<p>Hullo,
I'm a freshman computer science major at a rather small school in the US. I know I want to transfer to somewhere more rigorous, but have no idea where I would have a chance of getting in. I've looked at transfer acceptance rates, median SATs, GPAs, and such, but my situation is somewhat atypical. If you're willing to give me some feedback it would be greatly appreciated.
Bad things first. My freshman and sophomore year of high school I slacked majorly, and got the grades to prove it. I think my GPA was something like a 2.6 for those two years. My junior year was a bit better. I got a 3.3 or so. I also came into the high school from a charter school and was unable to take the honors placement test. After my sophomore English class, my teacher was able to get me into the AP class for the next year, but my AP classes are limited to just those two years of English.<br>
Now on to better things,
Though my high school offered no courses on the subject, I took it upon myself early on to learn to program. In my freshman year it was just to make games, then during my sophomore year I moved onto other topics like primality searches and motion control. I also expanded from python to C++ (which is now my language of choice). Junior year I joined the robotics club and was almost immediately put in charge of programming. That was a major turning point for me. I saw that the rest of them were learning a lot out of school, but they were also getting good grades. My senior year I got a 3.9 GPA, as well as taking on more than I had before (two math classes and working with a friend as a small web design company). I was in charge of programming for my schools VEX and FIRST teams, both of which went to worlds. In VEX we also won the largest tournament besides worlds. Over the summer I took English 100 and Algebra II at my current univeristy and got As (I had already done well in alg II and trig, and I would've taken calc if not for things beyond my control). Fall semester I got straight As in my general eds, calculus, and intro to programming. I got an A in my schools only honors class (for students on large scholarships). Because I knew one of the professors through robotics, I was also able to take a higher level course in computer science on computer organization and asm programming in which I also got an A. So far I have a 4.0 in college and am on the deans list.
My SAT is a 2130
670 math, 760 reading, 700 writing
Where do you think I should apply? This is mainly aimed at people who have some experience in admissions, were in a similar situation, or have been here on college confidential for a while. If you have any questions just let me know and I'll do my best to fill you in,
Thanks all,
Mk</p>
<p>First of all, what is the motivation for transferring? You say a more rigorous curriculum but you have only taken first semester Freshman year classes which means you have not really started to take the heavy CS courses. If it is because the school is small, that is not necessarily a negative. What are your goals after graduation? Have you looked into the kinds of jobs students from your school get in CS? </p>
<p>If you are desperately unhappy at your current school, then by all means look into transferring but no one can tell you what schools to apply to. You need to do some research yourself, starting with understanding what it is you want out a college? Some questions you might ask yourself are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Large school or another small school?</p></li>
<li><p>Research university or mostly undergraduate?</p></li>
<li><p>Technical university (think [Association</a> of Independent Technological Universities: AITU](<a href=“http://theaitu.org%5DAssociation”>http://theaitu.org)) or a university with lots of liberal arts.</p></li>
<li><p>Urban or small town location? What about geographic region?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The answer for us trasnfers is ALWAYS the same thing.</p>
<p>If you have a good GPA then you got a good chance of getting into BIG universities such as Michigan, NYU, USC, etc. If you want you can also try applying to some reach schools like an Ivy.</p>