Good number of ECs and honors in HS — student body president, basketball, salutatorian, etc.
College ECs: leadership in two groups and a member of another
Recommendation wise — I believe I can get a great rec from the professor who teaches my major of interest, whereas the other will be good, but not on the same level as the first, just solid.
@apple0101 Congratulations to your acedemic First-Year college and HS track record. In 2019, Notre Dame received 869 transfer applicants. The school accepted 198 students, of which around 75 are Gateway students, a guaranteed transfer program with Holy Cross College if certain conditions are being met . Therefore, the Notre Dame transfer acceptance rate ex Gateway was 15.5%, which are not bad odds given your College GPA. Notre Dame requires a minimum of 27 academic credits from transfer students, make sure to keep your GPA up during Spring Semester. Best of luck and success!
@apple0101 This represents a very good fit with Notre Dame and I certainly would encourage you to proceed on this basis. Please make sure to put sufficient attention to the “Why Notre Dame” aspects of your application.
If your current school offers an economics and/or philosophy major/minor, transferring due to ‘major interests’ as you note in your OP could be problematic.
I certainly encourage you to apply to ND, but adequately covering why you want to transfer if your current school does indeed offer those majors will be the most important part of your app.
@Mwfan1921 Major interests is vague, I agree. Moreso that the transfer would allow me to take a broader and deeper selection of courses in those subjects, especially philosophy. Also some social/community reasons for transferring to a larger school that I didn’t mention.
Both the Notre Dame Economics and Philosophy programs are first class, I don’t think Notre Dame will spend too much time questioning your motivation to transfer (of course there has to be a clear and meaningful statement in that respect), yet will be focussing on fit and what you can bring to Notre Dame, the reason the “Why Notre Dame” aspect of your application will be of utmost importance.
The reason I asked for the major interest simply was to make sure you were not intending to transfer into MCOB or the COE, which would have been a major hurdle.
@apple0101 The question of fit does become very important as you posted the same question on a number of cc university specific sub-forums. Those universities are very different from each other and it is quite unlikely that you will be effectively able to communicate specific fit to all of them, i.e. Brown and Noter Dame, just to name two on your list, which seems to focus primarily on perceived prestige? As for Notre Dame, it runs the risk of being rejected early on in the transfer process. Have you applied to Notre Dame first time around?
Agree with @hpcsa that fit is important and that, at least at first glance, that Notre Dame and Brown offer very different environments. But, without knowing you & all of your reasons for transferring, you may be a fit for both schools. Also, universities tend to attract a wider variety of students simply due to their larger size as compared to LACs.
@collegemom3717 My primary reason is to pursue broader and deeper academic opportunities in my major areas of interest. The departments at my current school have limited course offerings. Tangentially, I was also hoping to take computer sci classes, but due to small dept size at current school it’s very difficult to take upper level computer sci classes unless you major in it (which I don’t want to do). The social/community aspect I mention is not the primary reason, but an ancillary one. I wouldn’t mind a slightly larger school, and one a wider range of political views. Yes, Brown in particular, is quite liberal, but less so than some of these small LACs.
I did not apply to any of the schools listed above the first time around. Does that affect my chances negatively?
I’d love help narrowing down colleges that would be the optimal fit for me. Notre Dame does have more stringent core recs than Brown, and Columbia more than both. Columbia may not be a great fit. Brown and Notre Dame wise— I love the open curriculum at Brown. The ND core recs are not bothersome to me bc they revolve partly around philosophy of religion; I’ve already taken some science courses which might fulfill those recs?
@hpcsa I did not apply first time around. I am considering some other schools that would be more likely admits, but similarly good programs: UPitt for philosophy and so on.
Some reasons for transfer w/o the deep dive that I’d include in an app:
current philosophy and economics departments are small and limited in offerings of upper level classes. For example, the philosophy department does not offer senior seminars of the depth that I have found being offered at ND and or Brown.
I would like to explore some upper level computer science courses, but the small size of comp sci department makes that difficult.
I have developed an interest in the sanskrit language (that’s a plus for Brown since ND does not to my knowledge have sanskrit courses; I know this is a rather eclectic interest.
a larger school means a larger spectrum of political debate. I’m fine w/ majority liberal colleges (I’m liberal), but I enjoy colleges that still have active debate.
college sports would be a plus, having now experienced a LAC w/ little sports “pride,” I don’t think it would be a negative. Point toward ND. Brown too, but less so (still a step up)
Imo, it’s better that you aren’t applying to schools that previously rejected you.
Visit ND, and spend the night in a dorm.
If being able to take upper level CS courses as electives is a serious factor, do some more homework: get direct, current, student input. You may find that it is difficult even in schools with bigger departments.
In terms of writing your ‘why’ essay, your thinnest argument is going to be that any of the T15s has an inadequate Econ department, especially w/o some indication that you are a serious (ie, advanced) econ student.
Have you checked out BC? it has a strong philosophy department. NYU and UMi do as well.
@collegemom3717 I have not checked out BC; I’ll throw that into the research mix. I have looked at NYU and UMi. I prefer UMi to NYU, but still have NYU in consideration.
I’m leaning toward primarily making my argument surround the strength of philosophy departments at the schools I’m applying to. The current econ dept at my school is quite good. The phil department is decent, but due to low number of majors is not at the same funding and staffing level of other departments at the school.
In regards to Brown, my college GPA is below their average for accepted transfers. They list GPAs trending upward from previous years: 3.87, 3.88, 3.89. Would mine perhaps be overlooked slightly for being on the low side since I have essentially a 4.0 in the major I’m applying under? Or is Brown a less likely admit from the colleges I listed. I took a science class first semester simply out of interest and ended it w/ a B which brought down my GPA.
It’s unfortunate that your current college’s philosophy department appears to be inadequate for your interests. Well-resourced LACs tend to support over half a dozen philosophy faculty, which would seem sufficiently robust to provide ample philosophy offerings in ancient to modern topics in the context of their Greek, European and American lineages, as well as in areas of special interest such as the philosophy of science and feminist theory. To be clear, I’m not criticizing your perspective, I’m just surprised by it.
Thank you for the input.