<p>Lawlking pretty much summed it up perfectly in his first post. </p>
<p>I know you said you’re sort of joking but 4.0’s get rejected from Berkeley EECS all the time. It’s one of the best programs in the world, on par with Stanford. Stanford is looking for the absolute elite CC/4-year students and your resume is far from it.</p>
<p>No ECs, looks like no relevant work experience(this could offset your lack of ECs), you’re 26 and will be competing against younger applicants, and to be honest 12-14 units at a community college is not rigorous at all. A lot of people can achieve a 4.0 taking 12 units/sem/qtr. in their first year at CC. I think this will hurt the most. Entomom made an excellent point in that Stanford wants to see work on par with what their lower division students are doing. </p>
<p>3 students were accepted in last years thread but they were accepted into relatively lesser impacted majors(international relations for ex.) and had far superior resumes. </p>
<p>Their admit rate last year was 2.2% And it has become lower and lower each year (it was 4% in 2011). </p>
<p>Also it looks like you have a lot of research to do if you think a top masters program is more difficult to get into than cc->undergrad. You could not be more wrong.</p>
<p>OP,
Colleges require you to send them any and all records of colleges you have previously attended, and the college transcripts, regardless of how long ago it was that you attended. In addition, Stanford requires your high school transcript as well.
There are no CC feeder schools for a tip-top college like Stanford these days- the days of being able to transfer from Foothill are looooooooong gone.
If you want to go to the trouble to dig up all those old HS and college records, retake your SAT’s, get LOR’s from professors, pay the transfer application fee- go right ahead. It wont change the outcome.</p>
<p>Stanford is a crapshoot for anyone i applied rejected solid stats…honestly UCB is very competitive if you get any either school you should be happy…i would also look at UCLA & USC since those are also great schools and i wouldn’t rely on such selective schools as Stanford i would continue my education at the end of the day GPA is most important & networking</p>
<p>I am applying to Stanford as a Sophomore transfer. Lawlking, the one advantage I noticed that I have over most transfer applicants is that I have an impeccable high school record (salutatorian in a huge class). How much of an advantage will this be at top colleges? I heard that high school is given more weight than one’s first semester college grades.</p>
<p>Also, I have another question. This year (especially in my first semester), I took the hardest courses offered at the university in the honors program (IMO). I could have done a bunch of general education courses and gotten an A+ average, but I chose to challenge myself. Was this the right move in terms of getting admitted? My GPA is 3.75.</p>
<p>OP: Stanford needs perfect or near perfect grades throughout one’s high school and college. I am a freshman applicant, and while this is different, recognize that the percentages are more in my favor. I have a very high SAT score and stellar grades in the hardest classes. Other students from my high school with 4.0s and such were rejected outright. Stanford, and Cal/UCLA/CalTech are extraordinarily difficult to obtain admission, especially as a transfer.</p>
<p>OP, you definitely should look into more California schools. UC Santa Barbara has a top notch engineering dept, really top notch. It will be easier to get into that the other schools that you listed, but still very difficult with your record. All of the UC’s are very well regarded, especially on the West Coast. But make sure you don’t rule out the other state schools; Cal Poly is great.</p>
<p>In response to your comment about salaries: while the difference between the starting salaries of a Cal grad and a Davis grad are small but measurable, after a few years in the industry, they are virtually the same.</p>
<p>Mtguy1, being salutatorian is definitely a huge plus. What school are you transferring from? A CC? Also since Stanford heavily looks at your course load, I hope that they will see the tough classes that you’ve taken and take that into consideration.</p>
<p>Don’t want to sound too harsh but reading the comments from the guy who posted this thread, I can definitely see why he probably didn’t do we’ll in high school: unrealistic attitude. It’s one thing to be on confident in yourself but at a point it becomes something called hubris. Lol, to think that Stanford would give him an exception when it comes to EC. " yeah trust me Stanford, I want to change the world, I’ve just been too busy lately to start. But I promise if you admit me, I will begin immediately." Moreover, the course load at Stanford entails not only that you take 17 or more credits a semester where you are fully committed to the work but also that you engage in a wide variety of activities outside of the classroom. I mean we would all love to take 12 credits a semester and be happy learning everything but honestly it would take about 14 years to graduate. But what really humors me is that he thinks a school like UCLA is going to be a cakewalk. Seriously? These aren’t cc or hs but rather world class universities. Some of the brightest minds in the world call these places home. Sorry to sound like a jerk or something but I just felt super insulted that someone would even belief something this ridiculous. </p>
<p>Anyway, what I think Stanford is really looking for in its transfer applicants are individuals who seem to have tremendous drive to make their dreams come true and have taken great strides towards that goal already. Stanford then probably can serve as a medium for them to finally reach that end point.</p>
<p>@IStarscreaMI what’s the big deal to get into Stanford undergrad? Just finish undergrad - at lower cost - and keep banging the grades out of the park. Ace the GMATs or whatever exam is needed for the type graduate school u want, and apply to Stanford graduate school. an undergraduate degree from a premier school is worthless anyway. What you need is a graduate degree from a premier program. that will set you up for life. all premium undergrad will do is set you up with debt for life.</p>
<p>that’s my two cents, so u might consider looking at it another way…</p>
