and can’t bear to see him in lecture every Monday,Wednesday, and Friday for the rest of the semester, you can probably find it in yourself to stick it out. Though transferring schools is fairly common these days, in some ways it’s a bigger decision than choosing a “first” university.

Last week, I warned you that the grad school application process is quite a time consuming effort. Well guess what folks? You’re going to need to put ample time into choosing your prospective grad schools too! Sure, this might seem a bit obvious, but this columnist doesn’t always think things through.

For me, grad school was a roll of the dice, and six possible schools came up for me: Georgetown, Rutgers, Ohio State, North Carolina State, San Francisco State, and the school I eventually chose, hereafter refered to as X University.I chose these schools on a whim. Georgetown was my “reach,” and the closest I could get to Ivy League while maintaining a glimmer of hope for acceptance. Rutgers was relatively close to my hometown (by close I mean a 5 hour drive); Ohio State is a party school notorious for it’s tailgating parties (I swear, that’s why I applied- don’t judge); North Carolina State was an hour from my only other friend attending grad school; and San Francisco just seemed like a cool city to live in, as did the location of X University.

Rule number one in choosing grad school? Don’t be superficial when planning your future!

Take your time to research graduate programs across the country. If you want to focus on a particular location, check out as many schools in that region as you can. Take notes. Google the faculty. Check out some of the courses being offered, and find out what the plan of study entails. Many grad schools have student ambassadors that you can email to get a current students’ point of view on the program. Seriously, folks, exhaust the freaking websites. Scour them like you scour Perez Hilton.

In college, you have a lot of room to change your mind. Changed your major? No biggie. Transfer student? Piece of cake. On the five- or six-year plan? Join the club. Masters programs, on the other hand, are only two years long. Stretching out the plan of study can raise flags when you are applying for jobs or PhD programs, and not only is transferring schools relatively rare, you’re likely to lose the credits you’ve already earned. Having transferred schools and changed majors in undergrad, I can appreciate the trial-and-error aspect of college. In graduate school however, you’re in it for the long haul.

In the end, my final decision was between Georgetown and X University. Georgetown= awesome school. X University= tuition waiver. I reasoned that completing a M.A. in itself would be an accomplishment. Where I got the degree wasn’t that important right? Let’s just say I plan on framing my Georgetown acceptance letter and hanging it above my X University diploma. Oh, what could have been.

I realized I was at the wrong school during my first semester, when the homework for a required course consisted of blogging about our experience as graduate students each week. That’s what Myspace bulletins are for! Though my friends and I drank away our frustrations that fall, it wasn’t until the following semester that I realized I would give anything to transfer to Northeastern University, a school that hadn’t been picked up on my original radar, but that I thought was pretty much the perfect school for me. I was shit out of luck.

Make a list of you want to get out of your education. Trust me, you’re going to be working your butt off in grad school, so it might as well be worth it. Take your time looking at schools, my friends. A few extra hours of your time now is much more efficient than two years of your life at a school that isn’t right for you.

Remember when you were in high school and you began to hunt for a college? As if you weren’t having enough trouble balancing those AP classes and inevitable girl drama and all of a sudden – BAM – here come like 10,000 books/essays/magazines/guides/counselors bombarding you with information on choosing the right college.

• Do you want big or small?

• Liberal arts? Science? Big city? Small campus? Close to home? Great sports teams?

Some books had statistics. Others had tests to place you in the right “type” of school. Still others were filled with advice from the students who went there. But where was the guarantee that any of this research would put us in a school that we loved, that would get us where we wanted to in life, and that would ultimately be our perfect fit?

According to some research over at the New York Times, the guarantee doesn’t exist. And if we do happen to find that perfect place, all that crap we researched does nothing to guide us.

With thousands of colleges in the United States, the variety of experiences for soon-to-be college students is endless. Once you actually choose an institution, there are hundreds of groups, classes, and options to choose from; especially at a big school. So that means that basically anyone – from the tree hugger to the Marc Jacobs lover – can find happiness at any school.

Yes, choosing a college is a huge decision; it will impact the rest of our lives. But to spend so much time and money researching the best place to go is pointless. Because in the end, any school can be that best place for you. There is no way to know.

I chose to go to Michigan because I grew up in Michigan and I always heard what a great place it was. I never visited it or any other school; I just went. And I had the time of my life. No book would have predicted that I would have met the coolest people on my dorm hall the very first day. Or that my Saturdays pre-partying before football games would be some of the best memories I could ever have (with the aid of pictures, of course; those were some drunk Saturdays). Or that the debates I would have in my History classes would be the best learning I would ever do. Or that the combination of all those experiences would guide me down the path I am currently on as a grad.

And I am sure I could have found different reasons to feel just as strongly about the other 4 schools I got into. But I chose U of M and that just happened to become the school that was my perfect fit.

Knowing this is not going to stop people from researching potential colleges – we all have to get a little information before handing over all our parents’ money – but I do hope it will take a little stress out of your decision. Don’t over analyze; just enjoy yourself. And try to stick around for an extra year if you can. It ain’t so pretty on this side of graduation.