<p>Last year, as a high school senior, I got waitlisted from two of my top choice schools (Carnegie Mellon and Amherst) and rejected from two schools that I really, really wanted to attend (Penn and Hopkins). My "stats" are above the national average and well below the standard for most CC users. However, I do think that I have potential at these universities and I want to give it another shot. I love my current university, but living so far away from home has been much more expensive than I'd hoped. Since CC has given me a sort of reality check, I want to make sure that I do my best in packaging my soul into a little application for these reach schools that I want to transfer into.</p>
<p>So, amidst the thousands of competitors you may have, how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd? I don't mean being published or interning or winning the Nobel Prize. I don't have much of that. I want someone to actually know who I am and not identify me by my social security number and GPA. I would love to have an admissions officer actually know me by name, if they still bother to do that. Any advice?</p>
<p>one way that I think is understated here on CC is to get really close with your professors who will write your recs if you decide to transfer. Get to know them, get them to love you. A good teacher rec can put a student into the "good" area if it is truly genuine and passionate.</p>
<p>What exactly is a "good" teacher recommendation anyway? None of my professors or high school teachers have actually allowed me to read their recommendation letters; instead they send them directly to the school...so I'm not sure how I could judge that.</p>
<p>^ to answer this question, just determine your teacher's apparent qualities and the relationship that you've developed with him/her. If you got those two checked, you know you got a good recommendation. If you slacked off your entire HS career and got by with freeloader A's just based on your talent, you know that your recommendation is going to be sht.</p>
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However, I do think that I have potential at these universities and I want to give it another shot. I love my current university, but living so far away from home has been much more expensive than I'd hoped.
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You probably DO have potential at those schools; that doesn't mean you're going to get in. With the crush to get into the brand-name schools, adcoms often state that they could have built a class as good as the one they accepted from those they turned away. So you face a choice here, although I'm guessing you already made up your mind. [ul][<em>]stay at this school you love and figure out how to cut costs [</em>]apply again to the colleges that turned you away once already[/ul]I'm going to argue for choice 1. You asked in your 1st post how to stand out from the crowd, how to get the adcoms to see you as more than just a number. Well, at the schools you listed that's what they try to do. And its not that you're not a worthwhile interesting person; I'm sure you are. It's just that the adcoms have to make tough choices, and part of the deal is turning away qualified applicants to take those who (for whatever reason) they preferred. So I wouldn't be so confident that the only reason they turned you away was because they only looked at you superficially, that if you can just catch their eye and have them take a 'real look' they'll admit you.</p>
<p>Some will say "go ahead and apply, you have nothing to lose". I disagree. If you were miserable at your current school, if it didn't have the right program for your interests, etc. then you should definitely be looking at leaving. But what I sense here is more a case of wanting something you believe is better. And that's a slippery slope for several reasons. For one, your daily life at your current U is real; it has good and bad aspects. Your transfer colleges, on the other hand, I doubt you picture anything about them as being bad, let alone worse than where you are right now. Reality is always going to come up short measured against a dream, so odds are good you're overestimating how much better they'd really be.</p>
<p>Which leads into my 2nd reason, what you have to lose. It's substantial. While you plan for what may be a slim hope of transferring in order to go somewhere "better" you aren't getting fully engaged in the life you live today. Its just human nature not to invest a great deal of effort into building strong friendships, getting involved in clubs, and so on when a part of you expects to be leaving in a year. The most unfortunate thing is that at the schools you want to xfer into the kids ARE doing those things. You show up junior year and start at ground zero, they've had 2 years of making friends, getting into leadership positions, learning the ropes of how things are done and what opportunities are available, making the school their own. Anyone who's transferred will tell you that its never the same as having spent all 4 years at the school. And as may be likely the case given the results the 1st time around, if you don't succeed in transferring you've lost opportunities right in front of you today.</p>
<p>I'm not one of those people who is transferring just because I got rejected from more prestigious universities. I know I see a lot of it in and out of CC, but I'm not in college just so I can go to a better college. I'm transferring because of several reasons, personal reasons that go beyond the financial aspect also. Those are just some schools that I'm considering again because I truly liked them at first, but my hopes aren't high. If I don't get into them, I'll get into another safety and that's that. I'll also be transferring into my sophomore year, so I don't think that it would be so bad. I totally understand your post though, and thanks for the advice! The links you included in your second post are also very helpful. :)</p>