Chances of transferring to a good university.

Transfer Students
1

<p>Hi all, I'm an incoming Caltech freshman, and for various personal reasons (i.e. among other things, my sister goes there, and she's kinda annoying, and the campus is really small) I'm starting to think I might be better off at another university. What are my chances of transferring to</p>

<p>MIT, Harvey Mudd, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, or Amherst?</p>

<p>Also, are there any other colleges I should consider? I'm looking for a college with strong programs in math and science, especially computer science, but it should also be reasonably strong in the humanities. (i.e. not have people who'll laugh at you if you major in philosophy) The list above is very tentative. I've heard it's really hard to transfer, so I'm also worried I might be aiming too high, but I'd rather stay at Caltech than transfer to, say, FAU.</p>

<p>My stats:
--GPA 4.0, SAT 2390, HS rank 1/~300
--fourth-author of a Science paper
--ISEF 2007, qualified for semifinals of USPhO and USChO in 2006
--skipped senior year of high school
--qualified for AIME in 2006 and 2007 (got 7 and 2 respectively)
--3rd place JV JETS
--National AP Scholar (sophomore year)
--Siemens AP Scholar
--I kinda suck at writing essays
--took hard courses in high school (graph theory, discrete math, diffeq, matrix theory, multivariable calculus). Have 5s on AP Physics B, C Mech, C E&M, Chem, Bio, Stats, Calc BC, US Gov, Comp Gov. Also took AP English Lit but I don't know what I got on that.
--SAT IIs 800 math II, 800 physics, 780 biology
--that is all</p>

<p>Thank you for any advice!</p>

2

<p>did you apply to any of those other schools straight out of high school?</p>

3

<p>you can't transfer to princeton, and harvard is pretty unrealistic too just because there is such little space.</p>

<p>you seem like a strong cantidate for all of those schools straight out of high school, so if you did well at caltech your first year I'm pretty sure you'd get in somewhere.</p>

4

<p>for transferring they usually want a good reason as to why you want to transfer. i dont think "my sister is kinda annoying" fits that bill</p>

5

<p>Thanks for all the helpful responses!</p>

<p>For some reason Caltech was the only school I applied to out of high school. See, they accepted me EA, and I was too lazy to apply to anywhere else. :D Plus, my parents really wanted me to go, so I was like "oh, what the heck."</p>

<p>And I also have another (perfectly legit) reason for transferring out of Caltech, namely that I might major in some humanities-related field, and apparently humanities classes are kinda seen as a joke at Tech...</p>

<p>And also first-year classes at Caltech are all on pass-fail, so I'm not sure what constitutes "doing well"...</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
for transferring they usually want a good reason as to why you want to transfer. i dont think "my sister is kinda annoying" fits that bill

[/quote]
</p>

<p>well she's obviously not going to put that on an application.</p>

<p>anyway, noone can really tell you what your chances are. There have been people with your grades that have been rejected from those schools. Then there are peple with 27 ACT's and 3.3 college G.P.A's who have gotten into yale,penn, and other ivies. You seriously just have to apply and see what happens. focus on your essays.</p>

<p>I'm applying to cal tech in the spring mainly because of the small size- Does the campus look nice? Are there blacks?</p>

7

<p>Harvard is a top notch liberal arts school and is strong in like every field, so they would probably see your reason to transfer as being valid.</p>

<p>However, what would stand out is the fact that you didn't apply straight out of High School, especially since you would have been a very strong cantidate. They might find that to be somewhat questionable since you suddenly decided you wanted a liberal arts education after only one year after your initial college search. Cal-tech and Harvard are pretty different. Also, I doubt that humanities at MIT is significantly better than Cal-techs.</p>

8

<p>you probably would've gotten into HYPS with those stats from hs.. haha.</p>

<p>but then, you haven't even started school yet. see how cal-tech is at first. you might end up absolutely loving it since you're such a math and science genius.</p>

9

<p>Good luck. What you've written sounds pretty good---again, it's a numbers game since there really is limited space for transfers. But what the heck, you should give it a shot. I know someone who will be transferring to Harvard this coming year from Caltech, which is a really good school in the first place. Your reason (looking for a more humanities-based curriculum) is also legit.</p>

<p>Give Caltech a shot (till December); if you actually don't like it, then apply for transfer.</p>

10

<p>mudd only accepts something like half a dozen transfers (or less) a year. if you think caltech is small... just wait til you see mudd. (although, the other 4Cs really help make it all feel big and allow for a heterogeneous populous)</p>

11

<p>One option you could consider is not going to CalTech and reapplying as a freshman. Admit rates EVERYWHERE (okay, except UCs) are better for freshmen, and places like Princeton take freshmen. You could work or volunteer or travel or whatever for that year (A friend of my brother's did something very similar: spent a year traveling in South America and Southeast Asia because she didn't get into her first choice schools). They'll ask you to explain what you did for any time you were out of school, but I don't know if it would hurt at all to have taken a gap year.</p>

12

<p>Also, sometimes you can defer a year. I'm not sure if CalTech will let you, but you might be able to take that year off and still have CalTech as a guaranteed backup.</p>

13

<p>raccna....Are there blacks??? like the people... lol i dont get it</p>

14

<p>yes lol....................</p>

15

<p>You have as good of a shot of transferring as any other applicant provided you pass all your classes and get involved in some solid EC's at caltech... oh, and make sure you can get an excellent recommendation from a professor.</p>

16

<p>i visited the campus back in march and i saw a number of black people...are you black???... or do you just like black people lol... your question is pretty unique haha</p>

17

<p>Thanks so much for all the helpful advice, but my sister and I made up, so I decided not to transfer :D
Sorry to bug you guys.
And I didn't see any black people when I visited Caltech, but that might have been just me...</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
Thanks so much for all the helpful advice, but my sister and I made up, so I decided not to transfer

[/quote]
</p>

<p>LMAO......only on CC.</p>