I’m wondering if I should attempt to transfer or if it would be a waste of my time. The following are the stats I would have before thinking of applying (if I didn’t have this bare minimum I won’t bother)
Freshman
3.8+ GPA
Classes: medical terminology, neural systems, chemistry, biology, and a random university mandatory class
High school: 99 GPA, 2030 SAT, president of multiple clubs no hooks
College: member of 3 clubs, a dance team, and chairperson in one of them
Mostly applying to top 30, wondering if I’m competitive. (and if it matters, would raising my SAT be worth my time?)
Thanks
You’re applying to all the top 30 schools? What’s the point of that? They’re not all the same, or even remotely similar (do you really think you’re going to get the same experience at Dartmouth and Harvard or Brown and Notre Dame?)
I didn’t say I was applying to all top 30, I meant most of the schools I’ll be applying for transfer into are top 30. Also, even if I did want to apply to every top 30, that’s not the point of this thread. I’m looking for comments that critique my application, not my life decisions.
I have two big ones and then a few that are institution-specific. Firstly, the current school I go to is big. I thought I’d thrive in a very large public school because there are so many things to get involved in, and that was my original goal- now that I’m here, the situation on the ground is very different. The lack of intimacy in the classroom isn’t something I thought through, and I can’t stand it. Another reason is financial aid. My school doesn’t offer good merit or need based aid, and transferring would be much better for me from a financial standpoint. I plan to write about these in my “why x?”
Probably a waste of time. Look at your stats and compare them to those of the admitted class for each school you are looking at (google the Common Data Set and scroll down to Section C). And no, retaking the SAT won’t help. Most top 30 schools take transfers who have something unique to offer them, not someone who isn’t feeling the fit at their current school.
Frankly, you haven’t even completed one semester at your current school, which means that you are still floating in the ocean of a big school with huge classes. It’s lonely, alienating, intimidating…and lots of other not good ‘-ings.’ That’s pretty typical for many students in fall of Freshman year. Rather than spending time looking for a different school, remind yourself that this is the normal freshman experience at a large school and that it will take some time to find your niche, your friends, your fit, and then actively go look for it. For example, use faculty office hours to go meet your profs if you haven’t already. Join some clubs where you can meet like-minded people. Sign up for some seminars next semester for a smaller learning environment. If, at spring break, you are still unhappy about where you ended up, then by all means apply to transfer. But pick transfer schools realistically - they should be at the same level of academic competitiveness as the school you are at right now or slightly lower.
Your SAT is a bit low for top 30 schools, but that’s not the end all be all. Your GPA is projected, but if you can keep it there you have a shot, depending on which schools you’re applying to.
Which ones are you looking at? I’d say you have decent chances for Cornell and Vanderbilt, and a really good shot at Notre Dame.
@N’s Mom Thanks for your input, I wasn’t planning on applying for transfer this semester, and I’m definitely going to take what you said into consideration although I don’t agree that it’s not possible to transfer upwards.
@dessie411 No problemo. Vanderbilt would be great but I’ve read in some places that the student body doesn’t take too kindly too transfers, so that may not be in the cards for me. I’m still doing my research though so that if I do end up making a switch I don’t end up making the same mistake I did the first time around.
@aunt bea No, I didn’t know that. That’s pretty important to me so do you mind elaborating?
Schools try to attract the best candidates for their Freshman class. So, the best scholarships and grants are targeted for those students.
Depending on the school, you may or may not receive much in financial aid as a transfer. Your current aid doesn’t necessarily transfer with you. Every school is different.
Go to the schools’ websites and look at financial aid information. Then enter your financial information into the Net Price Calculator (NPC) and see what your estimated costs would be.
To add to Aunt Bea’s excellent post, make sure to check that you’re a transfer student. Some NPCs make that question prominent, but others not so much. You want to be sure the figures you see aren’t for freshmen students.
I didn’t think you were trying to transfer this semester. But students who decide in September of their freshman year that they aren’t happy and need to transfer sometimes risk creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. They don’t invest emotionally in the campus and they spend their free time researching other schools instead of learning to ‘thrive where planted.’ Some even have the poor judgement to tell other students that they aren’t happy and are planing to leave, which is a downer for everyone else and their class-mates begin to avoid them because the cognitive dissonance is too much. By the time spring comes, they have virtually ensured that they aren’t going to be happy.
I’d check out the top 50 transfer list-it’s a list of how many people tried to transfer into each school and how many were accepted. I don’t think it says how many enrolled, but it will give you a better idea of where you’d probably get in and then you can research how well they treat transfers