<p>Hi! I'm a prospective fall 2015 sophomore transfer student coming from a large state university. Currently, I'm planning to apply to Amherst College, a likely rejection, along with Smith and Mount Holyoke, which seem to be more within my reach. My major concern right now is that there's the possibility of being rejected from all three.</p>
<p>My HS record was average (3.6 UW GPA/2050 SAT), but I have my fair share of explanations. The classes for my first semester seem kind of easy and I've heard from other students that an A+ in each of them is more than manageable.</p>
<p>With a 4.0 college GPA and my somewhat decent HS record, do you think I should feel confident in getting admitted to Smith or Mount Holyoke? Are there any other LACs of comparable quality that I should consider just to be on the safe side? The school doesn't need to have an outstanding reputation like Amherst; I am kind of looking for an upgrade, but not necessarily for prestige. I just want to go to a school where students are academically curious and at least generally ambitious. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any feedback.</p>
<p>Sorry for the bump.</p>
<p>I have no idea how much harder it is to get in as a transfer, but I’d say your high school stats are in the ballpark for MHC and Smith. If you can really earn a 4.0 this semester of course that will help. I doubt any of them would be considered a “safety” though. Would you be okay staying where you are now if you didn’t get in this cycle?</p>
<p>Why didn’t you consider Bryn Mawr or Barnard? Just curious. Are you trying to stay in a specific area?
I was accepted to Smith as a transfer student and my transfer GPA was a 3.66. My high school GPA weighted was a 3.6 and a 3.1 unweighted. I had VERY STRONG extra curriculars, but nothing crazy. Do you want to know more about my stats?</p>
<p>@staceyneil – It sounds whiny of me to say this, but I don’t think I could physically force myself to spend another year at my current school. If I wasn’t able to transfer out this cycle, I would either take a gap year and work or attend a community college. I won’t go into too much detail, but I have reasons for disliking my school that go beyond being dissatisfied by the first couple of weeks.</p>
<p>@fantasticfailure – I’m not necessarily trying to stay in a specific area, but if accepted, I would attend any of the three schools in the consortium just to be in the area. </p>
<p>Other than being in NYC, Barnard seems OK. I have never looked into it all that seriously, but I fear that the aid (on top of the expense of the city) would leave me in a bad position financially. Bryn Mawr seems nice, I was just under the impression that transferring was incredibly difficult. Considering I’m already applying to Amherst, I don’t know that it’s wise to use my resources to attempt to get into two impossibly competitive schools.</p>
<p>You don’t have to get terribly personal, but it would be comforting to have an idea of what your extra-curricular activities were. Sometimes I see people with stats similar to mine transfer successfully to great schools, but then I notice they’ve built orphanages in developing countries and I have yet to do anything that impressive.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr does have a lower transfer acceptance rate than Smith, but they gave me more money than Smith did (well I didn’t apply under financial aid, but Bryn Mawr gave me an 8,500 scholarship). I don’t think Bryn Mawr is as difficult to transfer into as Amherst is though ahah. But I have a feeling Smith will be more generous giving you aid overall.
Barnard is probably more difficult to transfer to and so I see your point.
I didn’t interview for Smith because I didn’t really have the time.
All they ask in the essay is why you’re transferring and I just talked about not liking my state school and wanting to go to a smaller school. Liking discussion based classes and all that jazz.
Major: History
ACT: 29
APs: 2 Econ (lol), 3 Gov, 4 AP Lit, 5 APUSH, 5 AP Lang, 5 AP Euro
SAT IIs: 750 US history, 600 lit
ECs: (In College) Member of NSCS, Member of Jacob Dream’s Foundation, Member of Liberty in North Korea, GPA in top 20% of college (not an ec, but worth mentioning) 3.66 GPA 3.9 fall quarter (took a class pass or fail), 3.5 winter quarter (I missed two weeks of the quarter because of issues). Strong letters of rec. But yeah, my ecs in college was basically being a member of random clubs that I rarely went to.
High school ECs (yes I did talk about them in my app because common app let me) NJROTC 4 years made the rank of Ensign and became social affairs head (I planned two parties and a military ball whoop). I also explained my role as a mentor/teacher in NJROTC because seniors teach freshmen and how I was awarded the 3rd highest honor in NJROTC. History club co-president for 3 years, Liberty in North Korea liaison (school club, I basically sent emails to the NGO chapter we represented), and I talked about my academic struggles in high school. Um, I also was an AP Scholar with Distinction (which isn’t too hard to get). I talked about an internship I did (it was nothing amazing or memorable). I didn’t do anything too crazy/spectacular, but I was really involved in high school. </p>
<p>@fantasticfailure – You didn’t apply for financial aid? :\ It worries me that being a high-need applicant will prevent me from being accepted to need-aware schools because I don’t necessarily fall into the category of being an “excellent” student. Do you know of anyone with an EFC of 0 (or somewhere close) that was accepted to Smith or Bryn Mawr as a transfer?</p>
<p>Hm. Is there any way to mention awards on the CommonApp? Though I doubt the awards I have will be the deciding factor for AdComm, they may help round my application (to name a couple: QuestBridge Finalist, AP Scholar with Distinction).</p>
<p>Whoops sorry. Yes there should be.</p>
<p>I don’t think that there is; I have completed the CommonApp portion (more-or-less) and a section for this purpose never came up. Oh well, they are probably not worth mentioning anyway. (Although I will probably mention QuestBridge to Amherst, seeing as it is all about being need-affirmative and whatnot.)</p>