Transfer applicant chances

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
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<p>hey guys, i'm applying for transfer to rice for the fall of 2005, from the University of Texas. here are my stats:</p>

<p>SAT : 730M 800V
ACT not submitted
SAT IIs not required</p>

<p>HS GPA: 3.9, dont know if it's weighted or unweighted. also my HS doesn't rank.
College GPA: currently 3.4, would be 3.8 but i didnt drop an elective class called Intro to Ancient Egypt and ended up with a C in it. I got As in Calculus 2, Psychology, and Comp Sci though, so will they see Egypt as less important, since it was an elective, or just think I'm stupid for getting a C? for what it's worth the professor was fairly terrible.</p>

<p>ECs: i've taken private (college-level) studio art classes for about 7 years, up until coming to UT (i'll have a rec from the teacher, who thinks i rank with the top students she's ever taught).
i've played guitar for 5 or 6 years. i was a co-founder of the praise band at my high school (little christian school) and also was in the band at church, where i was a youth leader.
I participated in the TAPPS academic meet for math.
i had a lead role in my school's play (one year only, again), but the other years i was involved in the set creation for the plays.
I don't really have anything that i'm doing at UT, other than continuing to draw and play guitar.
also i did a 5 week Yale Summer program thing last summer.</p>

<p>Awards: various meaningless awards from high school
awarded board's scholarship for highest SAT scores of graduating class
national merit finalist (first ever from my school)
Distinguished AP Scholar</p>

<p>AP Stuff: Calculus 3, Chem II 4, Literature 4, Language 4 (the two english ones). one of these, i think literature, i wasn't in the AP level class but i took the test anyway. these classes represent every AP class offered at my HS except for AP Bio, which i skipped in favor of Pre-AP Physics. </p>

<p>Recs: one from a UT prof who doesn't know me at all, it was required.
one from a Yale professor that taught me this summer.
one from my art teacher, that i mentioned above
one from a HS teacher that was a rice alumna (correct word form?) i dont know if this makes any difference to them or not.</p>

<p>I'm applying to the school of Liberal Arts.
also, i applied to rice last year, i dont know if this makes any difference, but they ask about it on the application.
my essay should be decent, but i don't have a topic in mind yet.
If anyone has any suggestions about improving my application, or what my chances are with so many weak areas in my stats ( :( ) please reply! Thanks everyone...</p>

2

<p>Your chances are good, though you probably submitted too many recs; it should not hurt you, but one or even two may be discarded. I do not know how much of an impact the "C" at UT will have on your chances, as how Rice considers grades in their transfer admit calculus is somewhat equivocal - or the most equivocal of the entire application. Above all however, what are your reasons for wanting to transfer? From numerous individuals who have advised me on the transfer process, you must have a salient reason for wishing to transfer; transferring because Rice is more prestigous or because it is "closer to home" will not suffice in the eyes of adcoms, though I am sure you already know this.</p>

<p>If it is of any help, the transfer application itself states that one must have a minimum 3.2 GPA out of college, so perhaps that sheds some light on how much the GPA counts overall; I am also applying for Fall 2005, but I submitted my application nearly one month ago.</p>

3

<p>This is nit-picky, but I can't comment much on your chances, since I know next to nothing about transfer admissions: Rice has no school of liberal arts...so I'm not exactly sure what you mean...</p>

<p>Also, what do you plan on studying? I'm hoping it's not like history or anything that is very related to that Egypt class...</p>

4

<p>thanks for replying guys.
my reasons for transfer:
i guess i didn't mention it, but my major is computer science. however, i'm not sure that i want to stick with this major, and have been considering changing it. unfortunately, at UT most courses outside the college you're in (natural sciences for me) are locked to you- so i can't take engineering or architecture courses that i might be interested in, except in some cases very introductory classes that are just meant to be requirement-fillers. i've also wanted to take religion, philosophy, art, and art history courses, but some of these are locked and the rest are hard to get into because they're so big.
of course, i love rice anyway, but since rice seems to place so much emphasis on diversifying areas of study i thought it would be pretty much just what i was looking for academically. of course, i also really like the concept of residential colleges, and i would really like to be a member of a student body chosen for their inclination to approach their studies with interest, as is seldom the case with students at UT. small class sizes are also a big plus (again, these are not prevalent at UT). </p>

<p>Also, sorry, I meant school of humanities. i think i got confused with one of my other applications :). like i said, my major right now is computer science, so that's pretty unrelated to egypt... but since i'm applying to the school of humanities with interests art history, classics, medieval studies, philosophy, religious studies, visual arts, and math, egypt might have a little more significance. hopefully not, though- as i said, it wasn't the subject area but the professor i had a problem with; i wish i had add/dropped it when i first realized how hard it would be to comprehend what he was talking about.</p>

5

<p>bump................</p>