Arafin says he's happy he transferred. But he says he still doesn't always feel fully part of the Harvard community.
"Once you're here, you ask yourself, 'Where else would I want to be?'" says the Currier House resident. "But maybe I'm still missing that Crimson spirit. Somehow people with fierce Crimson pride can be a little dismissive of transfer students.
"They somehow feel cheated. They think we couldn't get in through the front door, so we came in through the back, taking someone else's place," he says.
After a few months on campus, most transfers feel they have found their niche. And they've learned that there's place for everyone.
"I tended to think that there was only one type of Harvard student--upper-middle-class and on their way to an MBA," says Hickey, who visited his old school over intersession. "But there is no typical Harvard student. That's where I was wrong."
"It's been great."