How much will my high school stats hurt me in the transfer process?

Transfer Students
1

[wall of text incoming]

I’m looking to apply to the following schools:
Georgia Tech, CMU (deciding on SCS vs ECE), MIT, Stanford (both are massive stretches, ik), Princeton, Yale, UPenn, Cornell, Columbia

I am a freshman pursuing a CS major at UF.

I’ll give a little bit of a insight into what my app will sort of be like:

HS:

I was in IB and took:
Math HL (6), English HL (5), Physics HL (6), Chemistry HL (5)
French SL (5), History SL (6)

AP Physics C EM (4) (self taught)
AP Physics C Mechanics (5) (self taught, both were not offered at my school)
AP Calc AB and BC (both were 5’s, took them a year apart)

I’ve won a few mu alpha theta regional trophies and same for FBLA. I won 1st in district for a game I made in java, but didn’t make it past states.

3.83 UW / 4.0 (I’ve gotten way more B’s than I should have. Got my stuff together in senior year and made straight As but it was way too late)
7.19 weighted (they add 0.08 per honors and 0.16 per AP course taken onto your unweighted, weird weird system)

ACT: 35 (35 M, 35 Science, 35 Writing, 34 Reading)
SAT: 1430 (did not submit, I was extremely sick that day and was heavily distracted. In hindsight I would have retaken it but I used my ACT instead)

SAT Physics: 800
SAT Math 2: 800

my application was extremely bland with nothing extracurricular wise to help out, and it definitely explains all the rejections.

So I took all that into account and decided to do much better in college. I’m currently a freshman but I want to develop my application up more so I’m transferring as a junior (applications will be submitted during my sophomore year)

Currently I go to UF

UW: 4.0 (this will drop to a 3.976 around) / 4.0
I’m in honors

Courseload:

Fall 2017:
What is the good life (humanities) - A
Calculus III - A
Programming fundamentals 1 - A
Calculus Gems (honors class, student led presentations of proofs) - A

Spring 2018:
Discrete Structures
Programming fundamentals 2
Sets and Logic
Physics 1 Honors

I’m not taking very many courses since I exempted a lot of them thanks to the AP / IB courses I took.

I’m co-founder and VP of the Rubiks Cube club here

I’m currently involved in research and I’m working with a PhD student and will be co-authoring a paper
in machine learning and its applications in cyber security.

I definitely plan to do more research, and hopefully in the fall I can conduct research on my own topics with a professor.
In the summer I couldn’t find any internships as of yet, but I do plan to work on personal projects involving machine learning.

I’m definitely worried that my high school stats will bring me down drastically because it’s so bad, but I’m hoping what I’m doing now will have more of an impact on the application. Also, I’m thinking about retaking the SAT and submitting that instead, I’m shooting for a 1600. I’m not very knowledgeable on the transfer process, so I’d appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!

2

Other than GT, none of these schools accept many transfer students. For example, looking at the common data set for GT and CMU:

GT
Transfer applicants: 1,770
Admitted Applicants:685
Enrolled Applicants: 584

CMU
Transfer applicants: 825
Admitted Applicants: 57
Enrolled Applicants: 29

It can happen, and you should apply, but they are all reaches.

Why not save the $, complete your BS at UF in 3 to 3.5 years (thanks to all of those IB and AP credits) and then apply to a master’s program at these schools? It looks like you would be well qualified, if you continue with undergraduate research at UF, and you’ll find it “easier” to be admitted to a MS program.

Good Luck!

3

I suspect that most (probably an overwhelming majority) of the transfers to Georgia Tech have a conditional transfer agreement from the prior admissions cycle.

4

Wow! It seems like you’re doing a lot of great things at UF, related to your major and everything. It’s awesome that UF offers all of those resources to you, and the fact that some of the professors there are willing to take the time to do research with you is also telling of how super of university it is. You’re setting yourself up for a strong application for graduate school, that’s for sure.

so…

Why do you want to transfer exactly? It seems like you want a “second chance” at these universities but aren’t giving a chance to the one that welcomed you and has the resources available for you to succeed.

5

Applying as sophomore your HS stats will not be a problem, and re-taking the SAT is just nonsensical- your ACT is fine.

Your bigger challenge is that all of the places you list accept well under 10% (most under 5%, some under 2%) of transfer applicants. You are taking a very narrow range of courses and still have effectively no EC involvement in your school. Are you aware of the Columbia Core, and have you figured out how you would finish it and your major inside 4 years? Have you cross checked to see how many of your AP/IB credits will transfer? Most of the places you list have caps on how many AP/IB credits you can transfer- typically much tighter than the state universities.

What is not obvious from your post is why you want to transfer (can we guess that it is about prestige?) to these schools, or what you would bring with you that would be attractive to them.

6

@AGoodFloridian
I want to transfer because the schools I would like to transfer to offer more research opportunities in machine learning. I find that the machine learning research at UF is lacking, especially when compared to those institutions.

CMU for example has a machine learning department with a wide array of research projects. CMU is a machine learning powerhouse, along with MIT, Stanford, and the likes. Professors there that conduct research as part of the ML (machine learning) department are developing artificial intelligence, improved forms of machine learning models that are based on human cognition, high level natural language processing, etc., projects that I do not see here at UF.

Another extremely appealing prospect is that CMU offers the opportunity to minor in machine learning.

JHU is developing robots that can perform surgery, all using machine learning. However, the biggest point of interest at JHU is their work on machine learning applications in neuroscience. Basically, they are working on processing different neurological signals that correspond with motor control, vision processing, and other sensory processing to understand it better. This directly correlates with their neuroprosthetic limb development, which is DARPA funded.

Cornell has a particularly strong machine learning department. They have extensive research in robotics, medicinal applications of ML, and in artificial intelligence. For example, there’s a research project focused on developing robots that can walk using less energy (people are always more efficient), and a project that’s focused on improving computational intelligence using new learning methods.

All the schools that I have listed all have something that massively appeals to me, and something that I cannot find here at UF.

I know these interests seem to conflict, that I’m interested in AI, neuroprosthetics, self driving cars, etc., but that’s the beauty of machine learning, you can do so much with it and it has a massive amount of potential.

I understand your concern that my reasons for transfer may not be solid, but I assure you it’s definitely not for the prestige, as hard as that may be to convey. Those schools are at the top for their CS departments, and have an abundant amount of research opportunities, career opportunities, etc. UF is still a great school (recruiters definitely recognize the talent pool here), and I’m thankful for the opportunities, but there is still a massive difference between UF and the other listed schools.

Besides, UF is a top 10 public university now, and it certainly holds a high level of prestige :slight_smile:

My only concern is that its CS department isn’t exactly up there. It’s a good program and it is definitely getting better, it’s just I would love to conduct research on topics that I am deeply interested in.

And yes, I know my chances are extremely bleak, but I figured that if I spend these years with the focus of transferring motivating me, even if I don’t get in (which is the most likely case), I would still have a good application built up for graduate school.

7

Have you considered UMi-AA, UWa, UC-SD, UI- UC, Penn State, UNC-CH or UWi-M. all of which have strong machine learning programs?

8

@collegemom3717 Yes indeed! I actually forgot to list UIUC and UMich (and JHU haha). However, I didn’t want to apply to too many colleges (I applied to 27 in high school…) and figured I’d just reapply to a few of the ones I applied to in HS. I may actually cut down from my current list, just so I can spend more time on my essays. It’d probably be better if I concentrate on a handful anyways.

9

You have way better stats than I do. I’m applying transfer this year. I know my chance is very slim. Waiting for my rejection letters next month.

Why I’m transferring? I DONT WANNA TAKE GOOD LIFE! Lol.

I don’t think you should retake SAT if you apply as a rising junior. You ACT is fine. Most of the universities you mentioned above only ask for one of the two, you can submit either ACT or SAT.

10

You have not stated whether you want to continue to a graduate program. If you do, then the topic of your undergraduate research is not as important as you think for getting into a graduate program. What is most important is having a significant research experience. Even if you transfer to one of the programs you mention, you might not be guaranteed to be doing research in the area you want. Remember that the reputation of these programs is based on their graduate research programs.

You might find that a better alternative is to get involved in research at UF and apply for a summer REU at the schools you list.

11

Update: I’ve been doing a lot of talking with professors around campus and it turns out I cannot start an applied machine learning club here at UF. UF doesn’t have the resources in terms of students or funding to spare for a project like a walking robot it seems.

Additionally, I cannot take any machine learning courses as an undergrad student (if I take a grad level ML course, I lose my bright futures tuition apparently), so I don’t have any options for machine learning besides the research I’m already pursuing.

12

You can take a master’s level course, but bright futures will only pay it at the undergraduate level. You do not lose BF, because you took one 5000/6000 level course. In fact, students who complete a combine degree (BS/MS; 4+1), have to take 5000/6000 level courses.

Also, if you do complete your BS early, you can use BF funds to pay for some of your graduate level classes (not that you’re planning on completing your master’s at UF…).

I’m assuming you’ve already looked into the Machine Learning and Sensing Lab?

https://faculty.eng.ufl.edu/machine-learning/people/faculty/

However, if you’re already doing research, and are likely to graduation in less than 4 years, you may want to continue with your current research and focus on prepping for grad school.