Harvard Transfer Applications

<p>From Harvard's admissions office:
"Students who have completed more than two years of college study with transferable credit, and those who have earned a bachelor's degree, are not eligible to transfer to Harvard College. Students may not choose to relinquish academic credits, or a degree, in order to apply for transfer admission."</p>

<p>Does that mean that you cannot have more than, say, 64 credits (if you go to a school with 16 credits/semester) by the time you would be entering Harvard? Or by the time you apply?</p>

<p>I'm interested in applying next year with the following credits:
First semester: 16 credits
Second semester: 20 credits
Summer: 19 credits
Next fall semester: 20 credits
Next spring semester: 20 credits</p>

<p>...which would put me at 95 credits for the following fall, or 115 credits for the following spring. I could plausibly cut my credits for the summer down to 9, and the fall and spring semesters down to 16.</p>

<p>I'll call the admissions office next week to check for sure, but do any of you know the answer beforehand?</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure that it's almost impossible to transfer and start out past your "junior year" i.e. 60 or so credits. If you have 95 your chances will be pretty bad for transfer unless you actually chose what classes to send and just didn't count some other courses...wasted money. A couple of my friends have done that to transfer to schools they wanted because their odds would have been really bad if they wanted to transfer all of their credits.</p>

<p>Are you talking about semester units or quarter units? 1.5 quarter units = 1 semester unit so you might have to convert.</p>

<p>No, you cannot transfer with that many units. Did you turn Chicago down?</p>

<p>Ah...that's too bad. So I can't apply because I've taken too many credits, even though I've only been in college for a year. O_o</p>

<p>I haven't decided against Chicago yet, because it turns out my decision will need to be heavily financial-based and I haven't gotten anything in the mail from them yet. I was just considering my options.</p>

<p>no i'm pretty sure you can apply...you just can't bring everything with you.</p>

<p>I called some ivies and others and they said applicants with more than 2-years of credits can still apply, but they can only transer 60 semester/90 quarter units.</p>

<p>Ah, well, that would be good news.</p>

<p>The overloads I've taken during the semester are just that--overloads. I didn't pay anything extra, so it wouldn't be a waste of money. The others were either for placement or requirements, such as biology and calculus.</p>

<p>One way or another I won't be graduating until 2009.</p>

<p>I was actually in a very similar situation. I applied to Harvard having already completed 83 credits, and transferring in with 99, despite the fact that I had only done three regular semesters; the surplus was from summer and winter classes. </p>

<p>Read that statement carefully, however. I believe that it used to say "students who have completed more than two academic years of study..." So I thought that I would OK because it just counted credits from the academic year, not summers. I called to confirm this in April, and the woman on the phone said that she was fairly sure it went just by how many regular semesters you've completed. Although, she could have been pulling this out of her ass. I was, after all, rejected. She did say, however, that if I was going to be disqualified for junior transfer based upon my credits, that I would have probably gotten some notification about this prior to my rejection. </p>

<p>I would go ahead and call for yourself, though.</p>

<p>its good to know your located on earth janel89.</p>

<p>lol</p>

<p>So, just as a follow-up, in case anyone is interested.</p>

<p>janel89 was right. Harvard (and I'm assuming the other Ivies as well) don't count summer/winter credits in their 'maximum credits'. As long as you've been in school for less than two years, you are free to apply.</p>

<p>they dont count winter and summer is ok but what about overloads????</p>

<p>Do schools want students with fewer credits? I was worried that my high GPA might not stand out as much due to taking fewer credits than other students.</p>

<p>Edit: Not a lot a fewer, but 13 hours instead of 15+.</p>

<p>Overloads are also okay. As long as you've only been enrolled in a college for less than two years, you are allowed to apply.</p>

<p>As far as taking less credits, I think colleges generally like you to take about the average load. Overloads are fine as long as you can handle them, I think. And, just a guess, but I'd think they'd prefer a high GPA with a standard courseload to a high GPA with less than normal.</p>