4.0 Community college student unsure where to apply

[transferhopeful0133]

@aquapt

What are you planning to major in?

Notre Dame, BC, and Colorado College all have transfer acceptance rates that are higher than their first-year acceptance rates. It doesn’t hurt to lob some apps at schools you’re particularly interested in. The question is, what’s more important - getting into the reachiest school possible, even if you have to put in another year at CC to have a beefier college record under your belt? Or is it more important to transfer sooner as long as you can get into a good school with good financial aid?

The worst targets are schools that are high-reaches and also take very few transfers. Some schools may or may not take any transfers in a given year. Those apps aren’t a great return on investment unless you have a particular burning interest in that school even though it’s a super long shot.

The better reach targets are those that admit transfer students in relatively high numbers (which in addition to improving your chances can also give you a nice social cohort when you arrive). This would include Cornell and USC ( https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-usc-transfers-20170605-story.html ), Emory, Tufts, Vanderbilt, and Wesleyan, as well as the ones you mentioned. BUT, these are all schools where you chances may be a lot better as a junior transfer than applying now, with just one (admittedly excellent, congrats) college semester on your transcript.

On the other hand, there are excellent but not-quite-as-high-reach schools that still meet full need. Examples from the most recent Common Data Sets: St. Olaf accepted almost 51 out of 109 transfer apps received, and enrolled 25. University of Richmond accepted 122 of 284 transfer applicants and enrolled 97. Both are full-need-met schools that could be good targets (insofar as I can say without knowing anything about your interests), although they’re still reaches because your high school stats were in the bottom quartile for accepted students. And the downside of the full-need-met schools that aren’t super-elite is that they tend to be need-aware, which makes it harder to get in with high need. (Richmond is need-blind for first-year applicants but need-aware for transfers.)

If you’re sufficiently low-income to qualify for Berea College, that could be a great target - the college does not charge tuition; students work on campus to cover their living expenses, and everybody’s in the same boat. The alumni network is amazing, which helps students to get internships and jobs all over the country. Most recently they admitted 56 transfers of 101 who applied, and 48 attended. (The high yield tells you what a great opportunity it is.) And further, your high school stats are right around median for Berea, so you wouldn’t be relying on one semester of community college to “level up” your admissions prospects.

Overall I suspect that your transfer prospects will be better a year from now… but if you did qualify for Berea, that could definitely be something to pursue. They have this questionnaire to determine whether you qualify financially: Berea College - Quick Estimator - Net Price Calculator

English major. Honestly, yes, getting into a reachy school is important to me because many of these schools meet 100% demonstrated need (even for transfers, in most cases), which would end up being MUCH cheaper than the ~15-20k/year state colleges would cost me. Most state schools simply don’t have any decent transfers scholarships. Most are only around 2 or 3k a year with a 3.5 GPA as the cutoff. I simply feel my 4.0 could be put to better use. I’ve been through many of the net price calculators at these reach schools and they estimate my net costs/ year at under 10k a year. The difficulty is getting in, obviously. I will absolutely be looking into the colleges that you mentioned, so thanks for that.

This leads me to another question: Is an SAT retake a good idea? I’m currently sitting at a 1250 (750 english 500 math) and I firmly believe I could get it much closer to a 1500. Obviously this would involve waiting an extra semester to apply, but if it’s worth it then…

To be clear, the 18 credit hours was over two semesters and I am taking a full load of spring courses. Most of these colleges require me to submit a college report of my spring semester, which includes grades, so it seems to me that they will have a pretty good idea of my performance across 27 total credit hours. To be honest, these community college classes are criminally easy so there is no way my 4.0 gets touched.

In terms of Berea college, I had no idea this existed and look forward to applying.