<p>Is there something extra special about these people? Any examples of people who've gotten in as transfers (these have to be people of this board [if thats possible], people you directly know, or people you've read about? Also, besides being an inventor, developmental case, recruited athlete, URM, or something obvious like that, how do you get an edge in the admissions process? Because along with these people they have to admit regular people.</p>
<p>There some articles about Stanford transfer students on google but i can't find them right now.</p>
<p>It’s kind of like Poker…part talent, part luck.</p>
<p>pa pa pa poker face pa pa poker face muh muh muh muh…</p>
<p>Why do you want to go to these schools, besides the obvious.</p>
<p>you need the golden ticket</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily want to go, I just want to know what it takes. Maybe a good essay…</p>
<p>As much mystery as there is in admissions (let alone transfer admissions), it is a very knowable process insofar as your numbers determine a great deal. Ergo, do well in school and hopefully you had a solid high school record as well as good test scores. (Caveat: The numbers give you an idea of where you stand, but at top schools, good numbers will only get you so far given the competition you face.) </p>
<p>As far as common wisdom goes, Andale’s thread (Transfer Admissions 101) is very thorough and should give a good idea of what you need to be doing in order to make yourself most competitive. There’s no golden ticket, but you can stack the deck in your favor by doing the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Substantially involving yourself in a solid EC or two in college (or perhaps continuing from high school). This not only helps your application, but also can be great essay fodder. </p></li>
<li><p>Preparing your essays several months in advance. This will allow you to get feedback from a variety of people and polish it sufficiently. I suspect the essay is so important for top schools because they can fill their ranks with top SAT scorers, but also balance perspective and personality in the equation. This is your chance to give adcoms a sense of who you are and what you add to the campus.</p></li>
<li><p>Engaging with your courses to the best of your ability. Not only will it help your GPA (and frankly make school more palatable), but also put you in a strong position to get a good recommendation from a professor.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>With Yale, Harvard, and Stanford, there is almost no chance of transfer admission for anyone save Mother Teresa herself. We’re talking nearly 97% rejection rates, which means there’s not much you can do besides pray for divine intervention to guarantee even a ghost of a chance for admission. (I’m a URM with a 2200 and had a 3.87 from USC with an impressive music resume and didn’t get so much as waitlisted at Yale. Alas.) Penn is much more generous than the others, however, we’re talking 10% acceptance for CAS and you’re up against very solid applicants, so it’s still a rough game. </p>
<p>Not sure about MIT at all. I don’t know what their practices are.</p>
<p>MIT is probably the toughest to get into. I recall attending an info session many years ago, in which they openly admitted that not being a math olympiad/whatever the equivalent is in your hard science/math field basically ruled you out. I doubt that practice has changed.</p>
<p>wow, on their website it says that one must enroll in science classes and math classes to even be considered as a transfer student…</p>
<p>wayward, thanks for the advice. What were your reasons for transferring from USC?</p>
<p>Such a hard question! PM me and I’ll sit down and give you a thorough response.</p>