DEFINITELY. I totally agree. If you've seen the comments pickamuffin has been leaving on my transfer-related posts...she's like, "Dude, it doesn't MATTER where you are, what matters is what you're willing to bring to it and the kind of experience you insist on making it for yourself." Which is...well, I think it probably DOES matter where I am, to some extent, but probably less than I think right now. And I TOTALLY think you're right, making a positive choice to be somewhere does a LOT for wanting to invest in making that situation work out.

It's why I'm afraid of the scenario where I don't get in to Stanford and end up staying at Yale...I will have to work pretty hard on not liking it less than I did before I started thinking about transferring.