<p>Hi there. I'm currently a sophomore at IIT in Chicago. I'm applying to University of Chicago and Northwestern.</p>
<p>My high school, especially freshman year, was mediocre to bad.
I ended with a GPA(unweighted) of 3.3 and a class rank right around 26th percentile. Freshman year was all Cs and Bs - after that I took things seriously, getting Bs and As, getting all As throughout senior year. I wasn't very involved in much of anything.</p>
<p>My composite ACT score was 28, and I didn't take the SAT.</p>
<p>College I have around a 3.4. I have one W and one C, the rest Bs and As. I'm the copy editor of our school newspaper, the campaign coordinator of our College Republicans, and a member of two other student organizations. </p>
<p>I believe that their transfer acceptance rate is not as high as their first year rate, other than that I don't know your chances. It will probably depend (just guessing) on how well you did in college courses corresponding in difficulty to Chicago courses. Since you are at IIT, they may have some sense of that. Do you know any faculty at UChicago, do you know any current IIT professors who know faculty at Chicago, or who would write recommendations for you?</p>
<p>The essay, yes. I haven't written my long essay or done my interview yet. (Interviews for XFer EA aren't until January, and the app isn't due until March.)</p>
<p>Great, you have some time. If the interviewer finds you excited about U Chicago, and thinks that you will be a good fit, it will help. You probably know this, but it's better to not say anything negative about your current school, just focus on U Chicago being better and offering more in key areas of interest to you.</p>
<p>The interviewer will probably ask why you want to transfer there, did you apply as a high school senior and if not why not. Also, how are things going at IIT? What do you like and dislike there? What would you major in at U of Chicago? Any ideas on what specific courses you would take? (If you have strong preferences about which core courses to take, that would look really good.) Will you live on campus or commute? What do you know about U of Chicago? Do you have any questions about U of Chicago?</p>
<p>They are big on the Core, so it will look good if you know a lot about it and are enthusiastic about it. They will probably accept no substitutes on your humanities and social sciences core courses. I am 99.9% sure of that. However, they might accept IIT credits for your physical sciences and/or biology core courses. It would look good if you had thought about this. If you had a phy sci or bio course, ask whether it would count. For the Second Tier part of the Core, they are really big on having you take a Civilization course. In many majors, this is required. Most people take Western Civ and they are the most proud of that one, but if you have the interest, you can take Indian Civ, Latin American Civ, Near Eastern Civ. maybe a couple others. For Second Tier, they are also big on a one-quarter music course and a one-quarter art course. It would sound great if you were excited about one of these (I wasn't). The art one involves going to the Art Institute downtown sometimes- that is a nice feature. You can now take computer science for your phy sci core, so that may be a good option if you get in and don't get previous credit for that requirement.</p>