physics major to transfer as junior, need help

Transfer Students
1

<p>I posted this in another area before I saw the transfer forum, so I decided to put it here.</p>

<p>I want to transfer and I need reaches, matches, and safeties with good physics programs.</p>

<p>My gpa in high school was 3.1, but I had all A s the last two years. I got a 31 on the ACT (should be equivalent to about 1380 on SAT verbal+math). I literally have no formal extracurricular activities.</p>

<p>I have completed one year at the University of Oklahoma, and my college gpa is 3.91. I do not have any physics preparation yet but I will take physics 1 and 2 and calculus 1 and 2 this year, which will be before I transfer as a junior. I will also take chem and astronomy. My current university has an acceptance rate in the mid-80s.</p>

<p>Do personal hardships and ethnicity count for anything? I have lived in poverty for much of my life and had a bad environment growing up and I am a Native American.</p>

2

<p>My thinking with regard to preferences is that it doesn't really matter, I just want the best school I can get into regardless of anything else. Maybe it doesn't really work that way though. If I had to say, I would prefer a large urban university that is somewhere on the east coast. But again, if I had a chance at a better school that is on the west coast or anywhere else, I would rather go there than some lesser place on the east coast.</p>

3

<p>I have no money so financial aid would be nice. My instructor evaluations are truly worthless at this point by the way.</p>

4

<p>I am looking at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, California at Santa Barbara, California at Los Angeles, Michigan at Ann Arbor.</p>