<p>assuming a student has 4.0 gpa their first term at a school like uva or berkeley.</p>
<p>Good luck getting a 4.0 at UVA or Berkeley. If you do, it's probably not too difficult to transfer.</p>
<p>It shouldn't be too hard with a 4.0 after one term right? My hs record was bad but good enough to get me into uva, berkeley and cornell. But i really want to go to a small school like Williams.</p>
<p>The problem is they have very a very high retention rate around 97% first year.</p>
<p>4.0s are realllly hard to get unless you do nothing but study.</p>
<p>If you have a 4.0 at Berkeley or UVA, your door to the future will open 24/7.
You do not need to transfer to any school.</p>
<p>It's often difficult to transfer into top LACs. They have high retention rates, so few spots open up. And there tends to be a lot of demand for those spots, because it's not unusual for students to be disappointed with the large university experience. </p>
<p>According to collegeboard.com, Williams accepted 13 of 134 transfer applicants last year, for a transfer acceptance rate of 9.7 %. That was significantly lower than their regular acceptance rate of 18 %. </p>
<p>Bowdoin got 182 transfer applicants and accepted only 6, for a transfer acceptance rate of 3.3 %.</p>
<p>also remember that williams does not accept international transfer applicants, which means that for a valid comparison, the 18% quoted above will have to be significantly raised, due to the exceptionally low acceptance rate of internationals. i'm no statistician, but i'm sure someone with the expertise could figure it out using record articles.</p>
<p>If you have your heart set on transferring to a small school, then you should definitely apply no matter what and not let the "statistics" get in the way. </p>
<p>From my opinion, the essays matter the most at small schools, so keep up the grades, but put a lot of effort into why you want to go to each school and why you are transferring.</p>