<p>I'm expecting to attend a second tier school, like northeastern, u washington, or an instate school like james madison or virginia tech, and i was just wondering how hard it is to transfer by end of freshman/beginning sophomore year? I got a 1930 SAT score but my gradees in high school were very unstable, the first two because of moving and what not, but basically i want to attend a top tier school and if assuming i got at least a 3.5 gpa in college, what are my chances? I've had lots of EC's in high school and a lot on my essay to talk about, mainly because I've moved around a lot (bolivia, korea).</p>
<p>Anyways I am a virginia in state student and was wondering what my chances are of transferring to uva from one of the instate schools, or from any other non instate second tier school to another private school (usc - legacy, u chicago, northwestern, cornell). Should I take the SAT's again when I'm a freshman in college because its too low?</p>
<p>Also, how hard is it to get into a top grad school? I really want to transfer or go to grad school at one of those schools I listed... (usc, uchicago, northwestern, cornell)</p>
<p>Graduate schools rely a great deal on faculty recommendations, research productivity, as well as grades and GRE scores. Often, faculty connections are the most important element in grad school acceptance. There are some instances where a department at a major state university, such as the Univ. of Washington, is more respected than a similar department at many Ivies. I know of many students who attended 3rd tier state universities who later were admitted to top tier Universities. Be aware, however, that when it comes to graduate school, the best departments are not necessarily at the so-called top tier schools, or a private school. For example, the #1 rated neurosciences program is at UC San Francisco.</p>
<p>From an Atlantic article a few years back:</p>
<p>"The perception of what constitutes an "elite" school often has little to do with academic excellence. After all, one important measure of a university's quality is how many of its faculty members belong to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The ultra-selective Brown counts among its faculty sixteen who are members. Duke, the object of many a prep school student's swoon, has thirty-five. But the University of Washington has seventy-one, Wisconsin sixty-four, Michigan fifty-eight, Texas fifty-four, and Illinois fifty-three."</p>