I attend the Univ. at Albany and have completed 34 credits with a GPA of 3.9.
I’m majoring in Computer Science. I’m planning to apply for transfer to UW-Madison for the fall semester 2020, but I’m sort of worried about my poor high school GPA.
As stated on the official website of UW-Madison, counselors do use high school records to determine admission eligibility, but don’t consider them that much if applicants have graduated their high school a long time ago or have completed as many credits as possible at their current college. I’ve just finished my first year, so I guess that my high school GPA would probably affect overall admission determination. What do you guys think about this?
It depends on the college so you need to look at the website of each school you will apply to. However, a general rule of thumb is that if you are transferring after one year of college that the school you apply to will also consider your HS record.
Our CCs always warned against senioritis by telling everyone that their high school grades would matter if they wanted to transfer. So the short answer is yes, they matter. BUT if you can successfully tell the story of what got you engaged and how that may have impacted your decision to transfer, your more recent college track record will matter far more.
In some ways, what will matter most is how the schools you hope to transfer to review applications.
I think the only weak point in my specification to transferring is my low high school GPA. Do you think this will offset all the merits, such as 3.9/4.0 GPA(college), internship experience for two years in the IT industry and so on? and make me end up with failing to get into UW-Madison?
The more college credit you have, the less your high school record will matter for transfer admission.
I agree with @ucbalumnus. The longer you are in college, the less that your high school GPA is going to matter. If you apply now to transfer starting in the fall of 2020, then they will get this semester’s grades before they make their decision. That means that they will have three full semesters of college grades to consider. Along with internship experience this will make your high school GPA much less important.
UW Madison is very strong for computer science, which makes admission competitive. I think that it is definitely worth your applying, but I do not know whether you will get in.
I see in other threads that you are an international student, and that you are also applying to Purdue and Stonybrook. These are also good for CS as are U.Mass Amherst and many other schools. Good luck and best wishes.
Thank you for your advice.
I’d have to point out that I am currently out of school because I am serving in the military, which means that UW-Madison will have only two full semesters of college grades to consider. Do you think that my high school GPA will critically affect the decision? If I’d get rejected to get in UW-Madison, I may have to return back to my school to take one more semester before applying to transfer for the spring semester in 2021.
I don’t think your high school GPA will negatively affect the decision, especially considering the impressive college GPA. I had a 3.6 in high school but I had a 4.0 college GPA when I transferred after freshman year, and I got into my top choice.