Amherst College Transfer Thread 2019-2020

@RainbowBritey How long do they give you to decide?

@Meddy Amherst’s decision deadline is May 20th, most of our other choices have given us until May 31st. We should have our final decision tomorrow and then we will commit to a school and let everyone else know.

@RainbowBritey Sleep well!

Hey all, here is my stats wrap-up to make it easier for future applicants to find.

Amherst Specific (aka why not Amherst for us): Aid offer left 6k of unmet need on my offer and on my husband’s offer, we had agreed to keep undergrad loan free and he doesn’t have the same scholarships I do so Amherst would have required loans. They were also far less flexible about credit relinquishment and visits to campus. Williams gave us great on-campus housing and helped us to connect our daughter with school and community. Williams also flew transfers out for Previews, making us feel valued in a manner equal to freshman admits.

Current college: Community College (CA)

Entering as a Sophomore (Choosing to relinquish credit)

Major: Anthro & Environmental Policy

No SAT/ACT

College GPA: 4.0 (completed college honors, TAP for UCLA, IGETC, etc)

US/Intl: US (immigrant - dual citizenship)

ECs: PTK Pres, Published, Presented research, Non-Trad, Parent, State-level policy work, loads of volunteer work, UCLA CCCP, UCB TAP, UCB SPMP, very involved on my campus and in my community.

Applied for FA: Yes (Best FA Offers were from Berkeley, Brown, and Williams, worst were Cal State and UCLA)

Applied to: Cal State, UCSC, UCB, UCLA, Amherst, Brown, Swarthmore, Williams, Yale

Accepted: All except Swarthmore (Waitlisted)

Attending: 99% certain it’ll be Williams

Comments: I had my essays checked for grammar and clarity but resisted changes to content because I felt that it was more important that I represented myself accurately than that I changed what I focused on to fit within the box the transfer advisors expected. I felt that it was better to be rejected for who I am than accepted for someone I am not; this worked out well for me. I am in my mid-thirties with a teenage daughter, I immigrated to the US in my twenties, my husband and I are transferring together and got into all of the same colleges. I have a couple of decades of work experience outside of my field and have traveled extensively. I think that this breadth of experience contributed to our unexpected success across the various types of colleges to which we chose to apply.