I’m applying for transfer to Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Brown. Current freshman at Dartmouth. Dartmouth doesn’t have a Statistics department and the rural environment here is not conducive to tech/startups. I’m looking to change my major from Math/CS to Statistics/CS, and also want a more urban environment.
My college GPA is 3.83/4.00. I have a 4.00 in my major (math/cs). I have a 4.00 this term, reflected on my Mid Term Report, with strong praise from all my current professors. I have two strong college professor recs and know both individuals very well. I am a John J. Byrne Scholar of Mathematics here at Dartmouth (top 8 math students in the class).
In high school, I had a 3.92/4.00 and a 36 ACT.
I’ve worked for two Stanford startups. One is currently worth $500M+ and one was acquired by Google for $500M in 2014. I am heading to Apple this summer as the third youngest employee in company history (They hired two 14-year olds in the 80s). I run Dartmouth’s hackathon, am a member of the chess team and cook for homeless/elderly in New Hampshire as part of a volunteer initiative.
Would appreciate any opinions on my chances as well as anything I should look out for when applying. There are about two weeks left!
Would appreciate any opinions - I am also willing to give my thoughts on other people’s transfer chances, just link me to your thread!
I think you have all the components for you and you are as competitive of an applicant as anyone else.
Just bear in mind the colleges you are looking into all have 1-2% acceptance rates so as long as you understand that you should be good.
I believe you have better odd’s than just “anyone else.” I’m fairly certain you will get into at least one of the schools you listed.
Don’t think that you will get different answers when you asked this back in November and December. At least you have a clear ‘academic’ reason for transferring: the availability of a stats major. Glad you dropped the ‘I don’t like the cold’ reason, but think you should also lose the ‘no start-up environment’ one. Talk about the Big Data experience.
I disagree with @collegemon3717, don’t leave out the start-up environment. Transferring to a school that harbors a better place of employment in the field you want to go in is huge. That’s like telling a finance major not to say he is transferring to a school because of its close proximity to a financial hub. These kind of things are significant in determining ones direction post-graduation, and therefore are extremely important in where you decide to go to school.
…except, @IBProspect123, that 1) not all of the schools that the OP is applying to have any better of a “start-up” culture than the one that he is in, 2) not all of the schools that the OP is applying to are stars in the ‘start-up’ areas that the OP is interested in, and 3) at the level of schools that he is considering, saying ‘I can’t succeed here’ is as likely to be read as either a whine or as somebody who couldn’t make it anywhere. IMO (and everybody has their own), the OP is better off using the point of fact- the major isn’t offered- and then focusing on the positive reasons for going to a place.
Your points are valid for some - even many - situations, but not all.
I would say that perhaps Yale is the only school without an insane startup culture, and even then Yale alumni have founded companies like Electronic Arts, one of the largest video game makers. Harvard is responsible for Microsoft and Facebook. Brown is an overall powerhouse in both the tech industry and the startup game. Stanford is the birthplace of Google. @IBProspect123 has the right idea, a more urban school is simply far better at providing a more technologically oriented environment. Consequently, that means a more comfortable environment for me.
Lol- you think that Harvard is ‘responsible’ for Microsoft?! Do some homework. Nor are New Haven or Providence a ‘technologically oriented’ kind of ‘urban’. Those are all great colleges, with good reasons to chose them. But you have already sold yourself a college that didn’t match your ideas once- remember how excited you were to get in to Dartmouth ED? Just be clear about what’s real and what’s stardust.
Dartmouth ED was a safety for me, I wasn’t excited at all to be honest. Harvard is in Boston, great city for tech, and its reputation for technology is well-known. Just look at the number of dropouts forming successful companies. Urban will always mean more technologically connected than rural.
Hello, Could I ask how you got into the startups. Was it networking or specific hooks you had that you were able to get in. Would appreciate any suggestions. Looking to see if D can eventually get into one. She is a Junior right now in High School and would appreciate any help. She has done two years of Comp Science and is looking to major in Comp Sci.Thanks