Help me pick schools/safeties/chances!

Transfer Students
1

<p>I'm a freshman at North Harris Montgomery County Community College District in the Woodlands, Texas. That's a mouthful. During high school, I didn't really have any plans for college, I just knew I wanted to go somewhere. I am the first in my family to go to college so I didn't have too much encouragement from parents. I don't recommend that kind of procrastination to anyone else. During high school I had around a 3.3 GPA and was in the top 20%. Nearly every course I took was an honors/AP course. Now, I'm in community college and I'm planning on transferring as a junior into a business school (management/economics) or just a general college (economics). My current GPA is a 4.0. I've taken the following so far:</p>

<p>U.S History I / II
U.S. Government I/ II
Calculus I / II
Macroeconomics
Business Speech</p>

<p>Right now or in the coming semesters I am going to take:</p>

<p>Calculus III
Accounting I / II (Managerial & Financial)
Economics II
English Composition I / II
Biology I / II
Physics
Statistics
Expository Writing (if English Comp doesn't fill requirements)
Chamber Singers (Most Selective Choir)</p>

<p>Unfortunately, most of those aren't honors courses since my college makes it very difficult to actually take honors classes. Only about 6 classes are offered honors and then the only way to make a class "honors" is to enter into a contract with the teacher, which a lot of teachers are too lazy to do. I'll probably end up sending a letter to the admissions to tell them. I need to choose some more courses, but I'm having a dilemma as to what courses I should take. I could either take the blowoff courses required to get my associates at my present college (PE?!, Philosophy, and other various rubbish) or I could take more demanding courses (differential equations, physics II, etc.) to send in to the universities I'm interested in. So my first question is, those of you that got in where ya wanted to go, did you take the most demanding courses or did you get the electives out of the way? Does a completed associates look better than several more difficult courses?<br>
By the way, all of these courses cover the requirements for my target colleges. Right now I'm looking at and very interested in:</p>

<p>University of Texas at Austin (McCombs) - should be a safety
Boston University (School of Management) - probably also a safety
Brown University - reach
New York University (Stern) - maybe, probably my favorite
UC - Berkeley (Haas) - maybe/reach
Univerity of Chicago - reach
Cornell (College of Ag and Life Science) - reach
Columbia - reach
USC (Marshall) - maybe/reach
Emory (Goizueta) - reach</p>

<p>As you can see, I've got quite a few more reaches/maybes than safeties, so I'm lookin for another safety and also yall's input on my chances. My other info is:</p>

<p>Singer/performer (plan on sending couple demo songs to admissions)
SAT - CR: 770 Math: 670 Writing: 780 (Essay 12)
ACT - taking Saturday, practice tests have been 34-35 repeatedly.
SAT II - Math IIC ~ 700 (crap), Math IC ~ 780, U.S History ~ 790
I took those three last Saturday so those are my predicted scores.
Plan on taking Biology, Physics, maybe Chemistry, and Literature.
Work - 35 to 40 hours/week for past 3 years.
Extra Curriculars (Weak since I just started this whole college process) -
Vice President - Honors Society
Vice President - Student Government
Press Secretary - Business Program
Over 200 community service hours at the YMCA.</p>

<p>So what are my chances and what do yall recommend. Thanks, I know it's a long post but I appreciate the advice.</p>

2

<p>Georgetown MSB might be a good match. They are less selective than the college and the SFS, and they love Texans.</p>

3

<p>i think you'll definitely get into stern, bu, and UT-Austin. uc-berkeley is verrrrry difficult for OOS transfers.</p>

4

<p>sweet!!!!!! i'm really happy to hear somebody have confidence about my chances at stern since that is kinda my favorite (besides columbia which is a major long shot) </p>

<p>but what about electives/associates VS. rigorous courses/no associates></p>

5

<p>Are finances a consideration for you? Do you know what your family's EFC is? Some schools are notoriously stingy with need-based aid; others meet 100% of need. Is this important to you?</p>

6

<p>"Work - 35 to 40 hours/week for past 3 years."</p>

<p>holy crap.</p>

7

<p>No,finances aren't too big of a deal. My dad is doing well and wants me to go wherever i can get in, and my family has very good credit so external aid would be a possible solution if the school would not help out. </p>

<p>Haha...yes 35 to 40 hours a week...for 3 years. I'm really hoping that will make up for the extracurricular gap.</p>

8

<p>so i don't want this topic to disappear......bumppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp. i'm still really wondering a/b the associates vs. tough courses questions and my chances at some of the harder schools from kids who got in....
so........bumpppppppppppp</p>

9

<p>Well you definitely have the stats to go anywhere. Although I haven't applied as a transfer student anywhere myself (probably next year), it sounds like the point of contention for most colleges is simply how well you demonstrate a need to be at their school. So if you find a program at Brown that you really love, and just can't get anywhere else, talk about it and you have a good shot. Or at least that's the way I understand transfer admissions.</p>

10

<p>For the question of what courses to take in your remaining year, I recommend you call the Transfer Admissions rep at one or two of your most preferred transfer schools and ask exactly that question. Most of these folks are likely to be quite helpful. If you get a bad egg :eek:, call a different school.</p>

<p>You have the stats to be considered at your reach schools, but you can't count on any of them, of course. Check the % accepted stat for transfer students at your proposed safety and match schools, to make sure they are, in fact, safe. Some good schools take more than 50% of transfer applicants, so you want some of those on your list.</p>

11

<p>Jmmom-
I've called all of the schools I am interested in and everyone who doesn't have any specific requirements says to take a "rigorous liberal arts curriculum" so I suppose rigorous courses would be better than completing my electives for an associates. I was just wondering if anyone agreed with my presumption.</p>

<p>I have checked into % accepted and I believe the highest acceptance is NYU with about 31%, UT is very small acceptance but my friend at this college just got in to McCombs with a lower GPA so I'm not too worried. Texans are high priority for UT. I will have to check Boston. Thanks for the tips.</p>

12

<p>That's what I would have though, brand__ But I don't have any real experience with cc's. Still, outside the cc world, if you are going for a BA or BS, the AA degree has no real value (just my opinion, but I think it's pretty widespread).</p>

<p>Re % acceptances, with you in Texas, UT could be safe, but I'd still find a couple of schools you like a lot with acceptance rates over 50%.</p>

13

<p>I would add Georgetown, Rice, UNC-CH, and Northwestern which all tend to be easier for transfer admissions than their caliber would suggest.</p>

14

<p>Jmmom-
Thanks for the advice. I'm going to use and go ahead and take tough courses instead of completing my associates.
Slipper-
My friend from my college got into Rice this year. I just don't wanna be close to home. I'll check out UNC - Chapel Hill and I was looking at Northwestern for awhile. Academics and social atmosphere look great, but is it just me looking at the wrong photos or is NW ugly?</p>

15

<p>HAAS is def a reach...especially out of state.</p>

16

<p>i suppose so...their stats for last year were that a little over 1000 applied, and only 500 were qualified as according to GPA cutoff, prereqs, and whatever else qualifies people. I know I will be qualified and they accepted 90, so about 20%. I'm still gonna give it a shot, but I guess it's like someone OOS trying to compete with me to get into McCombs.</p>

17

<p>nyu dropped to 8% acceptance rate this year so i wouldnt count on it.</p>

18

<p>why?! they went down a ton!</p>

19

<p>wait a minute...stern said they accepted 28% this year on their undergrad bulletin board. where'd you get that info paperclipz?</p>

20

<p>admin counselor...check out the NYU TRANSFERS thread somewhere in this forum...many people heard the same thing from them that this year they were accepting only 8%...could be just College of arts and science though altho it would be weird if they accepted more students for stern which is more competitive...</p>