Help me find colleges

Transfer Students
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<p>Hello, I am a rising freshman at Stonehill College. However, it was one of my least favorite choices and am looking to transfer. My top choices are Bates or Brown, but I am also considering applying to Wesleyan, Colby, Skidmore, Dickinson and Connecticut College. I want a liberal arts college in the New England area (Pennsylvania and New York are okay as well).</p>

<p>I will be double majoring in early childhood development and neuroscience.</p>

<p>In high school, I got all As in History, English, and languages; I got Bs in Math and Science classes. My high school does not give GPA or rank. I took 2 AP classes (US History, Art History). I would have taken AP English Lit, however there were scheduling conflicts.</p>

<p>I have been involved in a lot of community service, mostly surrounding early childhood development for children with autism, which is what I want to do for a career.</p>

<p>My SAT scores were sub-par (all in the 500 range), but I plan on retaking the SAT and also taking the ACT. My biggest weakness on the SAT was the math section.</p>

<p>I am really hoping not to continue my education at Stonehill following my freshman year, so any suggestions for schools that would be in my range would be helpful. Thank you!</p>

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<p>First of all, you should know that Brown is not a liberal arts college. It is a research university with over 2,000 graduate students pursuing MA’s, PhD’s, MD’s, and various other advanced level degrees. It does maintain a very strong focus on undergraduate education, and would be an excellent school for you to attend, provided that you are comfortable with attending a university instead of a liberal arts college (which seems contrary to what you’ve stated in your post). Beyond that, you should also be aware that Brown is in a completely different category from the other schools you’ve mentioned, as far as admissions go. It is extremely selective, and the standards for acceptance are higher than the other schools on your list. While the other schools on your list can be tricky to get into, particularly Wesleyan, they simply do not see the kind of competition for admission that Brown sees. Again, Brown would be a wonderful school to transfer into, but it’s really only worth applying if you have perfect or near perfect college grades.</p>

<p>That leads me to another point. The single most significant factor in transfer admissions is your college GPA. Although standardized test scores and high school grades are also important, it is your college GPA that really makes or breaks a transfer application. I would say that it is possible to transfer to a top school with mediocre test scores or a disappointing high school GPA, provided you have a stellar college GPA (this was what happened in my case); however, transferring to a top school with good test scores and a good high school GPA, but a weak college GPA is almost impossible. Before I can really evaluate your prospects I need to know what your college GPA is, which probably means that I can’t really evaluate your prospects until you’ve finished your first semester. I will say that you shouldn’t bother applying to Wesleyan or Brown unless you basically have all A’s and A-‘s. </p>

<p>Finally if you’re interested in liberal arts colleges, your SAT or ACT scores won’t be that big of a deal. Feel free to retake the SAT or take the ACT, but that’s probably not going to make much of a difference. In particular, a number of liberal arts colleges in the Northeast are SAT optional, i.e. you don’t have to submit any standardized test scores when you apply. Among the schools on your list, Bates, Colby, Connecticut College, and Dickinson are SAT optional. Some other notable SAT optional schools in the Northeast include Hamilton College in Clinton, NY; Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT; Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME; and Amherst College in Amherst, MA. An extensive albeit non comprehensive list of SAT optional schools can be found here:</p>

<p>[SAT/ACT</a> Optional 4-Year Universities | FairTest](<a href=“http://fairtest.org/university/optional]SAT/ACT”>ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest)</p>

<p>In general the best thing you can do if you want to transfer is befriend some professors so that they’ll write a good letter of recommendation, and strive for perfect or near perfect grades. I hope this helps, and feel free to contact me if you have further questions.</p>

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<p>As a soph transfer applicant, B is not within range for the OP IMO, even with a 4.0 fall semester. </p>

<p>While Amherst does not require standardized tests for transfers, they say this on their website:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/207280/original/TransferInstructions.pdf[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/207280/original/TransferInstructions.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>And Middlebury says:</p>

<p>[For</a> Transfer Students | Middlebury](<a href=“Transfer Applicants | Middlebury College”>Transfer Applicants | Middlebury College)</p>

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<p>I haven’t checked any of the other’s listed in the above post.</p>

<p>While your HS may not calculate a gpa, you should be able to figure out an UW gpa since you know your grades for each class.</p>

<p>In general it is very difficult to “transfer up”, particularly to selective colleges, as a soph transfer unless you were a competitive candidate as a fr applicant.</p>