@CC12342021 I applied to Stanford and Cornell through the Common app!
@mjr2013 Super helpful, thanks! And thanks for being active on this thread, really appreciate it 
Happy to be of assistance!
The freshmen over in regular decisions heard back today. We’re up next on the ride!
Does anyone know if there’s a financial aid portal as well? Searched for one, but nothing. I just wanted to make sure they received all of my financial aid documents.
@AGoodFloridian I don’t believe there is, but I want to say I emailed and confirmed.
How important are SAT scores on transfer application?
Is the college report necessary if you are no longer attending university (i.e: taking a gap year?) It’s missing from my application.
Do you guys think that Stanford will still accept my TOEFL score? I still haven’t taken it yet because I had an issue providing a valid ID. My passport expired and didn’t have my permanent residence card at the time. I got turned away on the test date. I will be taking the test this Saturday. I don’t think Stanford will consider this score, or will they?
I took the March SAT and got even lower scores than my previous ones. Ugh, wish I was more prepared… I seem to always have problem with standardized tests…
I have very strong LOR from my high school counselor who knows me very well. She wrote about my academic achievements, how I challenged myself to take the most rigorous courses in high school when I can barely speak English, and my personal strength, how I managed to work 7 hours every day since middle school. My second LOR is from my current math professor. I’m doing great in her class (top 5% of the class), but she doesn’t know me very well(large lecture with about 600 kids).
My SAT’s are bad:
Math: 710
English: a smiley face. LOL ( I have to take TOEFL to compensate this bad score)
SAT II:
Math II: 750
Chemistry: 700
My essays are pretty compelling. I talked about my work experience(7 years working in the restaurant) and how it inspired me to pursue my major in mechanical engineering. I think I conveyed my passion pretty well. My dream is to create and design machinery that will allow small business to become more efficient through the reduction of labor work. Currently working on a claw machine on my own, I got this idea from a repetitive task I used to do at work. Not sure if this service as a good reason to transfer but my current university doesn’t offer much opportunities for my major. (top 10 public university)
High School GPA: 3.94 (had all A’s but something happened to my family during last semester of senior year, so I received 2 C’s. I explained it in my essay, hopefully they won’t count against me significantly)
Current GPA: 3.64 (picked a wrong class that didn’t count towards my major or anything… I must had been drunk when I picked the class. Got a B- in the class, Ahhh it wrecked my GPA!) but I didn’t shy away from it, I’m taking a similar class this semester and doing well in the class. This one counts for my major. Lol)
Major GPA: 3.90 (only one A- in chemistry)
My current grades(Spring semester ) are all A’s, I sent Stanford my mid-term report. Don’t know if they will even add it to my file.
Sooooo, what are my chances?? [Just want to be mentally prepared for the rejection:( ]
@littlepuppy503 the further you are removed from taking the SAT the less it means. If you’re 30, and took the SAT when you were 16, it will hold extremely little (if any) bearing. Of course, if you’re 18/19, and applying a semester into college, it will hold quite a lot of bearing.
@QrtyUiop My gut says that won’t matter. They’ll likely contact you if they want you to do something with it.
@littlepuppy503 If you’re referencing the TOEFL elsewhere in your application (which it sounds like you are), I would recommend sending it when you receive it.
This is my first post on CC! I created an account to thank mjr2013. Your comments on past threads, such as last year’s Stanford and Vanderbilt transfer threads, have helped me immensely. Congratulations on your acceptance! It is also very kind of you to spend time on this forum to help us with our pre-decision anxieties as you are surely quite busy with your coursework at Stanford. Thanks again. I, for one, have imagined opening an acceptance letter a thousand times (as I’m sure many of us have fantasized) and I’m glad that you got to live that experience. Unfortunately, I’ve also imagined opening a letter with the opposite decision many times! As a returning student, I have to say, cudos to the younger people who have withstood the application process a couple times now. It’s tough!
I am applying to Stanford as a transfer student from a community college in Minnesota. It is my first choice by a wide margin. Good luck to everyone!
@mjr2013 thank you for the reply!
@mjr2013 That’s what I was thinking. It’s just such a redundant thing in my opinion, and only certain schools want them. Still, hoping it doesn’t hurt my app.
@Doubleblind I’m happy to help!!
I can remember going through it all, multiple times, and how crazy it all was. This site can be purely anxiety enducing, when you have people effectively telling you you’re a terrible candidate with a 37 ACT and 1700 SAT, because you weren’t able to effectively cure cancer, but only treat it by 18. 
OTOH, the site can be an invaluable tool, particularly for first gen/low income students, who plainly don’t have the resources to get the help they need, and questions they have answered, but can create an account by and go on CC.
Tl;dr keep the questions coming and good luck to all!!
Was there a section on the application that we could put scholastic distinctions that we have won in the past?
I realized I completely forgot to include some of my big awards I have accomplished in high school. Should I contact Stanford and ask to include them?
mjr2013, here’s a question for you or anyone else who has insight on this: How transferable are credits and courses (perhaps two different questions) from community colleges? I honestly would be happy either way - I’m just curious. I figure either I get lots of credit for the courses I’ve done and stay on track (yay) or I get less credit and get to become even more familiar with the foundational material I’ve already been exposed to (double yay, since I want to be really good at what I do in the end). In the latter case, I’d also get significantly more review time for the MCAT and get to spend a little more time at Stanford - cool with me! That said, I am proud of my cc’s academics so I believe they should transfer. Thoughts?
@littlepuppy503 In general, accolades won at the high school level aren’t as valued anymore once you’re in college, and applying for transfer. Very much so a “what have you done for me lately” mantra. I wouldn’t worry yourself over it too much, but you could email them if you’re worried.
@Doubleblind Stanford was awesome about transferring courses. Only one of my courses didn’t transfer, and it was a math course below calculus. Everything else I took was converted to units (for the quarter system) and applied to my transcript. It would have been 102 for me, but the max is 90, so I got the max 90. For comparison, the University of Michigan was only going to give me about 50 (on a semester system), barely enough to qualify as a junior. Stanford was all about giving me almost everything, and I qualified as a full fledged junior coming in.
With that said, it sounds great, but one thing that’s run into is that the 90 units (or however many are transferred) don’t actually mean that much. Stanford requires 180 units as one requisite to graduate, and the units you transfer count towards that, which is helpful. But in terms of whatever major you plan to declare (another requisite to graduate, for me psychology since I switched), the 70 units of psych I need haven’t been impacted at all. The units transfer as just bulk units, not specific courses. Most majors are very, very picky about what specific courses can transfer, and for me it doesn’t look like many (if any) will for psych to assist in the psych major requirements.
Whereas a “traditional” junior here would have ~90 units, it’s likely at least some of these would be in their field of study, to help towards their major. With a transfer, none of these will be in their field of study (even if they were at the previous college), which is why most transfers here take closer to three years to complete their degree, even if technically speaking from a units standpoint, it should only take two.
Let me know if this answers your question!
@Doubleblind Save your old transcripts is the takeaway - I was able to get tons of intro course credits when I transferred in back in 2013, but as mjr2013 has alluded to the upper division courses are much harder to gain credit for. Stanford has a broad set of required courses along with major requirements and I had the majority of these “gen-ed” requirements fulfilled by walking around department to department and getting credit for past classes like intro bio, intro chem, english lit, calculus etc – Save Old Transcripts - IIRC Penn had a similar policy of reviewing old transcripts and granting credit for a particular course at the dept level