Maybe looking to transfer to a smaller school, Berkeley is a bit LARGE

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>Berkeley is wonderful and I think the school itself is great. The vibe is unique and the food is great. The academics (grad especially) are world-renowned. I also love the views of the bay. I recommend the school to lots of people though sometimes I also explain to them my personal problems with it. Unfortunately, I have always felt that the undergraduate population is just too large and MUCH too impersonal for me. This has become increasingly important to me and I really need to consider other options. Transferring has constantly been on my mind, though I still managed to have a decent freshman year.</p>

<p>Can I transfer to USC, Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth or Williams? In High School, I didn't apply to USC or Yale, got rejected from Stanford, and I was waitlisted at both Dartmouth and Williams.</p>

<p>Here have been my grades so far. I had a B in Math until I overslept through half the 8AM final.</p>

<p>1st semester
Math 1A (4 units): C+
Anthro 160AC (4 units): A
L & S R44 (5 units): A
CS 3S (2 units): pass</p>

<p>2nd semester
Econ 1 (4 units): A
Physics C10 (3 units): A
MCB 15 (2 units): A-
Music 29 (4 units): A
African Am (1 unit): pass</p>

<p>My GPA = 3.72</p>

<p>I would major in Business, if I get in to Haas. At USC I would apply to Marshall.</p>

<p>For ECs, I started a business of 2 people (for now) with my Uncle, based on his patent. We're trying to strike a deal with major food chains. I put together the presentations and dealt with strategy. We were recognized by Howard Schultz and I even presented at Starbucks headquarters just recently. Expected revenues, if we could seal a deal, would quickly reach hundreds of millions.</p>

<p>I am also VP of Finance for "aid to farmworkers" at Cal.</p>

<p>-During my senior year of high school I served as the Census Crew Leader for my neighborhood in West LA (one of LAs "three B's neighborhoods"). It was known as the most difficult area, and I was definitely much younger than any of the other guys. This never got onto my college applications as it was in the Spring, after I had sent my SIR to Berkeley.</p>

<p>High school:</p>

<p>-3rd place in state FBLA competitions (business decision making) (junior)</p>

<p>-Debate team: head defense attorney and won. (junior)</p>

<p>-French club president (soph/junior)</p>

<p>-Spent a year tutoring an autistic child during my sophomore year in High school. (soph)</p>

<p>-Varsity XC and Track with MVP and most improved awards. (freshman/sophomore)</p>

<p>GPA:
Senior year only A's and a couple B's
Junior year only received A's
Sophomore and Freshman: got a couple C's and several B's</p>

<p>Took about 9 AP courses in high school.
Unweighted GPA: 3.5
Weighted GPA: 4.0
SAT: 2110 (740 M, 690 CR, 680 W, 10 essay)</p>

<p>SAT II: 800 French, 750 Math I and Math II, 730 US History</p>

<p>I switched High schools 3 times and lived in another state my junior year. That's when my grades became straight A's</p>

2

<p>“Those are the schools I would transfer to. I have spent a lot of time researching schools over the last two years so please don’t bother discussing this selection.”</p>

<p>So what’s your question?</p>

3

<p>Do I have any chance? (Sorry about that. I went back and edited the original post to make it more clear. And I definitely meant to post this in the chances section… woops)</p>

<p>Oh and in High school the GPA put me around top 3-4%</p>

4

<p>Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth or Williams: Highly unlikely. Nothing in your transfer application at this point is likely to make Stanford, Dartmouth or Williams change their minds and the C+ in Math hurts. Yale is as selective as Stanford so also unlikely. Don’t know about USC, but I’d assume the same.</p>

5

<p>The only way to know for sure is to apply, but here are a couple of caveats:

  1. for some super-selective schools, transfer chances are even lower than regular admission chances
  2. several of your targets do not offer business majors</p>

<p>For example, for 2009-10, Williams College admitted all of 7 transfer students (out of 96 applicants). It has no Business major. At Yale, the admit rate for transfers is about 2%. No Business major. Dartmouth? Less than 4% (and no Business major). </p>

<p>If you want a small school experience, I don’t know why you’d want to transfer to USC. It’s huge, too (~37K students).</p>

<p>Maybe the fact that you were WL’ed at Williams and Dartmouth would boost your chances at these schools.</p>

6

<p>I would definitely major in Econ at the other schools, and yes I understand the difference.</p>

<p>If this is indeed so highly unlikely, then I shouldn’t waste my time. Thanks</p>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>Are you sure? Because if true, that’s an acceptance rate of 7.3%, which isn’t actually that bad (compared to, say, Stanford’s transfer acceptance rate). I’m not arguing with you, I’m just surprised.</p>

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<p>I got that 7 out of 96 from the most recent Williams College Common Data Set file, section D. You can Google & download it for yourself to double-check.</p>

<p>First-year admissions to Williams have been ~20%. So to me, 7% is pretty darn low. Chances at Stanford, at <2%, look almost vanishingly small. </p>

<p>Now, there are other excellent schools with somewhat higher transfer admission rates. There’s Brown at ~11%, Penn at ~15%, Wesleyan at ~19%, or Cornell at ~22%.</p>

9

<p>0 chance at Stanford. 99% of their transfers are non-traditional. The other 1% have better stats. Sorry but I’m being realistic. Don’t waste your money or your time.</p>

<p>For Williams:</p>

<p>2010: 7.5% (12/160)
2009: 8.9% (15/169)
2008: 4.1% (8/195)
2007: 9.3% (13/140)</p>

<p>So take that for what you will. But remember that because of the (relatively) big sports culture at Williams a decent percentage of these transfer admits may be athletes for their sports teams.</p>

<p>USC doesn’t make sense. It’s huge as well (although “just” 17.5k undergrad). You would have a decent shot I believe, since you have a good GPA from a good school. If you decide you want to try USC though, do as many pre-requisites as possible. </p>

<p>Dartmouth:</p>

<p>2010: 3.7% (25/669)
2009: 6.0% (38/640)
2008: 6.9% (38/550)
2007: 8.2% (41/497)</p>

<p>Again, numbers may be skewed for athletics like Williams.</p>

10

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<p>Actually, those numbers were from the 2009-2010 CDS, Section D2 (not the “most recent” CDS).
Revised Numbers
2010-2011: 7.5% (12/160)
2009-2010 : 7.3% (7/96)
2008-2009: 4.3% (8/184)
2007-2008: 9.7% (13/134)</p>

<p>Source:
[Williams</a> College : Office of the Provost & Treasurer Institutional Research](<a href=“http://provost.williams.edu/?page_id=26]Williams”>http://provost.williams.edu/?page_id=26)</p>

<p>(The above are for Fall admission only. Knights09 may be citing from a source that includes spring admits, or some such.)</p>

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<p>I think you are just suffering from Freshmanitis, when you feel like a small fish in a huge pond. Once you start specializing in coursework and develop a subset community of colleagues within the larger expanse of humanity you will feel more at home. You have achieved a lot and you’re at a great school. Perhaps consider a postgrad MBA program at one of the Ivies if you continue to do well.</p>

12

<p>OP, I don’t understand why there’s a desire for you to go to the East Coast when the West Coast is better. Stick with the West, California if you will.</p>

<p>If you really want a small school in terms of population, then perhaps you can consider applying to the ff schools: </p>

<p>Claremont Mckenna
Pomona
Occidental
Colorado College</p>

<p>USC is large. Marshal graduates almost he same number of students as Haas’.</p>

13

<p>If you ought to take a look at the Transfer Forum. You can reach it by going to the main page that lists all of the forums, and scrolling down. Once you find it, read through the sticky thread at the top titled “Transfer Admissions 101” for lots of useful information.</p>

<p>The biggest question though, may be financial. If you need aid to make a transfer possible, it is important that you know up-front that most places do not offer good financial aid for transfer students. Be sure to have an affordable back-up plan.</p>

14

<p>I think all the colleges you listed are quite unlikely due to the fact that you got a C+ in math. Math is one of the cornerstones of Econ. I would recommend staying in berk and trying to get into haas because haas is epic</p>

<p>I don’t think you will get into Wharton as a transfer. Your gpa should be 3.8+</p>

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<p>@tk21769 I was citing from Williams’ Transfer Admissions Information page.</p>

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<p>Try Cornell or WashU, very transfer friendly and has business program.</p>

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<p>Class size gets smaller when you get to upper level courses in your major.</p>

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<p>Wow, I never realized USC has 17,000 undergrads. For whatever reason, I always thought it floated somewhere around/below 10,000, which would be more reasonable. (I keep telling everyone that Berkeley would be incredible if the undergrad population was reduced to 10,000 haha)</p>

<p>Dartmouth and Williams definitely seem unlikely, and the athletics argument is valid I guess. So my chances are still impossible, even though I was waitlisted at both schools? My college GPA is definitely better than in High School… And I added a couple unique ECs/work no?</p>

<p>Yale and Stanford, I am still thinking about. I really like these schools for undergrad.
Doesn’t Yale reserve some spots for people who would have never gotten in from High School? Again, my GPA is now much much better.
By the time I apply, my GPA will almost certainly be around 3.81 (because of the courses I’ll be taking). If anything, I’d like to focus on these two schools. Do you guys really think I’ll be wasting my time?</p>

19

<p>What do you mean stanford transfers are non-traditional? how non-traditional?</p>

<p>I could definitely fit into that category. I haven’t said a lot about myself for privacy reasons…</p>

20

<p>So how about Wharton? People say UPenn is transfer friendly. Going to Wharton would be a dream.</p>

<p>UVA McIntire would be good as well, especially since I’d much rather get a finance job in NYC rather than SF after graduation.</p>