Hello,
I am an OOS applicant and at the time of application, I will have 3.7 gpa. I also have great ECs and LORs. so what are my chances for CS transfer? I also have completed all required courses.
Apart from the given info, is there anything else I could do to present a stronger application and have better chances??
I’m trying to do the same thing. I’m trying to transfer into the CS program from a community college in NC; the only difference is that I’m applying for the fall semester. I’m sorry that I can’t give you any insight on your chances of getting in, as I am afraid that I’m more inexperienced with the transfer process than you. However, some things that I have been poring over for the last few weeks are areas like extra curricular, letters of recommendation, credit hours, test scores, and grade inflation. So far I have a 4.0 GPA. I’ve been working in the math and science tutoring center at my school. I’ve repeatedly volunteered at shelters and other community service events. I have independently been learning how to code and have been slowly churning a few projects specifically focused on machine learning. That all having been said I’m still worried that I haven’t done enough. I feel that none of my ECs have yielded any sort of recognition or awards. I have found it difficult searching for opportunities to gain recognition outside of a large university campus or the high school system. Furthermore, my involvement in volunteer work last semester was minimal due to my heavy course-load; I worry that there is little I can do before March 15th when the application is due to bolster the areas of my community involvement that are lacking behind. Lastly, I worry that my GPA may be inflated: out of the ~10,000 curriculum students that go to my college ~300 of them obtained 4.0 GPA’s. If any of these concerns are ones that you’ve found helpful and would like to further investigate for yourself, you’re more than welcome. If you feel that there is an area of the application process that I have missed please make me aware of it. I’m interested to know what ECs you have under your belt, and how you went about getting good letters of recommendation. To answer your question, from what I gather about GA Tech they focus heavily on extra curricular activities, so if you are confident in yours that’s very valuable. For most of the schools I’m applying to, the EC or activities part of the application boils down to two things: how do you interact with others and your community, how are you focusing on your particular area of interest. Someone who spends much of there time dealing with customers at their jobs or caring for people through volunteer work implicitly displays interpersonal skills, so I am not too concerned with the first point. I’ve found that displaying a genuine interest in your area of study is somewhat difficult. At least where I live, there aren’t may coop opportunities or internships, and its difficult to get involved in your area of interest with little technical skill or experience as of yet. Thank you for posting and giving me the opportunity to do the same, please share.
But if you are a CC student, you should also apply to UNC or Duke as well, you have an advantage in that… and what major you want to apply for ?
I want to major in Computer Science. I’m applying to NC state. UNC and Duke don’t have very good engineering or computer science programs but I will be applying to UNC’s school of Information Science.
@Infinisecond Which universe do you live in that Duke doesn’t have a very good engineering program?
I can’t afford the $53k tuition
@Infisecond Almost all GaTech out of state students pay cash, as there is no aid for OOS. So it will be about $50K a year to attend GaTech and I do not think you can get through in three years, so at least four years to schedule the CS classes. Transfer students get very low priority on registration. So your first semester may be a lot of non CS requirements like HEALTH class, psychology or another social science class,with one CS class. This then leaves you behind to finish the very steep requirements in CS at GaTech so you need to budget an extra semester maybe.
Duke offers way more financial aid than GaTech and has a super outstanding computer science department. If you qualify for financial aid, Duke is a much better bet than Ga Tech.
Duke has an excellent engineering program with outstanding faculty members. As part of the quantitative initiative, Duke is aggressively recruiting talent from the nation’s finest universities.
Here are some examples: https://trinity.duke.edu/initiatives/quantitative-initiative
Duke will be somewhat harder for admission, though, about 93% of students are rejected. i don’t know if
they take many transfer students. GaTech is slightly easier, but for a transfer student in CS, pretty tough too
and expensive.
How do transfer students get low priority on registration (even if they are incoming juniors ??) ?
The priority is set by how many GaTech credits you have. Chances are, from a community college, many credits will not transfer, but check on line to see how they treat your credits. You may be able to test out of some subjects even
if you don’t get GaTech credit. If you get 30 credits, you will be a sophomore. With 60 GaTech credits you will be a junior. The transfer student I know did not get 30 credits, but you might get them.
But here is the kicker, you will still need to complete FRESHMAN subjects, such as health and the GaTech seminar,
so you are in line with freshman for those credits. If you did not place out of English 1 and 2, you are in line
with all the freshman to take one or both English requirements. If you did not get other requirements that GaTech freshman take, , you are in line with FRESHMAN to take them.
The registration process gets a lot better once you have 60 or more credits, but if you at about 30 credits, my son came in with 31, its still a very painful process. Students with sophomore standing, and a LOT of freshman at GaTech come with with 40 or more credits from AP classes, IB classes or GaTech classes as they are from Atlanta, then
you are waiting in like with the thousands of freshman just like you, who have a year of credits.
its how it works at GaTech, most freshman come in with lots of AP credits, so the line is long starting there.
If you have no credits at all, I guess that line is actually shorter, as so few freshman at GaTech are starting at the very beginning taking English 1.
With all of this, do not get disheartened, its just a PROCESS. The first week of school, lots of students drop classes, and you may get into quite a few more. But the FASAT process for transfer students, be prepared to be frustrated
as you are not likely to get very many classes. Be patient, show up, and the first week of school , its a mad dash for classes as your classmates drop, you pick one or more up.
One other point to understand, a computer science major at GaTech has to choose two threads. These threads determine requirements. You are going to get priority based on your thread choice. If you want to branch out and try a class from a different thread, your priority is LOWER than a CS major in that thread. So this adds a level of complexity to registration that is mind boggling.
The CS program at GaTech is all the rank promises though, teachers are outstanding, assignments are challenging, and the research work is cutting edge. it is an outstanding program, with the caveat that you have to weather this complex registration process. My son is now at over 60 credits, given his IB,AP, and three semesters at GaTech.
He came in as a regular freshman, not a transfer student. It was painful to watch for the first three semesters,
but he has standing as a junior now, and yes, its much better now, he got all but one class, and he assumes
he may get the economics class, game theory, once he gets on campus in two weeks.
In his freshman year, first semester, with over 30 GaTech credits, he got very few classes, so he took humanities,
health, English 2, and I think one math class. It was not until he had 41 credits that he could even get a CS class!
He came in with AP Computer Science credits, and elective CS credits from Carnegie Mellon summer school.
And the usual mix of AP/IB credits from high school in chemistry, history, English, physics etc.
That first week of class is a MAD DASH, as students drop and pick up classes. There is not a way to add classes
after that registration period, but you can still drop classes up to the drop date, I think its later in the semester. Freshmen get an even later drop date, to allow them to drop a class they are failing as I remember.
I will be having about 80 credits after my last sem at my current school (‘last’, provided i do get accepted…) also I have already completed ALL requirements for CS (cal 1,2,3, L.Alg, Sci, ENG1, ENG2…etc). I have also looked at their latest equivalency table to check if my classes will be transferable and so far I expect to only 8-12 credits as being not transferable. But I am worried about spring transfer as they have less space to accept transfers, adding that I am an OOS as well…
Then yes, if GaTech accepts all your credits, you would be a junior. It is a crowded department but they handle
the crowds well. I am not understanding spring transfer, the spring semester starts in six days, January 8. You should know by now if you got in, or why not apply for the fall? I am confusing you with the North Carolina community college student
and see you must be at a four year college and not in North Carolina.
Weigh carefully your schools strengths before you jump at such a late date, but it will work out for you either way.
I don’t think you will know for sure what GaTech will do with your credits until they tell you, but there is an on line program where you can enter your college name and see what GaTech will do.
So, here is how I know its not really exactly what you might think, discrete math at Carnegie Mellon and imperative computing transferred as elective credits. My son had to repeat discrete mathematics at GaTech in freshman year.
He was in summer school at Carnegie Mellon but there were plenty of regular Carnegie Mellon undergrads in the class, so we don’t really know why my son had to repeat both classes, but he did. The imperative computing
was somewhat different from the GaTech class though.
So your transfer journey could be similar, and you may want to stay put and get a masters at GaTech instead, but
depends on your reasoning.
What is your reason to transfer?
HNY first of all, to clear, the NC CC student is the other guy. I started this discussion . I am planning in spring 2019, so I have an year (sophomore right now…). The main reason is that Gatech has a better CS dept and have better networking with the top companies like google, Microsoft, etc (cos i want to get work exp and do internships…)… Also, to clarify, I am at a four year University in FL (you can check the first post).
I would apply to as many companies as you can now. Most GaTech freshman and sophomores do not get jobs
in those companies, unless they have connections. There is a co op plan though. I think if you are at Gainesville, you may want to stay where you are, any other Florida school, transferring may be helpful, but look at transferring to Gainesville, unless you have a lot of extra money to spend on GaTech. GaTech busses CS students to the Swampathon CS contest at Gainesville and that program is close in quality to GaTech.
I have heard of a few GaTech second year CS students applying to up to 50 summer jobs in California,
and landing ONE job. Not at the famous companies. Its just very hard to get a summer job at Google from GaTech,
as you are competing with thousands of other GaTech students. Its exceedingly difficult, so don’t come
if the only reason is to “find a summer job”. Its just not that easy from Ga Tech. Look at smaller schools,
maybe, like Case Western, RPI, or a school on the west coast, that may have heavier recruiting for the West coast companies you prefer.
GaTech has great connections to Home Depot in Atlanta though and other Atlanta companies like Keysight and GaTech Research Institute on campus. Home Depot has an outstanding summer job experience in CS. Its similar
to Amazon, in the e commerce area.