Courseload looks bad?

Transfer Students
1

<p>I'm required to take a bunch of 1 and 2 credit classes as part of my major and core requiremets (surveys courses, workshops, "skill" classes, seminars ect...). I did not select these, I was just pre-registered for them because they are required. My transcript shows:</p>

<p>one 5 credit class
one 4 credit class
two 3 credit classes (only 1 3 credit classes freshman year)</p>

<p>and then</p>

<p>three 2 credit classes
and 4 1 credit classes!!</p>

<p>I feel that this makes me look really bad, as if I was just filling up my schedule with random little courses. My GPA counting only the "heavy " classes (3 to 5 credits) is 3.7 and adding the "easy" classes, drops to 3.6 so it's not even like these classes were helping me or if they were actually easy (tons of memorizing and only a final exam so nothing to "redeem" you if you do poorly and no way to see where you stand before that).
What are colleges going to think? Also is an overall GPA of 3.73 over 3 semesters too low to transfer to the Ivy League (HS GPA is 3.85 and 98th percentile SATs)?</p>

2

<p>As a junior transfer, your HS grades/SAT play a very minor role in transfer admissions. A 3.73 overall is a good gpa, but most Ivy League schools tend to look for something pretty special in a transfer student that goes beyond simply a strong gpa. A special talent, life experience, extra-curriculars in college, etc along with amazing professor recommendations. Some elites have miserably low transfer rates (2 - 6%) so a transfer student needs to stand out in the crowd and gpa is NOT the main factor.</p>

<p>I presume your major has a lot of low-credit classes because it is designed that way at many schools (I suspect music, art or theatre??) and the transfer school should understand this construction, so I’d stop fretting about that.</p>

<p>Same advice as to everyone – if you can afford the app fees, apply to a few dream schools and then throw in some matches and safeties as well.</p>