Transfer Chance

Transfer Students
1

Currently a sophomore at SJSU (One of the California State) and thinking to transfer to BU/NYU/USC as junior in fall 2020: I previously got rejected by BU (did ED), NYU, and USC as freshman with 3.3-3.5 HS W GPA (not great, but mainly because I moved from other country and I don’t speak English prior moving to US). Now that my GPA at SJSU is around 3.72-3.75. And taking an officer position (and founding member, not sure if that matters…) for two clubs. Not planning to apply for any financial aid, just want to get in as my top priority:

  1. what are my chances for getting into BU/ NYU as transfer for CAS as sociology major? And USC for sociology major?

  2. Is high school grade going to hurt my chances for getting in even though my college GPA is a lot better?

  3. how much does BU/ NYU/ USC weight the essay portion? Spent a tons of time wrote them for freshman application, and still got rejected

  4. Any suggestion for tutor or people to help me with essay portion? Who do you guys ask to look over your essay?

  5. does the school prestigious you are transfer from going to affect your chance?
    do colleges compare your previous/ freshman application with your current/ transfer application?

  6. how much does teacher’s letter of recommendation weight? Is it necessary to have multiple professors to write it for me?

Please let me know if any of you have any idea of what are chances for getting in, or anything else I should be aware while applying as transfer.
Thanks!!!

2

Chances are going to be lousy either way, just because these schools are hard to get into. You have a strong college GPA, so that’s going to help. There’s a negative side effect to transferring, though. You’re going to lose credits, which can add a year or more to your degree. For those schools, that’s easily an extra $100,000, which is no small chunk of change, even for wealthy people. I would suggest, if you’re going to transfer to somewhere more prestigious, you may want to try Berkeley or UCLA.