<p>I have a question.... I am seriously considering what school I want to attend next. If you were on admissions where do I top out? Here are my stats:</p>
<p>Age 21
HS GPA 2.6 started freshman and sophomore year with average of 2.0
CC GPA 3.36 first year with 25 credits and a lot of slacker classes. Made Dean's List first semester but with a lot of slacker classes. Then I transferred to another CC due to leaving for the military. At this new CC I have a 3.64 GPA through 21 credits and looking at bumping up this GPA as i'm taking 15 summer credits that are going real well and 18 credits to be taken in the fall. The hook I have with all this is that at this new CC I have been full time in the military. I am a veteran of operation new dawn and am active duty air force. </p>
<p>ACT:21 taking another shot at this in a couple of months. </p>
<p>My question is: While I know I am not a typical traditional student what kind of schools would be the most prestigious that I would be looking at. Cost is not a factor since I have a GI Bill that will almost pay anything that I will need. I am looking a lot of schools. Penn, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, UCLA, Cal- Berkley, USC, Northwestern, Michigan, Penn State, Miami, UMass-Amherst, NYU, Texas, Vanderbilt and Rice. I understand that is a LOT of schools. If you were admissions.... which of these schools would be most friendly to a CC transfer and what one's do I have the best shot with. If you have made it this far... thank you for reading and I am excited to see what you think!</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with every school on your list, but of the ones I know I would take down Columbia, definitely Stanford (1 or 2% acceptance rate for transfers), definitely Northwestern (transfer class consists of only 10% CC students), Vanderbilt, Rice (almost no CC transfers) and probably the other ivies. I don’t mean to disappoint you, but transferring into a school is typically harder than being admitted as a freshman. While it looks like you’ve done a lot of great work since high school, this is a seriously competitive process.</p>
<p>If you are planning to take 18 credits in the fall, does this mean you are planning on starting at a 4-year in the spring? This is generally trickier than doing it in the fall, and not all schools will take transfers at that time. In addition, you should keep an eye on how many credits you are earning. Most schools will either require that you spend two years in residence with them to earn your bachelor’s there, or else cap the number of credits you can transfer in (frequently somewhere in the 60-70 range).</p>
Have you thought about looking at non-traditional student programs? They’re supposedly easier to get into and cut veterans a lot of slack. Anybody should cut you a lot of slack, really, for serving; that’s a big damn deal.
Just apply and make the best case possible; don’t listen to the people on here who tell you ‘no’ because, more often than not, they’re cowards. I’ve seen so many people on here be discouraging about the stats of others while applying to the same schools with the same numbers. It’s no different than asking a rival for a boy/girl how you look or if (s)he thinks your crush likes you. They’ll say some nice things, but they’ll subtly throw in blows to your ego so that you’ll jump out and decrease the competition. While this doesn’t apply to all CC-ers, at least a quarter of them are sneaky enough to give Lucy Steele of Sense and Sensibility a run for her money.</p>
<p>^
what exactly gives you the impression that this applicant can get into these schools? in my opinion it is extremely unlikely, and he would just be wasting hundreds of dollars on applications for the majority of these schools. don’t get peoples hopes up. sure, being in the military is nice, but it doesnt mean you have the ability to do well at these schools. a 21 ACT with a poor high school record and without a very high GPA at a CC simply isnt going to cut it. community college is substantially easier than most 4 year universities, and without a near 4.0 it’s going to be impossible to transfer to schools on the level of stanford and the rest of the ivy league. penn state, umass amherst, and miami are definitely possible. maybe even berkeley, depending on the major you declare.</p>
<p>What makes you think that he can’t? Numbers aren’t everything, and there’s a lot more to be said about being in the military than anybody could ever guess. Such is particularly emphasized by Columbia University’s School of General Studies website. A good deal of their students are those who took time off to serve in the military, plus GS is less selective than the regular program. It would not surprised me if other universities of equal merit followed suit. If you’re not thinking of options beyond a typical college path, then you’re going far too much by numbers.</p>
<p>Well I should say this… I know for a fact that these Ivy schools are an extreme long shot. I am not afraid of rejection and the way I see it the money spent on applications is worth seeing the opportunity of where I will be spending the next few years of my life. As I said before I will have a full ride to pretty much any school so money is not an option. So with that being said I appreciate the honesty. That’s what I am looking for in this. I want to know where I stand with other applicants. I will however still be applying to almost every school that I listed above. I am pretty sure though that I will be dropping Stanford off that list and more than likely Rice. Other information that might help out is that I have already been accepted to Rutgers, Temple and a small D-3 school Rowan. My question is with the additional 33 credits that I am taking in the summer and fall is there a way I can become more marketable to these schools? I have a cumulative gpa of 3.48 at both CC. I have an average GPA of 3.64 since I got to my new CC and I am taking 3 courses all with A’s that should bump that stat up even more. So is there a way I can become more lucrative to these schools I want to apply with an upward trend in my grades and potentially a much higher ACT? Thanks again everyone.</p>
<p>Edit: I plan on applying for Fall of 2012 so that I can take a semester off as I out-process out of the military.</p>