<p>I am an International (Vancouver, Canada) intending to applying as a transfer to several Ivies next year. I am wondering how much (if at all) does the prestige of my current school matter? I went on facebook and randomly searched up a list of schools from which students transferred to Penn, and they seem to vary a great deal in terms of prestige. They are Ivies of course, like Cornell and other top schools like Duke or Carnegie Mellon, but they are also lesser known ones. It seems that schools tend to pick only 1 or 2 students from each school, but no more. Does it mean that when admitting transfers, colleges essentially just looks at the students regardless of their school, i.e. a 4.0 from Yale is the same as a 4.0 from U Victoria, and the concertmaster from Yale orchestra is same as concertmaster at an orchestra in UVic?</p>
<p>it depends on a lot of factors... College wont always play a significant role if you are a frosh...</p>
<p>Lets say you are a 4.0 HS student and go to CC to save costs and then transfer with a 4.0 @ CC. Then you are going to look much better as an applicant who got a 2.0 in hs and a 4.0 at cc. </p>
<p>With that said, students who get a 4.0 at Yale or UM or Nd or UNC assuming they take challenging courses... at definitely applying themselves and have proven their ability to excel.
But it is easily said that education is education no matter where you go. We all learn from the same text books and the profs all got a PhD (we would assume). For instance i have a friend at Yale who is in an Econ class same level as mine --- they are using the same books, same materials... it is all the same - only difference is Yale over my school.</p>
<p>I went to a state school, had 2.4 in HS, a 3.9 in college and got accepted to Brown as a transfer.
It's not impossible, and I don't believe I had anything that qualified as a substantial hook in my application.</p>
<p>However, I made the unfortunate decision to go to a different college instead because it was cheaper.</p>
<p>Yeah me as well... I mean my hs wasn't bad - 3.0 - but i could have done better... now i am going to be at UM this spring. If i get accepted it'll be ND but cost will also be a determining factor</p>
<p>Of course a 4.0 from one school is not the same as another and every musician is not created equally! Colleges look at you in context. What have been your opportunities and what have you achieved in light of them? If you couldn't have gotten into the ivy as a freshman a 4.0 from Victoria after a year is not going to help. The kid transferring from a top school has the advantage of the record that got him in. </p>
<p>A 4.0 at Yale will get attention at any school, a 4.0 from Victoria will not. From Victoria it will have to be accompanied by some show of academic excellence that would be assumed in someone achieving a 4.0 from Yale.</p>
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But it is easily said that education is education no matter where you go. We all learn from the same text books and the profs all got a PhD (we would assume). For instance i have a friend at Yale who is in an Econ class same level as mine --- they are using the same books, same materials... it is all the same - only difference is Yale over my school.
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<p>The difference is the overall caliber of the student body, particularly for courses graded on the curve. My D was at UMichigan and transferred to Yale this year, she says it is definitely more competitive and that getting the same grades requires more work ;).</p>
<p>Professors can teach at a different level at Yale than at Penn State. A higher intellect understands more when reading complex material, the Bible or Shakespeare.</p>
<p>From my understanding, Ivies don't like transfers from other Ivies. While most schools will tell you that your current university doesn't matter, that's not always the case. An adRep at Penn told me that CC applicants that are admitted almost always come from honors programs. Of course, a 4.0 at NYU > 4.0 at a state school, but there is usually enough difference (diversity) between the applicants for that not to matter. In short, your school name is one of those little things that's not 'officially' evaluated, but still might matter to a particular reader in the long run. Could be bias...</p>
<p>"Professors can teach at a different level at Yale than at Penn State. A higher intellect understands more when reading complex material, the Bible or Shakespeare."</p>
<p>Since I am sure you are very familiar with the teaching abilities of professors at Penn State. What makes you think yale professors are on a different level of intellect than that of yale? What a bunch of pretentious garbage.</p>
<p>I think the point was that the students at Yale possess, on average, a higher level of intellect than those of Penn state. Thus, the professor can teach at a higher level. It wasn't a comment about the intellect of the professors teaching. Nonetheless, I don't really agree with this statement. The math professors at UMD take no prisoners.</p>
<p>wow, thanks for all that feedback. I guess it really depends on the individual then. But then the thing is, schools tend to have quotas. Like from that Penn list, I see 1/2 person from each school getting in. So like if you are a freshmen at a lower Ivy, and you wish to transfer to a higher Ivy, and there are 10 ppl at ur Ivy that's doing hte same thing, wouldn't the quota system work against you? On the other hand, if you are at a place like U Victoria (haha, not that I am dissing Canadian schools...but the calibre of student is...), and u wanna transfer to an Ivy, and u are the only one applying, and since the profs are used to low calibre students, u easily caught favorable attention, so ur evaluation will be good. And plus, there's weighted GPA, which makes getting a 4.0 not very difficult. So in this case, wouldn't the student from a less prestigious school have an advantage, given that hte prestige of the school is not an official factor in the adcom's decision?</p>
<p>Not to mention, in Canada, especially BC (west coast), the name university can be quite misleading...there are community colleges that have recently been named as universities, but these colleges are usually low in academic standards and are last resorts for those who cannot get into university (which isn't very hard in the first place, we use provincial exams here in Canada, and they are 10 times easier than the SAT's, and ppl still manage to fail them). So if these colleges are now universities, and Ivy's see all universities on parr, wouldn't that be ridiculous?</p>
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And plus, there's weighted GPA, which makes getting a 4.0 not very difficult. So in this case, wouldn't the student from a less prestigious school have an advantage, given that hte prestige of the school is not an official factor in the adcom's decision?
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<p>Your transcript should explain the grading system at your college, so I wouldn't count on that giving you an edge. And, I'm not sure where in this thread you've gotten the idea that AOs don't consider the selectivity and academic standing of a college (what you call prestige) when they look at a student's accomplishments. Official or not, they understand differences between colleges for transfers just as they understand differences between HSs for freshman applicants.</p>
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wow, thanks for all that feedback. I guess it really depends on the individual then. But then the thing is, schools tend to have quotas. Like from that Penn list, I see 1/2 person from each school getting in. So like if you are a freshmen at a lower Ivy, and you wish to transfer to a higher Ivy, and there are 10 ppl at ur Ivy that's doing hte same thing, wouldn't the quota system work against you? On the other hand, if you are at a place like U Victoria (haha, not that I am dissing Canadian schools...but the calibre of student is...), and u wanna transfer to an Ivy, and u are the only one applying, and since the profs are used to low calibre students, u easily caught favorable attention, so ur evaluation will be good. And plus, there's weighted GPA, which makes getting a 4.0 not very difficult. So in this case, wouldn't the student from a less prestigious school have an advantage, given that hte prestige of the school is not an official factor in the adcom's decision?
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<p>There are no quotas. There's no such thing as a weighted gpa system. Advantages are found within the applicants themselves -- i.e. one student having a 4.0 while the other has a 3.6. </p>
<p>There are schools that do trend though -- UChicago seems to be very appreciative of students from other elite four year institutions. Usually as a general rule of thumb, the best applicants are accepted...</p>