<p>I've decided to go to a community college and transfer after two years for a couple reasons. Firstly because I've been involved in a scholarship program since 5th grade that's entitled me to two free years at my local community college. Secondly, I feel that while I got a 4.0+ GPA my junior year (and soon to be my senior year), I've kind of screwed myself with some poor decisions over my high school career. </p>
<p>Now my plan is to take advantage of my free two years and tie up some loose ends and try for the best as a transfer student. I have a ton of motivation and I've been turning things around for sure. I want to make my next two years as attractive as possible to colleges and I'm willing to go above and beyond to make that happen. I'm even considering applying to the ivies like Brown/Cornell. </p>
<p>What do universities and private schools look for in a strong transfer student application? Any advice at all is appreciated.</p>
<p>Transferring to those kind of private schools is insanely hard. In short you have to be the kind of student that would have got in out of school anyways. All that stuff that applies to freshman apps applies to you too (legacy, being able to pay full cost, SAT score, HS transcripts, etc.) </p>
<p>If you goto CC and want to get into those schools you would prob need to take an engineering course load. I.E. Take classes like calc, calc based physics, general chem, all in the same semester. Remember there isn’t an weighted grades in CC. Plus at my college a 90%= 4.0, 89%=3.0 so achieving a high gpa w/ an engineering course load is brutal. I’d still be an uphill battle. </p>
<p>As for less selective universities such as a the UCs or USC. It’s mostly just GPA and competing the pre-reqs. You do that with a 3.7+ and you’re in.</p>
<p>-Challenging courses (doesn’t mean taking 20+ hours…seriously, most Ivy students take only 4)
-Community involvement
-Taking advantage of unique opportunities at your current school
-Reasons for transferring that indicate in depth research of desired school
-Show them that you can handle their school
-Make it easy on yourself and don’t apply to so many</p>