I’m going to my state university but I’m hoping to transfer to a school with a better Neuroscience and Behavior program. However, that means I’m looking at places like Stanford, the UC’s, Columbia, and JHU
My high school stats weren’t anything great so I’m not in the honors program or anything special though I plan to apply to it towards the end of my freshman year
I know i’ll have to kick it up as far as college gpa
How much do high school stats matter?
What other factors should I consider before deciding to transfer?
What other things should I do to improve myself for the application process?
Thanks
I am also a high school senior who is planning to transfer.
First of all you should know that Stanford only has about 10 transfer seats for a couple thousand applicants, so it’s an insane reach for just about anybody. The other colleges are fine though.
What is your HS stats? Mine isn’t that great (3.0) so I’m planning to transfer into a better school like Cornell, Vanderbilt, Georgetown as a Junior after I bump up all my grades. If you transfer in as a junior, HS stats won’t really matter at all. They just need to see that you finished it. However if you plan to transfer in as a sophomore, HS stats will matter much more since they won’t have much college-level work to look at.
Other factors to consider before transferring would probably be financial aid, since it’s a bit more restrictive towards transfer students. See if the transfer would be worth the financial aid and tuition. You should also look at all the schools that you want to transfer to and look at the individual course requirements for each school.
You probably know that you will need at least 2 letter of recs from your professors. All the other stuff is pretty much the same things you would have to do in high school to improve your transfer chance (grades,extracurricular, etc). The essay is much more important as you will have to tell them why you want to transfer.
Hope this helps!
Hey, my HS stats aren’t too far off (3.3) and yeah, sadly I’m aware of Stanford’s odds
when exactly do you start applying if you want to transfer in as a junior? and do we have to take the SAT’s/ACT’s again? My scores were above average but no ivy-league level
also, obviously they’ll want to see extracurriculars related to your field of interest but what about other stuff such as film and dance?
You start applying usually around the winter of your sophomore year if you want to transfer in as a junior. They will till want and see your mid-year report.
SAT/ACTs don’t carry as much weight if you are transferring in as a junior. However, if you do want to transfer to a ivy league school (like I do) every little bit of your application will help. I got around a 1920 on my SAT’s which isn’t good enough for Cornell and other schools I’m looking at, so I for sure will be retaking it. However, keep in mind that some schools, even top schools, will not require standardized test scores for junior transfer, but you should send it in anyways. A rule of thumb to consider, whenever a college says they don’t require something and it’s optional (essays, test scores) you should send it in anyways as it will give you an edge over those who haven’t. Especially things that you can improve on such as the SATs/ACTs and essays.
As far as extracirculars go colleges that you want to transfer to will want to see you start narrowing down your interests. You want to go into neuroscience, you will want want to do things related to the science field for the next two years. When you apply for transfer, colleges like Columbia will want to know why you want to transfer. And from what I can tell, colleges are really good at filtering out people who just want prestige over people who actually want the better programs. If you do extracurriculars related to your field, it will help you way more than film or dance. Remember when you transfer in as a junior, you will most likely be taking classes related to your major so it won’t really matter to them that you did film and dance.
@pbear20 let me know if you have any more questions
If you’re applying as a sophomore transfer, high school stats will weigh more. Schools only have one semester of college transcript to determine how you’re doing, and this simply is not enough. But if you’re transferring as a junior, it matters less. But as Mastodon pointed out, if you’re applying to super selective universities, every bit of your stats will help.
Neither of you will be attending a university of that caliber lower your scope and be realistic…
What? I see people with lower stats than me getting into higher caliber schools than I have mentioned. Like I said it’s dependent on you college GPA. How can you possibly tell that just from a hs gpa which they don’t even really look at if you transferring in as a junior? Take your negativity elsewhere.
@Mastodon97 thank you for being so helpful and positive unlike some other people! I agree, I’ve seen people from community college get into Georgetown and UCLA. Though they’re not exactly top-10, they’re still really good. I wish you the best and I’ll definitely keep in touch in case I have more questions
They do look at your hs gpa as a transfer… and with top tier schools best of luck with a 3.0 or 3.3 from hs i hope you broke 1400+ on your sat 2 part because they take that into consideration , with a 3.8 + college gpa and great ec and research.
@atuckertransfer But the bulk of what they look at is collegiate level work. Also why don’t you skim through the transfer decisions threads through the years and you will see many people getting in with even lower stats. I remember is saw someone witht a 2.5 who bumped up hi gpa to a 4.0 in cc who got into Stanford. Why do you think people transfer in the first place? It’s because they couldn’t get in with what they did in high school. And what is this nonsense about SAT 2s? Like colleges would even care about that as a transfer. Do your research man before you say things.
It’s not solely dependent on college GPA. HS GPA matters, if you’re applying to top schools. If someone got in with a a really low HS GPA, that person had some other extraordinary achievements or reasons that made colleges want him or her. But HS stats do play a role in admission. And Stanford and US are famous for taking CC students. Most colleges in the same rank are not. And people transfer because they didn’t get in or they didn’t apply in the first place, or they got in but chose some other schools (of the same rank, or somewhere that gives more financial aid) and changed their mind. But not getting into top schools doesn’t mean most of them had 2.5 GPA in colleges. You’ll see transfer students who got into top schools from very selective schools like Emory, Rice, UVA, JHU, and etc. Most of them probably got 3.8+ and 2100+ in his school, at least from stats. There always are exceptions, of course. I’ve seen some who got into Yale or columbaia fromcommunity colleges, although very, very few, compared to peiple wjo get in from other selctive universities. Also, the competition for transfer admissiom eases after top several schools. I go to a school that’s ranked among top 20-sth, and I do see quite a few transfers from CC. But if you’re applying for Harvard, Yale, Columbia and a few more, story becomes different, at least from what I’ve observed from the last 5 years. Especially if you’re applying during your freshman year, HS stats will play a big role. Several exceptions don’t override the general trend. Also, I guess it would be smart to search what top schools have been generous to CC students and focus on those schools. UCs, Stanford, Cornell, Amherst are what I have on top of my head, but there gotta be more. And apply for a couple dream schools regardless of the chance unless you’re sure you’re not gonna regret not applying in the future. But you gotta make sure you have “safety” schools.
(Pardon my typos if there is any.)
@transferingbud Columbia is not in the same league with Harvard and Yale. Columbia is actually a lot easier. And I definitely agree with you that the top 5 schools are insanely hard to get into without perfect stats. I was more talking in the range of Cornell, Vanderbilt, USC, Georgetown. Schools that are ranked 10-20 usually have very high transfer acceptance rate. Especially Vanderbilt. I spoke with a rep with Vanderbilt and she said its usually 70% college gpa, 20% essays and extracirucalrs (in college), and 10% HS GPA and test scores and I feel it is the same for colleges around this range
Yes but they will request your past HS grades , and they don’t do it not to look at it… Yes people get in with lower stats but as a whole statistically that is not true… all I’m saying was for the kid to understand that yes they do take students of lesser achievement in HS. but however they are not going to take someone because they just get a 4.0 gpa in college they have to go above and beyond academically to maximize the potential… And yes schools like that do view your SAT 2 part score to see the caliber of your standardized testing …perhaps should you have taken the time to read and analysis what i said you would have understood i wasn’t referring to the SAT II subject tests… And i have done my research considering I’m a transfer student myself and have been throughout the process and understand how it works vs someone who has not ( yourself and OP) so therefore you should do your research and understand that yes colleges take a holistic approach to reviewing applications but they do not however over look past short fallings as it is a mark of work ethic and diligence.
YOU are wrong again
US News rank College
Transfer rate Transfers applied Transfers accepted
1 Harvard University 1.04% 1,448 15
2 Princeton University N/A N/A N/A
3 Yale University 2.68% 970 26
4 Columbia University 6.22% 2,365 147
5.1 Stanford University 2.25% 1,512 34
5.2 University of Chicago 2.22% 991 22
7.1 Duke University 10.68% 337 36
7.2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.51% 454 25
7.3 University of Pennsylvania 9.40% 2,096 197
10.1 California Institute of Technology 2.34% 214 5
10.2 Dartmouth College 3.75% 799 30
12.1 Johns Hopkins University 8.31% 1,071 89
12.2 Northwestern University 12.33% 1,435 177
14.1 Brown University 5.60% 1,750 98
14.2 Washington University in St. Louis 5.83% 1,389 81
16 Cornell University 20.59% 3,579 737
17 Vanderbilt University 26.14% 1,385 362
18.1 Rice University 15.04% 585 88
18.2 University of Notre Dame 36.94% 509 188
20.1 Emory University 32.00% 1,203 385
20.2 Georgetown University 13.67% 2,063 282
20.3 University of California-Berkeley 21.56% 15,754 3,397
23.1 Carnegie Mellon University 10.29% 768 79
23.2 University of California-Los Angeles 27.96% 18,923 5290
23.3 University of Southern California 33.39% 8,281 2,765
23.4 University of Virginia 36.88% 2,427 895
23.5 Wake Forest University 22.01% 359 79
28.1 Tufts University 23.40% 829 194
28.2 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 34.73% 3,844 1,335
30 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 42.82% 3,169 1,357
31 Boston College 10.90% 2,019 220
All of these schools have a skewed transfer acceptance rate due to GT(guaranteed transfers) Its actually statistical proven that it % of students accepted as transfers is less than students accepted straight out of hs…
Therefore once again you are providing wrong information again…
Cornell University 20.59%
Emory University 32.00%
University of California-Berkeley 21.56%
University of California-Los Angeles 27.96%
University of Southern California 33.39%
University of Virginia 36.88%
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 34.73%
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 42.82%
And lets not forget OOS students have even less of a shot at elite state schools because most prioritize in state applicants therefore the % accepted for a majority of applicants is actually lower