Chance me for transfer from Northwestern to Berkeley

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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I transferred to Northwestern from UT Dallas. I was a premed at UTD, left school for two years to be a caregiver for my grandma with Alzheimer’s, and transferred to Northwestern to study engineering for a total of two years of study. I want to transfer to Berkeley because of its strong entrepreneurship culture and am thinking of applying to Rhetoric considering my strengths in research and communications. I completed the reqs for Rhetoric.

I’ve had some significant family issues that have shaped my decision, and I’ll have to take a year without upper-division courses to avoid exceeding the upper-division threshold.

I’ll likely spend this year interning at an Investment Bank and dealing with an emergent personal family issue this quarter. I’m debating the pros and cons of taking the whole year off and being a low-priority candidate with the stronger innovation opportunities Cal offers.

Demographics: Indian-American, 24 y/o, disability w/ academic accommodations

High school: 3.86 GPA, unranked, Philosophy Club: President, Investing Club: Treasurer, Youngest National Admin for a cultural nonprofit, wrote a screenplay performed in front of 5000 youth in Atlanta

Testing:

ACT: 34/36 (36 Reading/Writing, 34 Math, 31 Science)

SAT: 2290/2400 (800 Reading, 740 Writing, 750 Math)

UTD: Healthcare Studies Major 4.0/4.0, highest honor’s scholarship, officer in 5 clubs related to poverty/healthcare, neuroscience research, part-time work as a home health caregiver

Northwestern: Computer Engineering/CS Major 3.7/4.0

ECs: Northwestern Undergraduate Research Journal - Editor, EPIC (Northwestern entrepreneurship club) - Treasurer, The Borgen Project (poverty NPO) - Regional Manager, Startup Founder at the Garage (NU entrepreneurship hub), Satire Club - writer

Other Prof. Experience: Venture Capital Internship, Computer Vision Startup Internship, Climate Policy Initiative Externship, Received Investment Banking offers for next summer (2022), Starbucks, Tutor

Publications:

Author: “Propaganda, Persecution, and Organ Harvesting: The Economics of Religious Persecution in China”, ICAS, 2019. (UT Dallas)

Contributor: “Repetitive stress in mice causes migraine-like behaviors…”, PAIN, 2021. (UT Dallas)

Co-Author: “Towards environmentally responsible post-disaster reconstruction: an interdisciplinary approach”, Nature: Sustainability, forthcoming. (Northwestern)

Co-Author: “Fortifying Iceland’s Tourism Industry with Blockchain”, in collaboration with IBM, 2021 (Northwestern)

Also frequent op-ed, poetry, and satire contributor with my own blog.

NPO founder:

  • Launched an inmate education program connecting five students at two universities to Denton County inmates
  • Established partnerships with the UT-Dallas food pantry to create a newsletter & SMS system connecting underprivileged students to resources
  • Authored a charitable chapbook featuring 35 international and acclaimed (Pulitzer, Pushcart, National Book Award) poets

Projects/Hackathons: Hack for Social Good - Mission Impossible Award for Most Challenging Project | Northwestern Health Hacks - 2nd Place: PlugIN Chicago, a plug-in connecting underserved communities to healthcare, 2021 | IEEE Project Developer: NewsSnap (ReactJS)

Essays: Strong

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As a transfer student, your HS record wont be used to evaluate your admissions status.

As a transfer to a UC school, from OOS, your priority in admissions is lower.
The UC’s are public universities (funded by the taxpayers of the state) so priority admissions are in this order:
New entering California freshman/ then OOS freshman who are full pay.
California Community College transfers
UC to UC transfers
CSU transfers
OOS transfers (your category)

Assume $67K in fees per year. No financial aid/ no significant Scholarships for non-residents.

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Thank you for your reply - I saw the OOS admit rate was about 45-50% per this site on transfer admissions, but there was no further breakdown by major: Transfers by major | University of California

The overall rate seems lower because the vast majority of applications are in state students, but perhaps my understanding is incorrect.

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Northwestern has a pretty strong entrepreneurial environment also. Much easier to get noticed as an undergrad also, since it’s much smaller than Berkeley and has many resources for undergrads. I understand that you might have some personal issues driving your decisions but you appear to be making your undergraduate years a lot more complicated and fragmented than they need to be. Finish off at Northwestern if you can and hop on over to Berkeley for some graduate work. I’m not sure I quite follow your major meanderings either. Finally, as you were already advised, you are at the bottom of the transfer totem pole for the UCs. You’re a strong (albeit a little scattered) candidate so you could give it a shot.

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Thank you so much! I’m definitely weighting these things. I’m also hoping to clarify, for eligibility purposes, if transfer credit units are counted based on their count at the home institution or at the analogous course at Berkeley. Do you happen to be familiar with this process?

For example, my multivariable calc is split into two 3-unit courses for a total of 6 semester units. However, it is only 4 units total at Berkeley.

For the purpose of counting semester hours, would they articulate as 4 units or 6 units? I’m wary of the 80-hour max.

Thank you!

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Can you pay the full cost to attend Berkeley!

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Yes, thankfully, especially as it would only be two years.

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I was pretty much thinking the same thing. Why not complete your bachelor’s degree where you are? Then if you want a master’s degree Berkeley will still be there.

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I’ll let the transfer experts answer this one. If you go to Cal’s transfer website you’ll probably be able to find the credit equivalences and how they count. How many total years of undergrad have you already completed? And what are you doing right now? About to start classes at Northwestern?

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My opinion…stop transferring. Get your degree at NU. Then move on. You are doing a lot of school changing. Just get your degree…then move on.

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I did check the site but didn’t find much info on that specific question - admissions officers didn’t specify and said it would be reader-dependent. Thank you, however! I’ve completed two years of college and am unsure of what I’m doing this fall due to my personal situation. But classes are technically about to start, yes.

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Why do you want to change both college and major so often?

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I wouldn’t think that freshman would have priority over CC transfers, they aren’t in the same class, so they wouldn’t be competing against each other for admissions. :face_with_monocle:

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If you cannot solve the personal matter while at Northwestern, ask for a Leave of Absence. Return to Northwestern, which has an excellent entrepreneurial culture (and topnotch CS+X programs), and if you still want Berkeley, apply for a graduate program.
Having a more consistent CV (ie., not switching colleges so much) will also help since you’ll be able to keep your relationships with professors and peer networks, continue your research/Publication work (not a given at UCB), and allow you to avoid the credit cap or credit transfer issues.

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It’s a 4-year university so Freshman are a priority according to the State. No, they don’t compete with transfers, but some of them have some CC classes and share/ overlap on requirements, so there’s still a little competition for transfers.

CCC transfers are guaranteed admission, at some campuses, through TAG.

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Note that the UC and CSU enrollment model assumes a large number of junior transfer students who started at California community colleges. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/content-analysis/academic-planning/california-master-plan.html specifies a 60% upper division and 40% lower division target undergraduate enrollment, which suggests that, for every 2 BA/BS graduates who started as frosh, 1 BA/BS graduate came in as a junior transfer (actually a little more complicated due to retention rates not being 100%).

Of course, high school students taking community college courses while in high school may be in the same classes as true college frosh/soph students intending to transfer to a UC or CSU.

But that also means that California community college applicants are prioritized in transfer admissions over other transfer applicants.

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That page explicitly shows transfer admission information (GPA ranges and admission rates) by major.

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My apologies, I linked the wrong page: Transfer fall admissions summary | University of California

The linked page shows admission by major, the second one linked does not and shows overall rates.

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If you check the admission summary page, select Transfer admit rate and then Residency for UCB, it gives for 2020 an overall 4% transfer admit rate for non CA residents.

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Thank you, I had looked at that but was a bit confused. When I looked at the overall applications and overall admits (separate from the transfer admit rate alone), it was 293/~1000 admitted, unless I’m misinterpreting the data. Edit: I believe it was an error based on if I selected ‘All’ or ‘Other’ on ‘Source School’. Not sure exactly what the