Top schools: chances and advise

Transfer Students
1

I’m an entering freshman at Carnegie Mellon who’s studying CS (and am interested in math, econ, and biz as well) who wants to transfer out. Some stats:

Asian male from fairly wealthy family.
HS GPA: 3.93 UW

Testing: 2350+ SAT, 5 on 17 APs (4 self studies) and 4 on one, 800 on math physics chemistry world history U.s history and 780 on bio.

Also took linear algebra and Diffy q at a local university, Multivariable calculus dual enrollment, an online statistics course and 3 coursera CS courses.
Major accomplishments;
USAMO qualifier senior year: top 250 on the nation for math, 90% acceptance rate for hypsm.
2x USAJMO qualifier (top 250 grades 10 and below for math).
ARML high scorer (top 120 in the nation), 3x New York State high scorer.
National merit finalist and winner of $2500 scholarship from nmsc

Did some other schools clubs like FBLA and science olympiad with a good amount of success and some leaderships. Founded a club. Mediocre at sports and music. Coached tbe middle school mathcounts (math competition) team.

I hope to transfer to the following schools as a sophomore.

Stanford: top choice, rejected as a freshman applicant.

Harvard: waitlisted

Yale: didn’t apply

Brown: didn’t apply

USC: really regret not applying

UC Berkeley: " "

Cornell; got in as a freshman

There are two main reasons I wish to transfer.

One is that I’m much more interested in humanities than I was at the time I applied and almost definitely wanna minor/major in a humanities subject, especially economics and business.

The other is that I dislike cmu’s social environment with the geekiness and immense hard work. I don’t think I can stand 4 more years of delayed gratification.

Although transfer admissions are even more competitive than freshman applications, my application was strengthened by my senior year. I had a 4.0 my freshman and sophomore years of hs, but did awfully junior year getting below a 3.8. However I reversed that downwards trend by getting a 3.95 senior year. Furthermore, I think I wasn’t in the top 10% of my class in HS which probably hurt my freshman application a lot. Most of the other talented math students I know at CMU presently and in the past also had poor class ranks and thus didn’t get into other top schools. With a good semester at CMU, my grades should hopefully no longer hold me back.

Another advantage I have is that I qualified for USAMO senior year after missing it junior year, and it is thought to play a fairly big role in college admissions.

Of course, transfer admissions are extremely difficult, so I don’t have my hopes too high, especially for stanford harvard and Yale, and UC berkeley because they favor in-state junior transfers.

In addition to chances, I’m hoping for advice on what to do at CMU and in general to navigate the transfer process. One thing that could hurt is that I will be unable to take any business or economics classes first year at CMU, so how should I go about demonstrating my interest in these subjects?

Thanks for the help

2

The biggest thing is that you take courses toward a specific major and do well in those courses. If a school has GE req’s, then you need to fulfill all of those before you transfer (in most cases). Basically, you need to be able to slide right into the new school and finish up your major seamlessly. They want to know EXACTLY what they are getting. The downside of this is no exploring, which is pretty important for freshmen. (don’t take my word as gospel though, this is just what I’ve read around the web).

Anyway, give CMU a chance. There’s a niche for everyone, not everyone’s going to be geeky and try-hard. It’s college, you’ll have fun if you make an effort. I mean, I’m in kind of a reversed situation from you, but our problems are similar. I accepted a full merit-scholarship to USC even though I was accepted to more prestigious eastern colleges like I had envisioned for myself, and to be honest I wasn’t really thrilled the whole “rah rah go Trojans” thing going on with campus culture. I wanted that serious academic vibe. But, after spending some time on campus at separate times, I’ve really warmed up to it. There are kids who study all day in the library, kids who get wasted at frats all the time, quirky kids, preppy kids, etc. It’s a university, and it has everyone. You’ll find your people, and 9/10 times you can have the experience you want to have (based on what little I know so far and friends already integrated in college life, haha).

tl;dr - Just give it chance, every college has exceptions to their own social reputations.

But totally apply to USC if you think transfering is the direction you want to go in. Fight On! :-bd

3

No matter what college you apply to as a transfer applicant, Admissions is going to value your college transcript and professor’s recommendations over your high school GPA or AP scores or SAT/ACT scores. So, forget about everything you have done in high school. What matters now is everything you are about to do at Carnegie Mellon.

You need to pick demanding courses at Carnegie Mellon. You need to ace every class with a grade not less than an A-. You need to take small classes, where a professor can personally get to know you so they can write you a stellar letter of recommendation. You need to involve yourself in extracurricular life at Carnegie Mellon so that you can prove that as a transfer student you would be a valuable asset to campus life.

And you need to think about what Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Cornell would offer you that you cannot get from Carnegie Mellon. I happen to like Yale’s wording on their transfer page.

And this from Harvard

Given that Carnegie Mellon is a world-class institution, all of the above will be tremendously difficult to do if you don’t enjoy your experience there. So, my suggestion is to embrace Carnegie Mellon – it’s a wonderful college. Be open to the possibility that Carnegie Mellon graduates do well in life. And you will too by graduating from CMU!

Lastly, a true story that I’ve written about before