Did you apply to all these Ivies when you originally were seeking admission? They usually don’t reverse their decisions, and accept you as a transfer, if you applied and were rejected.
You need to be able to prove yourself with activities and internship work in CS while you’re at your University.
In a CS position, with “only a bachelors” degree, You kick it into high gear. Then, your supervisors and your company, offers to pay your tuition and expenses for your masters anywhere you want to go. That was my daughter’s experience.
Our daughter was an EECS major at University of Buffalo in their SUNY system. She was originally premed, and they have a great premed trail. (We’re from Southern California and yes she got into Berkeley, as well as USC.)
She changed over to engineering and computer software.
She has been headhunted by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. These are the same companies that wanted to recruit my son from Caltech.
Her quality of life is very important to her, so that’s why she’s constantly rejected all of their offers. She doesn’t want to 70-hour work weeks.
She’s making bank. She’s a manager, and she trains, new CS engineers, from schools that you hope to attend.
Prestige in this field does not matter. It’s what you do with that experience and degree that matters to those employers.
I dunno - my kid just finished at Alabama in engineering and got consideration for Jane Street. In fact, they reached out the day after he filled in their online app.
If you have been denied admission to CMU and UCB…I would suggest you NOT apply there again. If you apply after your freshman year, your high school record will be used as oart of your admissions decision materials. If you didn’t get accepted the first time with that record, it is highly unlikely you will be accepted in a subsequent round.
Did you apply to any other schools on this list as a HS senior!
Accepted to a few universities: UIUC, Georgia Tech, Duke, Michigan, UT Austin, NYU, UCSD, UCI, etc. Not accepted to any Ivies. Did not apply MIT. Waitlisted at Cornell, Brown, Berkeley, UCLA, CMU, Chicago, NU.
Ok then…your duplicates are…Georgia Tech, and where you are now in terms of acceptances. If yo7 liked GT more, why did you matriculate to UIUC?
And you were denied at Cornell, Berkeley, CMU and all the Ivies which would include Cornell and Princeton. Why would you think of applying to these again…since you were not accepted this time?
And you have added Stanford, MIT, and CalTech which are far more competitive for admissions.
UIUC has a terrific CS program which is highly ranked. It seems to me that you are looking for a university name with more of a prestige name. Is that correct?
I strongly suggest that you attend UIUC with positive feelings about the school and program. Invest your time in things that this school has to offer. If you really can’t stand it, sure, go ahead and put on some transfer applications. But in my opinion, you need a different list of potential transfer schools….unless you wait to transfer as a junior and you have a 4.0 gpa at UIUC.
One other thing…for the schools on the list you provided, you will need to give an academic reason why you wish to transfer there. This cannot be “because it’s better ranked or has better name recognition”.
Among the choices, are you suggesting I should have picked GT instead of UIUC?
The list above is the top 10 CS programs, not the list of schools where I’m looking to transfer.
I was not denied, but waitlisted at Cornell, Brown, Berkeley, UCLA, CMU, Chicago, NU. Does it help in re-applying to any of these schools, as a transfer student?
Another thing to note, at the “prestigious” schools, you have to hope that a current student transfers out who happens to have the same major. The ivies are typically smaller schools with very limited seats. They tend to “save” their transfer seats for high-performing, unconventional students (Vets, celebrities, Olympians, etc.) Only a handful of seats may be available (1-5).
At the UC’s, the CS major is impacted at most of the 9 campuses. Too many students, not enough seats, nor professors/labs/support staff. The first limited spots are saved for CCC students, then everyone else. The UC’s are public universities and their original intent was to make a pathway for state resident students who (for some reasons-finances/grades) couldn’t originally get into the prestigious schools across the country.
The large corporate firms are VERY familiar with the CS schools that are ranked highly as “good CS experiences”. They will seek out those students with strong backgrounds and, oftentimes, it is not necessarily the ivies.
Make no mistake - waitlist is a denial but a hedge for the school in case they under yield. Colleges often waitlist multiples of the amount of students they accept. CWRU, for example, WL 30% or so of kids, far more than admitted.
One year later you’re re applying with basically the same record. You’ve been rejected once.
What I find humorous is, if you were already at one of the other schools, would you be trying to get to UIUC because its CS is higher ??
It’s if as if you think you can only be successful if you are at the top rated school in America. Btw there is no ranking. There is no top school.
Maybe the real top school is Rose Hulmam or Cal Poly or Wyoming? I don’t know.
I do know that you are putting a lot of trust in a magazine, unsanctioned by any college, who has made a list based on criteria they decided, and often using data sent into them and likely not verified well.
And said list - # 2, 8, 12, etc - there’s really no difference.
Honestly this is the craziest thread I’ve read I think.
Brown and Cornell are both Ivies. Unless you got off the waitlist, you weren’t accepted at these either.
And remember, as a transfer, you will need to give an academic reason why you are wishing to transfer to that new college. What will that be? Really…don’t answer now…because you may find you don’t have a reason to transfer…at all.
I think there’s some misunderstanding, and the thread has deviated from the original question.
I don’t think (and agree with you all) the overall school rankings make any difference to job prospects in tech. I’m happy with my choice of school for CS. And I intend to go to UIUC with the intention to enjoy CS there.
My question was/is, if for some reason I don’t like UIUC, for whatever reason which I don’t myself know, which schools are friendly to transfer students and offer good acceptance rates for transfer students? And like any other student, if I have to explore again, I’d prefer an Ivy or a school with prestige higher than UIUC, mainly for alumni network in fields other than CS, and nothing else.
If that happened and it’s such a peculiar question for an incoming first year - schools post their criteria, stats and many lost in section D of the CDS.
To answer your question, out of your list Northwestern and Cornell are the most “transfer friendly” to the extent that’s definable. They take larger numbers of transfers than the other schools you mentioned. Princeton and Stanford in particular take very few (low double to single digits) transfers and give preference to non-traditional students.
Each school lists their transfer application, acceptance and enrollment numbers in Section D of the common data set. School years 2020 and 2021 are a bit skewed due to COVID, student deferrals and gap years.
It is hard to say. I have certainly worked with many people who had only a bachelor’s degree, and I have also worked with many people who have a bachelor’s degree and also a master’s degree. Perhaps the point is not so much having the master’s, but rather what you learn while getting the master’s degree. I have certainly used multiple things on the job that I learned while studying for my master’s degree.
One thing that I might add with regard to transferring: The very great difficulty in transferring into a top ranked university is not an issue if/when you apply to a master’s degree program or some other graduate program. It is very common and very normal to get a bachelor’s degree at one university, and a master’s degree (or some other graduate degree) at a different university. Given how strong UIUC is for CS, if you do very well there, and if you have good internship or coop or work experience and very good references, then you are likely to be a very competitive applicant for any university’s graduate programs.