Hello! I am looking to transfer from a state school to Northwestern University or a school of similar prestige within its writing programs. I originally chose the school I am at for its financial aid, but I am not favoring its student body and lack of academic rigor.
I was looking at the Common Application for transfer students and realized that there is an unlimited amount of experiences and achievements that can be added. Of course, there can always be too much information. I was wondering how much I should include. Should I list my private scholarships? What about honors from my current school, such as being a top journalism student, honors college student, and research fellow? How many of my high school honor societies and clubs/activities should I include?
Would it be safe to simply include everything, or should I only list items that I have on my resume and/or on LinkedIn?
Hello, fellow transfer applicant here! From doing my own research, I have found that many universities discourage you from listing every single organization, extracurricular, etc. that you’re involved in. Instead, they would rather see a few of those that have meant the most to you. Sometimes less is more. As for your awards and recognitions, there’s a spot on the Common App to list those separately from your extracurriculars. I would advise reading Northwestern’s transfer section of their admissions page to find out more information regarding what they’re looking for in the application.
No. I’d like to try again. There were many people I know in journalism who were accepted to Northwestern and were surprised that I hadn’t been accepted. I didn’t know the tools about how to cater your application to a specific focus so my application went for the more well-rounded approach and failed me in the admissions process. I was able to get into a few highly selective institutions, though.
I am not sure about the first part. My family makes enough money that they could support it. That just wouldn’t be their preference if they don’t have to pay that.
As for the second part, the school I am going to is a local school that myself and my classmates have been familiar with our entire lives. It was 100% a safety school that ended up being my cheapest option at the moment. While I haven’t been to classes yet, this is based on years of experience talking to alumni, current students, and the experiences I’ve had on tours, special scholarship events within the school, and orientation. The student body doesn’t click well with me. It is a large state school with its primary focus on sporting events, is notorious for its parties, and mainly draws in students solely from the state and only a few extra from the rest of the country for their journalism program.
Also, I have had numerous issues with poor administration and communication on the school’s end so far. I just finished having a conversation with my parents about the dozen issues that have occurred in the past month with getting everything squared away for freshman year, including the usage of too many 3rd-party pieces of software to submit important paperwork, lack of communication about required modules, and even the failure to state when our advising would occur. For me, the school is too large and their efforts so far have not been appreciated.
My opinion. You are basing some of your info on hearsay, and NONE is based on your actual enrollment at this school as a college student. You need to go on with a very positive attitude…and work as though you plan to stay. If, in the end, you make a decision to transfer, it needs to be because it didn’t work for you AND you got tippy top grades anyway.
Re: applying to a college where you already were rejected. You have nothing to add to your application for reapplying for fall 2023. Your high school grades and Standardized test scores will be used. You won’t even have college end of year grades when you apply to transfer. If you didn’t get accepted the first time, it’s not probably likely you will be accepted this time…really, you have nothing new to offer except that you didn’t like your first college choice…and that won t get you an acceptance at Northwestern.
Northwestern is one of the very top journalism schools in the country (Medill). They have their pick of cream of the crop applicants. NW in general is a very competitive university.
I strongly urge you to do two things.
Go to where you have matriculated with plans to make it your place! Join clubs, get to know your instructors, etc.
If you do decide to transfer, find a well varied list of options…not just the top journalism school in the country where you already were denied admission.
It sounds like you chose a non-selective institution because it was less expensive. Wouldn’t NU also be more expensive should you get accepted as a transfer? Would your parents pay for NU when seemingly it wasn’t the choice this year to pay for a peer institution?
I don’t know whether Medill expands the class size post-first year or not, each incoming class is around 100 students. How many transfers they typically take per year, if any, is something you need to look into by communicating with your transfer admissions rep.
NU will also have your previous application on file, and they will look at that if you submit a transfer app, so all essays and LoRs must be new. You will need high grades first semester, strong LoRs, as well as journalism specific ECs so that you can maximize your chance of acceptance. If you are certain you want to transfer you will need to cast a wider net than one school, arguably the best journalism school in the country.
It’s highly unlikely to get into a school that rejected you the first time around.
My advice is to forget about NU, which not only would be extremely unlikely to admit you as a transfer, is one of the most expensive schools in the country.
I do agree with your advice about how my attitude should be. I am now at my new school and I am currently assessing whether it is truly as awful as my preconceived notions and as other girls in the J school have told me and from what I have experienced. I was planning on doing as much as possible regardless and treating my involvement here as if I wasn’t leaving.
But not having anything else for my application? I have an entire year’s worth of material to add. My straight A’s second semester of senior year, scholarships, my 5 on the most difficult AP exam (statistically determined by percentage), and anything I become involved with at this school. I have already been named one of the top 10 incoming freshmen, an honors college student, obtained a discovery fellowship to conduct research with graduate students as a freshman, been published all over, and been named as one of the top incoming journalism students. You really think by March I won’t have an additional 15 months of content to add as a big fish in a pond of 30,000 students? Not to mention any other involvement I join, committees I’m a part of, internships obtained, or additional scholarship competitions?
As far as prices go, that would be something to determine if I were actually accepted. But this wasn’t a helpful response when I was asking how to put my best foot forward. Don’t tell me to give up before I begin. Regardless, my experience at my current school will be filled with me trying my hardest and attempting to succeed. That is just who I am as an individual and I wouldn’t be happy with myself otherwise.
Also, not sure who is in this thread now. But this is my response to everybody who has responded thus far.
I think you will do things at your new college for one semester, that you can add to your transfer application.
And yes, this school will see your final senior year marks.
I’m glad you are approaching this as though you will be staying there, as you will be more invested in the things you do that way.
I will repeat what I said before. It is not likely that you will get accepted at a college that previously rejected you, but you can’t get accepted if you don’t apply. So go for it.
NU does accept transfer students. Not sure about Medill. Worth checking!
And regarding affordability…I think this is a very key element to any college application, because an unaffordable acceptance is like a rejection…because you won’t be able to attend.