I’m a rising sophomore at a seven sisters and have been entertaining the idea of transferring for the past semester, partly because of the social atmosphere and also because it doesn’t offer enginneering. My gpa is a 3.3 right now, which doesn’t look too promising but I can try to get it up to a 3.5. I’m only applying to Vanderbilt and rice because my school has 3+2 with caltech and columbia if I get reject this year. What is the level of importance in transfer admission factors from college gpa, high school gpa, test scores, mid term grades, recommendation, essays, and ec?
It really depends on the school, but you’re better off asking the school directly.
The only thing I can/will say is that your college vs high school GPA importance depends on how many units you’ve taken. If you’ve only taken 30 units, they will probably weigh your high school GPA more. If you’ve got like 60 units, then it’ll be less important.
@philbegas is correct concerning HS GPA vs. College GPA. It simply depends on the amount of credits you have achieved at a post-secondary institution. I would argue that at 30 credits, your college GPA matters more, but your HS GPA holds WAY more weight in your application as opposed to a situation where you have completed 55-60 credits.
At 30 credits:
-HS GPA matters much more.
-College GPA is weighed in as much as HS GPA, if not slightly higher.
-HS senior year EC’s are considered relevant (though you should obviously have college EC’s).
At 60 credits:
-College GPA matters much more.
-HS GPA is relevant. However in the eyes of admissions officers, if you had a mediocre / decent HS GPA and have shown a strong upward trend in GPA (HS GPA: 3.0 ===> College GPA: 3.9), your college GPA helps you much more than your HS GPA might hurt you.
-For the most part, only your College EC’s are relevant.
Recommendation letters are more of a “second opinion” in your application. While admissions officers want to give students an opportunity to show their personality and academic / personal growth in essays, they also like to read what colleagues / professors think of you. While their importance in the grand scheme of things is quite minimal, how much they help you is contingent on how well you know the recommendation letter writer / how good of a writer they are.
Mid-Term grades are simply for posterity. Colleges want your application to be as academically recent as possible.
Oh, a note on the importance of essays: this varies quite drastically from one school to another. A bad essay will only hurt you, however at a lot of schools, it may cost you an acceptance.
I just wanted to to confirm that ^ is correct. When I said “more” more I used it in a relative way. Transferstalker was very thorough. It’s also worth mentioning that for transfer applications some things do become optional like recommendations or essays which means it’s less important to adcoms. However, I would do them nonetheless, so youre doing above the bare minimum
I agree with @philbegas . While submitting recommendation letters or essays is optional sometimes, you should always complete these optional elements of your application for the sake of completion, and realistically speaking, rec letters can only help your application (and so do essays if you’re a half-decent writer).