chance me fall 2019 transfer

Transfer Students
1

university year: freshman but academically junior
current university: my public in-state school, 70ish% acceptance rate
university gpa: 4.0
majors: international studies and spanish
race/gender/socioeconomic/applying for financial aid: white/female/upper-middle/no
act: 35
high school gpa: weighted=4.9 unweighted=3.85
AP/IB: i took nine ap classes throughout high school and took all the tests. however, i often did mediocre on the tests despite getting As. i got five 3s, two 2s, and two 4s (no 5s… don’t mention it to me about it i’m still annoyed). i also did the IB programme and received the diploma. i got two 5s, one 3, and three 4s. again… did enough to pass but nothing outstanding.

involvement/extracurriculurs in high school and college:
high school: spanish honor society, secretary of national honor society, amnesty international club, environmental action and awareness club, varsity golf for two years, dance captain of my show choir for four years, and created a book club for students at a local elementary school as my ib cas project. also did classical ballet outside of school for 10 years.

       college: a volunteer club for students of the honors college at my university. i also do elective ballet and piano lessons.

schools (also including if i applied and what the decision was last year):

american university (applied but was rejected), brown university (applied but was rejected), boston university (haven’t applied before), barnard college (haven’t applied before), northwestern university (applied but was rejected), tufts university (haven’t applied before), and columbia university (haven’t applied before).

i unfortunately haven’t been nearly as involved in college as i had hoped to be… and am scared this will affect my admission chances. however, i don’t know how much they expect freshman who just finished only one semester to be involved? need some advice here.

also have been looking to try and find schools that are fairly rigorous academically, small to medium sized, and within or in close proximity to a major city. any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

2

I would apply for junior transfer as a sophomore given your exemplary college performance which would likely continue and as time passes, your good but not excellent performance in the APs/IBs will become irrelevant. This will also give you much more time to pursue greater extracurricular commitments in college, develop stronger faculty relationships for letters of recommendation, as well as better discover your academic passions.

Based on your past rejections to American University and Northwestern despite your strong stats, I wager it was your essays and (I could be wrong here so feel free to correct) lack of purposed integration over all your extracurriculars with respects to your undergraduate and/or life goals. Applying for transfer directly as a sophomore may not necessarily change things as your stats have never been the issue. Therefore, spending an additional year at your current university will only do you more good in developing your goals and pursuits. Then, I can see you being a competitive applicant for all your schools, with Barnard, BU, and American University being solid targets with 40%~ chance of admission.

3

thanks for the reply!

i think that applying as a junior transfer is a great idea and was originally what i was going to possibly do. however, i am a bit afraid that i wouldn’t be able to be done w undergrad in four years. i also am a bit afraid that it would be even more difficult to make friends when i would have completely already half of college.

in regards to my rejections last year, i think you’re right about the lack of purposed integration with my extracurriculars. however, my essays last year were typically pretty strong. so i think the biggest thing has been that i spread myself a bit too thin in high school because i didn’t know what i liked. this, unfortunately is the opposite of what a lot of schools look for.

nonetheless, i did get into some more difficult schools last year (like ucla and michigan and waitlisted at uchicago if that means anything), i just am not reapplying to some of those because i realized that i shouldn’t be on a big campus.

anyways, thank you for help!