<p>I'm currently a freshman at OSU and want to apply to a more prestigious university in a large city. I have decided that NYU, UChicago, Northwestern, and Georgetown would all be great fits for me. Would my application be competitive at any of these if applying to enter as a sophomore transfer?</p>
<p>High School stats: lots of ec's, 3.45 gpa, 28 act
College: should be able to manage a high gpa (think 3.6-3.8), and will be involved in several clubs/organizations. I also have quite a few ap credits and after my first quarter I will have a sophomore standing.</p>
<p>In general, it is extremely difficult to ‘transfer up’ as a soph to schools where you were not a competitive candidate as a fr applicant. The reasons are that you will have only completed 1 sem of college and they will weigh your HS record more; and because transfer admission rates are often lower than fr admission rates.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s hard to only have one semester and transfer because your HS will be weighted intensely. And thus if you weren’t a strong applicant then, there is a little chance that would change.</p>
<p>BUT most schools says if you have “30+” credits, they dont look at your HS records so much because you have a year of college credits. OP said they’ll be sophomore standing which is 30+ credits. I think you should stay one more semester and apply after that and see what happens, but with a 3.4-3.8 I think you have a REALLY good chance…GT maybe not though…</p>
<p>Just to give you perspective, here are the transfer acceptance rates for those schools: </p>
<p>Gtown: 22%
NYU: 33%
UC: 14%
Northwestern: Doesn’t list BUT be wary, if you suck at interviews you need to be careful because they require it for transfer…most schools don’t. It means they judge you more on a holistic application and character…that may be good or bad for you.</p>
<p>Having AP credits and having 30+credits of college coursework are 2 different things. Those AP credits were accounted for as a fr applicant, the do nothing additional for their transfer application. They will still have only 1 qt of coursework completed to show any improvement (which at this point is theoretical) when applying. Not to mention their ACT score which will still be in play as well.</p>
<p>i was always under the impression that college grades are weighted most heavily, while the high school transcript is important as a freshman applicant, but still not given more clout than the college transcript</p>
<p>It’s fundamentally difficult to say what your odds will be until you actually have your first semester grades in hand. In general, if you’re trying to transfer up, you’ll want something more like 3.7-4.0. Really try to shoot for straight A’s and A-'s as much as possible. In general the higher your college grades are, the easier it is to plead your case to universities that you’ve changed since high school and are now a better student. True, for the schools you’ve listed, except maybe Chicago and Northwestern, grades in that range aren’t table stakes the way they are for the Ivies or Stanford, but it will sill be help if your grades are that high. </p>
<p>Beyond that, I would recommend that you consider applying to more schools than you’re currently looking at. Transfer admissions is generally pretty difficult, and it’s often smart policy to have a large number of schools that you’ve applied to. That way, your odds of being accepted by at least one school are better than otherwise. Obviously you should only apply to schools you’d be legitimately interested in, but I think it would help if you added a few more schools to your list. Off the top of my head, Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame, Emory, and Vanderbilt share a lot in common culturally and academically with the schools on your list, and are generally considered peers of the schools on your list. Obviously it’s your choice, but those might be good places to start looking if you decide to expand your list. Overall, I think if you work hard and cultivate some professors to get good letters of recommendation, then you’ll have a decent shot of getting into at least one school. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>The college record is more important for jr transfers who have 1 1/2 yrs of college work completed when they apply. It is NOT for soph transfers who have 1/2 yr of college work completed when they apply; 1 sem of college does NOT outweigh 4 yrs of HS coursework. I’m not sure what’s so difficult to understand about this.</p>
<p>^Of course, but do you agree that the student’s most recent performance is a better indicator of the student’s current ability as opposed to his/her high school record? It’s a bit like freshman admission, when senior/junior year was weighed more than freshman/sophomore year. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I would appreciate if you could post some evidence of where you’re getting your information. </p>
<p>If you want proof just ask any admissions person. I really don’t know how else we can explain it. ANY admissions person will tell you, if you have under a certain number of actual credits, they will look at your high school transcript and weight it more heavily. It’s just a simple statement:</p>
<p>“If you have less than 30 credits, we need to see your high school transcript” and yes, if you have less than 30 credits it CAN make or break you. 4 years shows a pattern in academic less than 2 years can just be considered a fluke or lucky. Also, since you have a wider choice of classes and freedom in college you could have a 4.0 in all easy classes. the classes and subjects we are required to cover (Even if we have some lead way in chooses) in highschool give people a large well rounded group of academic disciplines. It better shows your weaknesses and strengths.</p>
<p>Just ask your CC adviser or check any colleges website.</p>
<p>im sorry, but im having trouble believing that</p>
<p>so you are basically saying, all other things equal, that a freshman transfer with a 4.0 HS GPA and 3.6 college GPA would be favored over a freshman with a 3.6 HS GPA and a 4.0 in college?</p>
<p>Highschool is hardly an indicator of how well an individual will do in college, for a variety of reasons. first, many highschools are extremeley easy and a lot of kids have no trouble making straight A’s with little/no studying. when they get to college, they usually perform poorly because of poor study habits. i can count dozens of kids who went to college with a “4.7 HS weighted GPA” but can barely get a 3.0 in college. on the other side of the token, there are a lot of HS students who don’t take it seriously and get lower GPA’s, but learn from their mistakes and pick it up, getting good grades later in HS/college.</p>
<p>regardless, i think, actually i know from speaking to a brown transfer admissions officer, that if you take a RIGOROUS course load your first semester of college, and do well, you will have success in the admissions process. even more important is that you do meaningful things in college and get INVOLVED- student organizations, research, etc…, and having good professor recommendations. these 3 things take precedence over a HS record. SAT/HS GPA should be in the general range of freshman admits, but do not automatically rule out an applicant. the brown admissions officer literally asked me about my HS transcript only with, “did you have mostly A’s?” i’m not arguing that the HS transcript isn’t weighted heavily, i am saying that the college transcript, even with only one semester of work, is usually more important.</p>
<p>If you have a 4.0 in college and a 3.6 then no one is going to care, I agree.</p>
<p>BUT OP had a 3.4 in HS and a 3.6-3.8. That is NOT the same as having a 4.0. We aren’t saying it’s the ONLY factor, and having a 4.0 is AMAZING BUT if you’re trying to transfer to Gtown, NYU and those other schools they ARE going to take that 3.4 into consideration. I doubt with a 3.4 OP would have gotten into those above listed schools; maybe NYU and having only 1 semester of college and their iffy chances of getting in if they applied as a freshmen will be taken into consideration.</p>
<p>But of course its a crap shoot and up in the air. But if anything would break OP it would be that 3.4</p>
This statement is false. To my knowledge, NU does not even offer interviews for transfer admissions - it’s definitely not a requirement of transfer admission.
That said, NU offers a very late app. deadline (May 1st) which allows for the admissions office to examine a full year’s worth of coursework, minimizing the weight of HS grades a bit. As has been mentioned in this thread, however, HS grades and test scores will factor into the admissions decision for a sophomore transfer. Because I’m not an admissions officer at any of these schools, I’ll decline from making a sweeping statement concerning the degree to which HS elements are weighted, but I will point out that it’s generally accepted that those aspects are at least taken into consideration for freshmen applicants.</p>