<p>I am currently attending Connecticut College where I am majoring in mathematics and molecular biology. I am planning to get an extra year to graduate and then think of transferring even if I currently am a junior. My current GPA is 3.825 but I am afraid it will drop quite significantly since I am overpointing this semester and overprinting + tough advanced classes doesn't imply a good GPA unfortunately. I am an international student, I won't need any financial aid. At my school, I am a language fellow and a math tutor. I also am the vice president of the math club.</p>
<p>After thinking quite a lot about the schools I'd like to attend, I finally decided that trying to get into Harvard was quite a lot of money and finally came up with the following list:</p>
<p>Dream School:
-California Institute of Technology
-Harvey Mudd College</p>
<p>I should have significant chances to get into Georgia tech according to their websites but how does it compare to my current school?</p>
<p>In addition to those highly sciency school, I also thought of:
-Upenn, for they mathematical biology program
-Northwestern, Unsure but they kept sending mail so I'll look more into it
-John Hopkins, I am really interested into their grad program and their undergraduate program seems interesting as well.</p>
<p>In a quite as dreamy way, I also thought of:
-Stanford
-Brown
-Cornell
-Umich</p>
<p>I'd like to know your opinion about my list of schools. I really think I have to narrow it and determine precisely what I want to attend. I also think there must be schools between Caltech, Mudd and Gtech that might be interesting as well but I don't know them.</p>
<p>“I am planning to get an extra year to graduate and then think of transferring even if I currently am a junior”
First, I would check to see what the graduation/ gen ed requirements of the U’s you are interested in applying to. It MAY take you longer than you think to graduate . Many top Private U’s can be “stingy” about accepting transfer units taken at another college. Many require you to take at least 2 years of classes after transferring, regardless of what your current UG status is. Most wont hand you one of their diplomas after being enrolled there for less than 2 years. That could end up costing you a lot more money and time to finally get your UG degree.
As to other colleges- you should add USC to your list.</p>
<p>if you’re currently a junior you won’t be eligible to transfer to any of these schools with the exception of michigan and georgia tech. perhaps you can consider graduate school</p>
<p>Thanks for your response. I looked at the schools transfer requirements. I am fine with taking actually more than two years to graduate there. I looked carefully at it, there is no limit of credits you can take before transferring. Schools demand that the transfer attend the school to get his degree there. Status does not matter.
On the other hand, I am nearly done with math at my school. I need time to do bio and especially since I want to change my major from bio to a BCMB. I know I won’t be ready for grad school as I want and I am afraid my school is not good enough to get into a good grad school.</p>
<p>“I am afraid my school is not good enough to get into a good grad school.”</p>
<p>Have you sat down with any of your professors to ask about this? They know exactly which grad schools their students have gone to, and they can help you determine whether you need to transfer or not.</p>
<p>If you want to transfer, you should do it now rather than later. It is silly to spend three years where you currently are and then spend two or three more somewhere else.</p>
<p>My mistake, that appears to be the case for some of the schools.</p>
<p>make sure to contact each school’s transfer admissions department to clarify. there is no need to throw away hundreds of dollars on apps if it is the case that admission as a current junior student is unlikely. for example, Brown’s website mentions:
“students with more than two years of college credit are discouraged from making transfer application.”</p>
<p>My math adviser was thrilled when he told me that one of our alumni attended Tufts.
The grad school that the chem and bio alumni got are good tough. It is really for the math part that I am worried.</p>
<p>Thanks for the note on Brown. As I said, I mostly looked at Caltech and Mudd so far. I would be interested if you guys knew other school like those two.</p>