Hello! I’m an international student from Venezuela. I am currently on a gap year and applied to Ivy League schools and got rejected to all of them including USC, Stanford and Colgate. My stats are 31 ACT one sitting and a gpa of 3.3 with honor rolls in English, history, bio, etc… but really bad math and average chem and physics. I used this gap year to intern in NYC, here I worked for a production company. We presented works in Lincoln Center and the Met opera! I also speak 5 languages and was very engaged in high school clubs and did some volunteering in an orphanage in Venezuela. I wanted to know which are my best options to try and transfer into an Ivy League or NYU. I’ve been offered a place in Quinnipiac and could also try to get in colleges with rolling admissions but I read that maybe starting in community college in NYC gives you a better edge applying to Columbia and NYU. I would like to know which would be the best option for me. I managed to get the 31 on my ACT studying on my own so I know I can bring up my gpa pretty fast. My problem was that Venezuela is almost on the verge of civil war and my high school years were chaotic (barricades, etc…) thank you!
Your extracurriculars look good. The major problem here is it is NOT easy to transfer to an ivy league school maybe even more difficult as an international student. Its really going to be almost a gamble assuming you have the right stats. Most of the top tier schools accept a very low amount of transfer students excluding special programs. Some of those “special programs” that take a lot of transfer students are Columbia GS, Cornell ILR, and NYU school of professional studies. Its kinda complicated and will depend on your intended major at the end of the day.
I would recommend not to chase prestige as much as it sounds like you want to do. You can always attend an ivy for a graduate degree. Realistically if you go to a community college your chances to transfer into an ivy are going to be better just based on the plain fact you have to make less of a difficult argument on why you want to transfer. Quinnipiac is a good school. I would pick the most financially responsible option at the end of the day.