I’m about to graduate from a community college, and it feels like I’m getting rejected everywhere. I am waitlisted at a top 5 LAC with a >5% acceptance rate, but I’ve been rejected from two others, and rejected from three schools in the 30%-40% acceptance rate range. I’ve got nine schools left and I’m very confused about this, it feels like it’s over for me. The rest have >16% acceptance rates. It’s kinda late for a chance me, but I want to see what other people think
A little bit of background, I’m a 24yo white male, and I had a rough time in high school. I am in recovery from substance use but that really disrupted my high school years, so I went to community college to get myself back on track, since then, I have dedicated much of my time to addiction recovery.
Stats:
4.0 GPA with 5 awards at graduation (the most of my graduating class) and graduating as a state honors student (completed 4 honors courses + our capstone research course)
ECs: President of our psychology honors society and national representative of our chapter, research associate for one of my psych profs, internship at a recovery center, founder of a student organization supporting students in recovery, treasurer of our SGA for one year, and worked as a peer mentor on campus for two years.
I had my essays reviewed by multiple people and felt very confident in them.
Letters of rec from 3 people: psychology professor who i took for both psych stats and psych research methods and who I am a research associate for, Psych professor who is the advisor of our psych honors society and who I took one class with, and the director of the recovery center I interned with.
I’m transferring as a psych major with the goal of entering a PhD program after graduating; career goal is to work in research on addiction. Please give me any feedback, I’m having a really tough time with these admissions decisions. Do I even have a chance?
Of course you have a chance, but many highly rejective LACs/ universities don’t have space for transfers. Some were overenrolled the past year. On top of that, psych is sometimes a capped major.
Sounds like your psych profs and your cc will best advise you.
There are many universities that would love to have you. Did you apply to your state flagship or others with direct articulation agreements with your cc?
I’m sorry to hear about the denials. Did you apply to any safer schools, ones with higher acceptance rates? Some schools still taking transfer apps too.
Yes, I got into the honors college at my states flagship university. However, they are not Transfer friendly. I would likely be homeless after the first semester as housing priority is ranked by credits earned at the university, and class priority is ranked the same. I’ve know multiple people who transferred there and had a terrible experience.
Are you getting any financial aid from the state flagship? If so, the amount that is currently credited towards a dorm room can be used towards an apartment.
You can ask them what their off-campus room and board financial aid allowance is. At my son’s college (also a very high cost of living area) they actually give more than a dorm room allowance. They give enough to afford a shared bedroom in a typical nearby apartment.
college admissions, especially transfer admissions, are so unpredictable. for each accepted applicant there is an equally qualified student who got denied.
my advice is to write something up to the school that waitlisted you and try to sit tight while you wait to hear back from the rest. you 100% have a chance!
out of curiosity, which schools were you looking at?
I was primarily interested in small liberal arts colleges; I was waitlisted at one of the three “little ivys” and rejected from the other two. I’ve still got 5 LAC’s left, 3 Ivy’s, and a couple other schools of interest. Really crossing my fingers, but 4 rejections in a row doesn’t leave room for much optimism.
I am afraid your expectations were too high. Usually, the best transfer you can get coming from a community college is that which is guaranteed by a transfer agreement with your state college, hopefully your flagship U. Little Ivies and other highly selective schools, if any spots come available, are likely to take a few highly qualified students coming from highly selective 4 yr institutions, not even straight A students from community colleges. I am glad you have the flagship U option, and who knows, maybe one of the ones you are waiting on will take you.
Please have a look at this list. There are many colleges still accepting transfer apps. This list is not totally complete, but there are over 200 colleges on it.
I respectfully disagree. It’s certainly difficult, as is getting into any of these schools out of high school, but not impossible. My advisor who helped me prepare my applications typically sees one or two students from my community college land at an Ivy or a top LAC each year. A classmate of mine with similar stats got admitted into an Ivy. A few of the LAC’s look in particular to admit CC students.
Yes, my advisors helped me significantly through this process. I submitted the continued interest form today, highlighting additional awards & achievements I’ve had since I applied.
You may want to ask the counselor’s advice about contacting the school where you were waitlisted and telling them that you will definitely commit if they offer you a spot (if that’s true. You might want to wait until you hear back from all of the schools but I believe that with transfers it can be a drawn-out process).
I have to say, this is very incorrect. While some specific schools don’t, there are a large number of T25 schools that look well upon successful community college students. Off the top of my head, Cornell accepts a lot of CC transfers, as do Brown and UPenn. Additionally, a number of elite institutions are actively working towards increasing their number of CC transfers.