Chance/Match Me - Comm College Transfer

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics: First gen, low income, indigenous Filipino, trans masculine, nontraditional (age 25), disabled.

  • US Citizen, domestic transfer *
  • State/Location of residency: * TX
  • Current college *: Austin Community College

Intended Major: Psychology

  • Unweighted HS GPA: N/A, homeschooled
  • College GPA: 4.0 institutional GPA, 1.57 from a prior CC (7 years ago). Cumulative between 3.2-3.5 depending on whether taking the grade at face value or converting to common grading system (old school had an odd grading system).

Coursework
Full-time student, currently taking 3 Honors courses (small class size, larger work load, focus on a specific topic). Only 23 credits away from AA.
Completed:
Psychology: intro, abnormal, growth&development, social. Math: contemporary. Science: Astrobiology. Other: both basic English courses, 1 US History course & 1 Govt course (required in TX), 1 music course.
Next term: Research psychology course, astronomy (sequence class), psych statistics, ASL.

Awards
Golden Opportunity Scholarship

Extracurriculars
• Founder and President of LGBT student org, March '22-current.
• Vice President of Psychology Club, Sept '22-current.
• Treasurer of Psychology Club, Feb '22-Sept '22.
• Conducting project with Psych Club advisor to create a database of research/work opportunities for psych/social work majors in CC.
• Co-chair of charity committee focused on assisting foster children, Sept '22-current.
• Peer Tutor, Sept '22-current.
• Created and run peer-support network for extreme abuse survivors (trafficking etc), network has been mentioned most recently in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology. 2019-current.
• Regular member: Phi Theta Kappa, Honors Student Org, Sociology Org.

Essays/LORs/Other
• 2 LORs secured, 1 from PTK advisor, 1 from Honors advisor.
• Psychological First Aid certificate from Johns Hopkins.
• Suicide prevention training certificate from QPR Institute.
• Honors Program student, Honors Scholar candidate.
• Gold level Phi Theta Kappa member (requires 18+ service hours on top of general PTK requirements).
• Applied for NASA research program that starts January, fingers crossed.

Cost Constraints / Budget
NEED a college that offers scholarships and covers at least the majority of cost of attendance, regardless. I cannot afford even cheap tuition by myself.

Schools

  • Safety *: University of Houston, TXST, UT Dallas. (All auto admits)
  • Likely *: Georgia State, George Mason, Rutgers, U Illinois Chicago, UMD Baltimore. (based on 60+% transfer admits)
  • Match *: UT Austin, Stony Brook, GA Tech.
  • Reach *: Rice, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, USC.

I don’t know how competitive I am for applications, any suggestions to match me to any likely R1/R2 universities, or chance me at the schools listed? The low grade at the past CC was due to being homeless and some other extenuating factors that my transfer advisor said is the most solid reason he’s ever heard for poor grades and said that he thinks colleges will understand.

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Does your cc have a transfer agreement with any specific school? I think your best option would be to go to whatever Texas school gives you the most transfer credit and allows you to graduate easily with the least amount of cost then go big for grad school. Psychology fields tend to require advanced degrees and It’s probably easier to get into a top psych masters than transfer into an expensive university.

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Yes, all of the safety schools listed are automatic admissions for me either state-wise or through an articulation agreement at my CC, and most of my professors teach at UT Austin so I can reasonably get into it and my income would qualify me for UT Austin covering the full tuition cost.

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Congratulations on turning your academic GPA around. As the lower GPA was from 7 years ago, your current GPA is going to probably be the primary focus of schools that you apply to.

In looking at your list, I suspect that very few will be affordable for you. Most public schools only provide need-based aid to its own state’s residents. Thus, all your likely and match schools (apart from UT Austin) will probably not be affordable since they’re all out-of-state (OOS) publics. If you see specific info from the university that disputes that (for instance, UNC-Chapel Hill and UVA meet the need of any domestic students, and Michigan may as well if the family’s income is below a certain amount), then they could remain. But as a general rule, that’s the situation.

Since you are 25 years old, I believe that your individual finances are considered and not those of your parents, so you are more likely to qualify for significant financial aid. That said, however, many schools that say they meet the full need of students are need aware, meaning that it can be harder for students who need very large amounts of aid to be accepted. Most schools are need-blind but do not meet the full-need of students. And then there are those that are need-blind and meet full-need, but those are extremely competitive to get into. Also note that when colleges say they meet need, they calculate that need. Some schools are more generous than others in calculating realistic need. The Net Price Calculator (NPC) is your friend here…run it at every single school you’re interested in and it will tell you an estimate of what to expect your cost will be. If it asks for your GPA and/or test scores, then it is likely to also include an estimate of the merit aid you would receive.

Some of the very competitive private schools may be a bit more hesitant about accepting a nontraditional aged student as they tend to specialize in the 18-23 population, but since you’re not that much older, it may not be as big of an issue. But those schools are extremely competitive and I’m unsure how many students they accept as transfers, or whether those transfers are coming primarily from other 4-year colleges or from community colleges.

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Schools

Your in-state publics are probably going to be your best financial options if there is someone you can live with for free. But if you’re looking for other possibilities, then you might want to consider some of these schools, which usually have some combination of a large psychology department and being more financially generous based on looking at the net price for students with lower incomes.

Also, does your disability make you dependent on public transportation?

  • Hamline (MN): St. Paul and the Twin Cities have a number of schools with a larger than typical non-traditional student population

  • Manhattanville (NY): 11% of undergrads are age 25+

  • McDaniel (MD)

  • New College (FL): This is a public school, but they offer institutional grants for Pell recipients who still have unmet need, and don’t specify that it has to be for Florida residents.

  • Niagara (NY): 12% of undergrads are age 25+

  • Oglethorpe (GA): This Atlanta school offers a flagship match program, so its tuition could be the same as UT-Austin’s for you. Nearly all Atlanta schools are part of the consortium that allows them to take classes at other campuses, like Emory, Georgia Tech, SCAD, Morehouse, etc.

  • U. of Detroit Mercy (MI): 9% of undergrads are age 25+

McDaniel and New College are both members of Colleges That Change Lives, an association of schools that were commended by a NY Times author for their focus on undergrad education, academic accessibility, etc.

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Thank you for the university suggestions! Yes, my disability does make me reliant on either public transportation or ride share.

I’m mainly picking schools by going through Carnegie’s R1 and R2 list and checking their transfer rates/whether they’re listed on PTK’s college list, since I want to go into a Clinical Psychology doctorate program and that requires research experience.

I am definitely planning on applying to a lot of outside scholarships like JKCF and Point Foundation, because I know that I’m unlikely to get full rides everywhere. I’m trying to look for colleges that do provide 100% or close to 100% need, though I know it’s difficult and I saw the recent lawsuit about supposed needblind schools that were actually need aware. The financial aspect is I think the most confusing for me, because I have no idea how much a school actually costs outside of its sticker price, so thank you for the mention of the net price calculator.

For TX schools, I am essentially guaranteed free tuition. UT Austin and Rice’s income bracket is one I pass with flying colors, but beyond that I am Deaf and TX law means that Deaf and/or blind students aren’t charged tuition. I was only 1db higher than the limit last time but my audiologist recently had to make my hearing aids louder so I’m pretty sure I qualify now (great for the wallet but sucks for me). I have a roommate that helps with expenses, and they want to move with me if I go to anywhere in the New England area since that’s where their family is based.

I do know that Columbia General Studies average age is 26, so that was promising for me especially since GS focuses on nontraditional students, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten on figuring out nontraditional statistics. Thank you for the ones you provided!

Do you know of a site that lists needblind + full-need schools? And do you think that I am a competitive enough applicant to apply to such schools, or should I just scrap it?

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One doesn’t need to go to an R1 or R2 school to get research experience as an undergrad. Those designations are more important when you’re in grad school.

I would do a search on Columbia General Studies here in this forum and see what people’s experiences have been like.

College Navigator is a website done by the feds. It has a lot of information, including net price by income level and the number of graduates by field (for bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral). In the enrollment section it will indicate what percentage of students are age 25+.

This article I think might be really helpful for you. There’s a graph that sort of shows how the price for lower income families goes up as the chances of admission goes up. But there’s also a table near the bottom with the 100 schools with the lowest cost for families with $0-30k and $30-48k in income.

This list might be helpful for you in brainstorming possible colleges, but really, psychology is usually a bread & butter department, pretty strong at most schools.

This list shows which schools’ undergrads are producing the most PhDs in psychology. The list on the left is total by raw # (bigger schools are much better represented as they have had larger number of students) while the schools on the right have a higher # of grads when it’s evened out by the size of the institution. You’ll notice that attending an R1 or R2 institution for undergrad is by no means required.

With respect to your chances, your reaches are reaches for the most highly-qualified students. Going by transfer percentages, your chances might be better at USC or Cornell, but they would still be extremely challenging schools to get into.

Some reachier schools I’d look into are:

  • College of William & Mary (VA): One of the country’s oldest colleges, and an excellent public institution. I knew that UVA met need for out-of-state students, but I learned today that William & Mary does, too.

  • U. of Virginia

  • Brandeis (MA)…but since 0% of their students are 25+, that might be a turnoff to you, and it might show where its institutional priorities are

  • Tufts (MA)

  • Trinity (TX)…it’s not the northeast, but it is very generous in determining financial need.

Also, I suspect that your odds would be pretty good for acceptance at Saint Peter’s in Jersey City (across from NYC). It’s a Jesuit school, and Jesuit schools tend to be very progressive. The Jesuit school near where I live has an active LGBTQ presence and supporters, and I’d be surprised if the same wasn’t true at other Jesuit schools across the country. Look and see how the NPC there compares to your in-state options.

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