<p>Applied and Accepted: COLGATE</p>
<p>There you go, ayudell, someplace other than the ivies :)</p>
<p>go to broooowwwwwnnn...it's where all the cool kids go. cha. </p>
<p>my update
accepted: brown, swarthmore, penn, puget sound, vassar
defered (never heard back...odd): wash U
rejected: pomona, yale, tufts, oberlin</p>
<p>going: brown :P</p>
<p>hey guys...after how many years of college did you decide to transfer?i just graduated from high school and am looking to transfer in a year or two (one year if its possible)...all of you guys got into many top notch schools...i was wondering if i could get any advice from any of you...thank you</p>
<p>Yes. what type of advice are you looking for (im me, NapoleonInRaggss. Caution: I'm hard to get ahold of, not because I hate you, but because I'm usually sleeping while still logged on or something silly). </p>
<p>I kind of entered college knowing I wanted to transfer, as it seems you are doing as well. So on that note, I need to give you some very important advice. ENTER YOUR SCHOOL WITH AN OPEN MIND AND RECOGNIZE THE POSSIBILITY YOU JUST MIGHT LOVE IT THERE! Remember, this is one year of your college expereience adn you don't want to throw it away! You want it to be good, even if you're not at the place you really would like to be. Approach everything as if you do not want to transfer. Now, I obviously don't mean scrap your schoolwork. Focus on it like the devil -- but think of it as doing it because you are a self motivated person who likes to succeed, not so you can get into standford. It will help your peace of mind considerably. Also, don't shut yourself off from your school. Make friends, meet teachers, get involved, and fordge relationships with peers and faculty. This will a. help you transfer, and b. make your year not suck. </p>
<p>I tried to do this as much as possible, but in retrospect, I wish I had done it even more. Don't (i mean don't) wallow in self pity that you're not where you want to be because it will only paralyze you (i don't know if this applies to you, but it certainly applied to me in the past so I want to pass on the advice). </p>
<p>As for advice on your applications, follow some of these tips: </p>
<p>I applied to college 3 times (long story). The first two times, I never really "got it right" for one reason or another -- I never got my act together to make my applications emmaculate or had the forsight to know what I needed to put in there. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Make your application emmaculate.
A. TYPE IT. Download Adobe Acrobat from I2hub (I didn't just say that) or borrow it from a friend. It's amazing the difference it makes in the presentation of YOURSELF through your application. Because that's what it is, really
B. Edit 500 times. Leave no leaf unturned. I basically shut myself in my dorm room for february and march to make my applications exactly how I wanted them. This a. sucked (I spent my bday pulling an all nighter to finish my apps), but b. made a difference. However, if you follow the next time honored piece of advice, you might not have to do this...</p></li>
<li><p>START EARLY.
A. Start thinking about who can write your recs from day 1 and make relationships with them. This also serves the purpose of what I was talking about before, and that is to fordge relationships that will make your year enjoyable. Talk to them during office hours, raise your hand in class, find things you have in common. In short, be the good, proactive, involved, and relationship seeking student you know you are. Do it for yourself as much as you are doing it so you can transfer. That's merely your ulterior motive. Make sure you are doing it sincerely, not for transfer purposes, or you will come accross as fake and will have achieved little for either goal of transferring or building relationships in their own right.
B. Start thinking about your essays early. Every time you get a flash of inspiration about something that might make a good topic, or a catchy intro sentance, or something clever about yourself or an idea, WRITE IT DOWN. Then see what else flows. Revisit your ideas often. </p></li>
<li><p>Get one of those corny "how to build a good application" books. They really do help! They give little pointers that make a difference in the presentation of your app, which, is frankly, everything. I reccomend "HOw to get into Harvard" or something like that. It really helped! I don't think its still in print but you can find it used on Amazon. I had been meanign to get this book for years, but never got around to it. Once I got my act together (see above -- that whole thing about having your **** together), I found it really helpful. </p></li>
<li><p>Think of this as your last chance (I mean, do you really want to go through tihs AGAIN?). This isn't to freak you out, but to motivate you. So, make everything just how you want it. Don't be afraid to send it important supplementary info about yourself or that kind of thing. Show every part of who you are and why you should (not deserve to though) be offered admission.</p></li>
<li><p>(caution: this is my personal philosophy; some disagree. who knows if it helps or hurts, in the end, but i firmly believe it does!!! Only when I did this did I get into lots of great schools). SHOW EVERY PART OF WHO YOU ARE. Make this YOUR application. Sit down and write down/decide what all you want to include in your application, namely, what makes you a unique and intelligent person worthy of admission. If your EC's are very important to you, make sure you include them even if the app doesn't ask for them. Yale doens't, but I attatched a sheet with my EC's anyways. Granted, I didn't get into Yale, but I think that them not knowing my EC accomplishments would be far more detrimental than me "bending the rules." And anywhere else there isn't room for you to explain your accomplisments or to include something about yourself, make room. Send in extra sheets of paper that say "extra information" or "addendum to xyz" If there was something that affected your school performance like an illness they wouldn't know about, write a small letter explaining it (in a very dignified way). If you are a great artist, send it a portfolio, even if it isn't requested. If you did some great science project one summer and wrote a book about it, send it in! If on paper, your sports camp looks merely like little league when it's in fact the olympics, write a footnote THAT SAYS SO!! </p></li>
</ol>
<p>IMPORTANT NOTE: Do all this stuff, but WITHIN THE SCHOOLS GUIDELINES. In other words, if they EXPRESSLY ask you not to send in extra stuff (as I think stanford may), then don't. But if they don't say that, then...I say its an open ball game. And dont' send in bs. Only send in important stuff of substance. Seek advice from people on this one. Ask if they think its important or unnecessary (but ultimately, follow your gut on whether its important. You're the one who knows who you are :) </p>
<ol>
<li>DON'T LISTEN TO THE DETRACTORS IN YOUR LIFE OR THAT LITTLE NEGATIVE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD THAT SAYS YOU CAN'T DO IT. YOU CAN! AND YOU WILL!!!! Have confidence. Acknowledge the fact that there is a chance you wont' get in, because that's life and ultimately the decision is not yours. But once you've recognized that, put it on the bakc burner dnd forget about it. You have the drive, the qualifications, and the ability to do it. I knwo you can and I don't even know you. But most importantly, make sure YOU KNOW YOU CAN! Confidence is everything. A confident person is a motivated person. A self defeating person is setting themselves up for a self fufilling proficy of failure. No fun! </li>
</ol>
<p>(a personal aside:)
I endured endless phonecalls from my sister telling me that I was never going to get the 3.7 i needed. That I needed to give up on this stupid Brown dream and move on with my life. I endured a year of my parents telling me I wasn't smart enough to get in. I will enroll in Brown as a part of the class of 2008 in less than a month. <em>tears of joy</em></p>
<p>Now, it turned out my parents were merely "trying to help me not get dissapointed when I didnt' get in" because, as we both knew, there was certainly that chaance. What it ended up doing was crushing my confidence and paralyzing me. Confidence is KEY. If you find someone in your life doing this to you a. don't take it to heart, and b. talk to them about it, ask them what they are really trying to say to you, and tell them to stop. Turns out, my parents had every confidence in me, but were so desperately worried my world would fall apart again if I again got rejected, they tried to prepare me for it by telling me it wouldn't/couldnt happen. But all that came accross to me was that I had no support and that I coudln't get in, sapping my drive and crushing my confidence. This could have all been prevented if our lines of communication were open. </p>
<p>In short, tell the people in your life that you a. know there is a chance you might not get in and don't need to be reminded, and b. you need their support more than anything. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>BE A COLLEGE STUDENT. Have fun! Allow yourself to be a stupid freshman. Go to bars and parties! Go rockclimibing! Join activist clubs! Theater groups! Make friends! Explore! Get into your school! Allow yourself to be active and happy. Happy people write better essays :)</p></li>
<li><p>No your top choice schools inside and out. I knew my brown backwards, forwards, sideways, and down the middle. You obvioiusly can't do this with every school you apply to. So, for the most important ones, do A LOT of research, adn for the less important ones, do some. This is really important for the "why do you want to transfer" essays. You need to show that you know enough about the school to show why you know you are a great match. Like personally, I had been following the neuro department at Brown a lot, so I knew about their recent discoveries and NIH connections and could talk about them. I knew about the neuro dept.'s especially flexible curriculum (you basically design it entirely on your own!!!) and could compare that to my school's more regimented curriculum and explain why Brown's suited me better. comparing and contrasting your school and theirs is very important in those essays. But make sure you do it in a sincere way, and aren't just spewing facts to show you know them. If you walk away from writing your "why our college" essay thinking OMG I WANT TO GO HERE (even if you didn't think so before) then you know you've done good job, because that's what the adcom will think too.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Depending on the number of schools you applied to (I applied to 10!),. that's a lot of essays to write. So come up with a "formula essay" in which you have a section that remains the same for all schools, e.g. one that describes a college experience, and then a "formulated" section that explains why you want to go to x school. Then for each individual essay, adapt that second portion to the school in question. Like, first you have the paragraph about your academic interests, and how that school meets them, then the one about what you are looking for in a school and why that shcool fits those needs, then one about why that school has thigns you are looking for that your current school doesn't have, etc. Keep the underlying theme througout about how their school fits you better in each aspecet you discuss than your cucrrent school. Compare and contrast aspects of the two schools. This is where your research comes in hardcore.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>I hope that helped and wasn't too painfully long or vauge. You're welcome to ask me questiosn if there's anything upon which you need clarification (i don't always write clearly on these forums). I unfortuneatly don't still have my essays because my computer crashed, or I would gladly share them. </p>
<p>what other advice are you looking for? where are you going, what do you intend to major in, and where would you like to apply to transfer?</p>
<p>Cheers,
Rachel</p>
<p>THANK YOU so much ClaySoul. I'm planning to attend a local university for two years, and (hopefully) transfer to Cornell CAS (majoring physics and, possibly, philosophy). </p>
<p>One thing I didn't catch was the Adobe Acrobat thing. What do you mean by that?</p>
<p>Also, what else did you have other than your grades? Volunteer work and EC's? See, I'd love to get involved, but I don't know what I should concentrate on. Should I just join clubs I like and find places to volunteer? Is that basically all?</p>
<p>You know how you can download the transfer app forms using adobe reader from online and print them and send them in? Welll adobe acrobat lets you type on those forms!! So you can print out already filled out forms!! It's swank. </p>
<p>I got involved with a fair amount of clubs on campus, and did some interesting stuff. I went with teh Green club on a trip to the everglades to do restoration work over spring break, played rugby, was involved in a women's studies/activism club, dodgeball, ceramics, glass blowing, and a couple other things I was like half a member of (i.e. went to meetings sometimes) My college ec's were nothing compared to my high school ec's, which were insane, but were i think enough. I also got help from that book I was talking about on how to best present them. (can give you details if you like!) </p>
<p>So yeah, just find some clubs and volunteer activities (or whatever it is that interests you) and get involved! That will look good on the app and improve your college experience, which, to beat this point into a bloody pulp, is so important. </p>
<p>I also had 2 very good supplementary recs adn I'm presuming very good recs fom my professors. I also feel I wrote 2 very good essays. My transfer essay started out talking about Zydeco dancing. I figure I must have been the only kid out there who wrote their essay about zydeco dancing!! </p>
<p>Another thing I didn't mention, and will get into more detail about in a subsequent post, is (especially at brown since that was my first choice) that I made a a lot of contacts with the admin folk. For example, I had been waitlisted the year before, so I emailed mmy admin officer and reintroducedmyself, said I was attending tulane but still veyr interested in brown and considering transferring and asked her to tell me about the process and stuff. Little stuff like that gives you name recognition, which helps. If they know who you are, then, you've got a huge boost.</p>
<p>Excellent posts. They should be stickied.</p>
<p>Wow! It seems like you did quite a bit. I attended high school in a rather provincial town, and because of that all my volunteer work and EC's have been mostly nonsense; it really sucks. I hope I can get into some stuff this fall!</p>
<p>Also, how much will it hurt if I didn't play any sports or a musical instrument in HS? Is there anybody else here like me? :(</p>
<p>i certainly didn't play a musical instrument! I did sports. But there are all SORTS of ways to get involved and do EC stuff! Sports and instruments arent' a criteria for admissioin; involvemnt and dedication is.</p>
<p>thanks for all the help claysoul...you are truly one of the best CCers i know...how many years did you spend at your previous university before transferring?</p>
<p>heheh, thanks. </p>
<p>I was just at tulane for 1 year</p>
<p>Great Advice Claysoul!
Thought it took me two years in college to get it right. I had a horrible Highschool record and I had to spend two years at UIUC before transferring. And I'm glad I stayed the extra year, I know I've made some lifelong friends, and have had a blast, it's an amazing school partywise, but the academic challenge and opportunity just wasn't there for me.</p>
<p>Plus, I don't know about this, but is it true that the more you apply to a school, the better your chances get? For example, the first two times I applied, I was rejected by Brown, Cornell, UPenn, & Harvard,, but the third time all took me in.</p>
<p>BTW: what's the big deal about the book "How to get into Harvard"?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Plus, I don't know about this, but is it true that the more you apply to a school, the better your chances get? For example, the first two times I applied, I was rejected by Brown, Cornell, UPenn, & Harvard,, but the third time all took me in.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would not say that it provides a significant benefit. Since colleges are yield-oriented, it does provide reassurance since it shows that you wish to attend. I suppose it will help an applicant who possesses the mean stats in that it distinguishes one from the rest, and it may even help borderline applicants.</p>
<p>I just found the "how to get into harvard" book to be paticularly helpful. it's a lot different from most of hte books out there.</p>
<p>claysoul i got a couple more questions for you...i am looking to transfer to WUSTL, UVA, NYU, BU, UCLA, or USC (basically the schools that have a good academic prestige and a nice social scene-->i need to be in a school where there are parties every week)...the problem is my high school grades were not that great because of a medical condition i had (if you would like to know more about this then private message me) and another problem i have is that i did not take the SAT...i took the PSAT but i dont even know if i did good or bad on it...do these unis look at my high school grades and SAT scores if im going to transfer in a year or two?(i want to transfer in a year)</p>
<p>For those schools, it's a good idea to have a HS GPA and college GPA of 3.0 or better and decent SAT scores. I would take the SATs this coming fall if you're looking to apply in the spring for next fall's transfer class. If you're cutting the HS GPA close and determine to apply for next year, then I would somehow incorporate your medical condition (like your GC's letter of rec) into your application without making it look like an excuse, especially if your college GPA is stronger.</p>
<p>I have to echo ClaySoul's advice on knowing the school inside out- I knew Colgate so well that I didn't even need to read my new student manual! I was very specific in my "Why Transfer" essay by pointing out the departments' unique characteristics and classes. Somehow, they just knew that I totally wanted to be there.</p>
<p>Applying for transfer is just incredible- you're so much more mature and smarter this time around on how to get what you want. You know what you're looking for in a college in terms of specifics and can address that in your essay. A lot of times, high school seniors, even those who have their plans set in stone, don't know exactly what they're looking for because they haven't experienced it yet. This is usually the reason why transfer students are usually some of the campus' happiest students and the most pleasant to be around. I don't remember feeling this excited for my last college a year ago when I was getting ready to pack.... now, I'm like, ahhh!!! three years! I only have three years! I can't wait to get there so my time isn't wasted! :D</p>
<p>Yeah, true dat. I had such specific critera, I had a really hard time finding schools that met them. I had an even worse time picking which criteron was more important to me. But during my first year in college, I decided which things really were more important to me and was able to find both find a college that suited me better and find more colleges to apply to in general. I gave myself more options by actually knowing what I wanted.</p>
<p>what college did you attend before applying to this school and what was your GPA</p>
<p>nayab, who are you asking?</p>