I’m a high school senior and I’m getting ready to go to college obviously. I visited my cousin at UPenn last summer and fell in love with the school, specifically Wharton. However, I felt that neither my GPA or SATs or ACT or ECs were good enough for me to get into UPenn so I didn’t bother applying. I applied to several UCs hoping to get a business-type degree. However, after completing the FAFSA and getting disqualified from the Cal Grant, I don’t see how I can afford to go to any UC without taking out a massive amount of loans and debt. So I thought that I should start at a community college, do very well, and try to apply to the UCs again while my brother is in college too so I wouldn’t have to take out too many loans. I also thought that maybe I should try to transfer into Wharton now that I have another opportunity to do better and raise my chances of getting in. However, I saw on the Wharton transfer requirements website thing, Wharton does not accept credit from any community colleges or two-year institutions. So I thought that maybe I should attend my local CSU, CSUSB, and try to transfer. However, I also know that transferring from a CSU to UC is really difficult. So I came to ask is it worth it going to CSUSB and trying to transfer into Wharton or should I forget about getting into Wharton?
Honestly, I think that the problem in recommending that you hope to transfer into Wharton is the fact that academically, you may not be up to the rigor of the program. I say this not to degrade you, but if your stats were not good enough to be accepted into Wharton in the first place, how would you feel competing directly with people who did have those coveted stats (ie. those who resided within the 90-99% of high school seniors).
This also fails to mention the incredible difficult of transferring into such a selective program, and unless you could really craft a powerful story that explains why your stats were not up to par (and I mean, really powerful), it’s a long-shot. Transferring in is even harder than getting in normally, so, unless the above statement fits your circumstances, I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high.
@Tiberium You make very good points. I actually never thought about any of that. I guess I just got too optimistic and jumped at the opportunity without really thinking about everything. The main reason why my stats are not good enough for any of the Ivy League schools is because I really never believed I would ever have a chance at getting accepted so I didn’t bother trying to get my stats to that level. Where I’m from, the thought of getting into any of the Ivies is entirely laughable. I heard one of the older teachers at my school tell some students that the last time anyone from my high school, probably the city, was accepted to an Ivy League school was 15 or 16 years ago. So even if I applied, they probably wouldn’t have even considered it since the application would have been from a high school they have never seen. Also, I really only got into studying business pretty recently so I probably wouldn’t have been a good fit for Wharton whose students have probably been into business for a long time.