I was waitlisted and rejected to aerospace engineering at Purdue, so if I can’t appeal I plan to transfer into the spring term as a freshman after one semester at another college. I heard that transferring that early your high school stats still matter; I have an UW GPA of 3.65 and weighted is 4.38 and my new SAT score is 1510. Please tell me if transferring is possible and if I have a good shot. Thank you!
Be realistic and ask yourself why you would get accepted after only one semester when you were rejected out of high school. What more information will they have to bolster your application? After only one semester, you will have a few grades from mostly introductory freshman courses.
The fact that I was waitlisted and not rejected outright leads me to believe they would have accepted me had I applied earlier.
@raymclain Or perhaps there were students better than you or who fit their criteria more. Being waitlisted doesn’t mean you would have been accepted had you applied earlier. I would suggest giving it a year. Most colleges will not let first-year students transfer until AFTER they have completed a full year of college. You would be applying in the fall of your freshmen year for the winter. You won’t have any college work finalized by then. Your best bet is to finish one semester with great grades and apply in January for Fall 2018 and have stellar mid-term grades.
@rvalover7 makes some good points. Where will you be attending college? You may want to take two semesters of calculus along with calculus based physics with a lab before you reapply.
I’m currently headed for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The academics are comparable to Purdue but many people cite the environment and social scene to be lacking, which is why I want to transfer. I’m taking BC Calc, so maybe I can skip a semester of college calc.
@raynmclain I checked Purdue’s website and could not find any specific information on if they do accept freshmen transfers, but your best bet is to do well at RPI. It may not be your ideal option, but it will most likely get you to where you want to be if you put the effort in. I didn’t get into my top school out of HS. I did a year of college, and now I’m transferring there in the Fall. We all have different paths of getting somewhere. It matters where you end, not where you start. You’ll be a much more competitive applicant if you wait a year. I’m assuming they’ll want to see some calculus, physics, etc.a great?
I get that sometimes it can be hard to accept things, but you are an excellent student! You just need a little more time somewhere else. Most applications for Spring 2018 transfer will be due around the beginning of December. You’ll most likely be taking your finals then, so no grades will be set in stone. Midterm reports aren’t going to help if you do not have any finalized classwork. You could have an A and fail your physics final and go to a C. College don’t know, and neither do you. It would be a risky move for admissions.
Alright, thank you two very much for your advice. I admit I may have been a little to worked up about my rejection, I really thought Purdue would take me. I’ll see where I’m at after spending some time at RPI and decide on where to go from there.
@raynmclain I can completely relate to you, trust me. I was waitlisted too, and I was a triple legacy. It stung at first, but in the end, I brushed myself off, got back up, and used it as motivation to do amazing in school, and it worked. The same thing will happen for you. Just remember your goal. Being upset over rejections and waitlists is entirely reasonable.
There may be a guaranteed track into engineering at Purdue from the IN community colleges. Have you investigated that? Not the same as four full years at a residential college with a top engineering program, but possibly a more congenial first two years if you really dislike the social environment at RPI.