<p>The conventional wisdom seems to state that if you apply to some college and get rejected, your chances will be lower when you apply again for the next year, so it's better to wait until you're "sure" you have a likely chance of admission. Is there any factual evidence proving/disproving this statement?</p>
<p>Good questions! my friend is in the same situation. Interested in hearing some responses.</p>
<p>I applied to Cornell for Fall 2004 freshman admission and was rejected. I then applied for Fall 2005 transfer admission and was accepted.</p>
<p>correlation does not equal causation</p>
<p>it would make sense that those who apply for transfer for a second time are rejected with a great frequency as if they were rejected the first time there application was already lacking in some respect...if you improve as an applicant i dont see why you wouldnt have a shot getting in later</p>
<p>There is no factual evidence to prove or disprove, as there are few examples overall - and they divide into both second-time rejections and new acceptances. It is simply a case by case situation. You really have no way of knowing whether you "almost" made it in the first time or not. You simply need to present your strongest possible self, ideally with substantial improvements over your freshman year app.</p>
<p>Yeah, one of my family friends went to Brown his freshman year. He got rejected by Yale his senior spring, and then got rejected again as a freshman transfer, then eventually got in his sophomore transfer.. but it's true that your chances go down considerably..</p>
<p>I disagree. One can easily argue that you're showing persistence. In reality though, I think the number of times you've applied (or whether you haven't applied) has the least amount of influence on your application.</p>