Transfer Chances?

<p>I am a freshman at Fordham Lincoln Center in New York City. I am at the moment not totally sure what my future holds but i know that it is not in the city and so i am transfering into the University of Maine for my second semester. I am an "outdoors" person, and really need to get out of the city, im sure i could learn to live in the city, and if i was attending columbia i would, but for this school i see no value. I am going to apply for transfer again next semester to many schools, my list of possibles is dartmouth, cornell, colgate, vassar, colby, middlebury, williams and amhearst. I have a 4.0 in college easily and will next semester, i got 2400 on the sats, and although i have not yet taken and sat subject tests i have no doubt i will do very well on them. i am an accomplished golfer, and would be amoung the best players on any of these schools teams, and i write poetry for my school newspaper, as well as occasional articles for a large music blog. what worries me about my transfer is my high school record, i recieved a 2.8 gpa weighted, which in reality without band classes (of which i took many) would likely be closer to 2.4, my poor record was due probably to undiagnosed but serious adhd. i have since begun to recieve medication and for me it has been something like a miracle, allowing me to be the student that i have always felt i should be. i dont know much about the transfer process but with such a low high school gpa will i have any chance of being accepted into the schools that i am looking at? my essay will be excellent and i will ace any interviews, but i dont know if that is enough... DO I STAND A CHANCE?</p>

<p>please? i would really love to know this. if anyone has any insight, that insight would be tremendously helpful.</p>

<p>I would definitely recommend applying. Your SAT’s and college GPA are awesome. As you know the only thing holding you back is your hs gpa, but if you right an essay about your ADHD, and how you have changed, I don’t see why you would get denied from all of those schools. If you don’t get in, I would recommend applying as a junior as hs gpa does not play as big of a role. </p>

<p>The only problem with Cornell, is that some of the colleges do not consider SAT scores.</p>

<p>haha, thats ok about cornell. im not sure i would go there even if i got in. i dont really love there school, but i mean, its an ivy? i feel like i should consider it. I’m a Psych major im pretty sure and i find it very interesting. Im not certain that it would be best to go to a smaller liberal arts school for psychology, but i think i i will still apply and decide wether ill go if i get in. im just really uncertain wether i have any chance of getting into the schools regardless, i mean they accept very few transfer students for the most part, and of those students many will have comprable college grades to me at better schools than i attend. and they might not have sat scores as good as mine, but they will also have a much stronger history of success from high school. it makes me feel as though i dont have any chance at all because i can only compete on two levels out of the three that have the largest impact on admissions (i believe). im not going to apply as a junior i think because id rather not keep moving around and not have to worry about transferring credits. im sorry surfwakenow165 if it seems ive countered your advice. its not that i dont value your opinion its just how i try to find out more information. its just sortof my weird way of taking advice, i value it more when people can defend it against contingencies. i really just feel like if im not a lone case, im at least a pretty rare one, i would love advice from someone who has been in my exact position but it would prolly be hard to find that person. i mean im really just not sure how colleges would react to my transcript. If i was a college i would deny me immediately, because all of those schools have students if not as qualified as me at least nearly so, and students who have much greater natural facility for schoolwork as typified by their high school success. if im a college i know that executive functions have a stronger correlation with success than intelligence. and if im a college i know that the majority of those on adhd medication go off before their usage anniversary. bassically i think id be a gamble, because there are much safer bets than me, but also i have the capacity to do alot more than many of those “safe” bets. i mean, i just want to know if that type of college ever takes the gamble on a student like me.</p>

<p>I have a similar experience to you - my HS record was not very good (3.33 GPA) but my college record was (3.7 GPA). The reasons for my low HS GPA were because of traumatic events followed by depression etc. My advice to you: Do not spend too much time applying to the ivies - I did it myself and got accepted by none. As a sophomore transfer, weight will be put on your HS record, since your college record isn’t very long. The ivies have the largest pool of applicants with the most stellar records (4.0 and 2400 SAT is not uncommon). My advice to you would be to pick the schools that are NOT ivies, but still rank very highly. The southern elite schools - Emory, Vandy, Notre Dame, Rice are a bit more lenient on HS grades and more understanding (as I was accepted to these). They also have slightly higher admission rates. Another thing about the ivies: Ivy schools only take transfer students because someone left the freshmen class. Look at retention rates for ivies. 98-99%. The acceptance rate for transfer for the ivies is between 12% and 2% - it obviously differs from year to year. If you want to attend to top school I would recommend Emory, Vandy, Notre Dame, Rice, Northwestern, UCB, U Virginia, Gtown (more difficult than the others listed here to be accepted) and U Mich. These schools all accept between 20%-50% of transfer students and are all amazing schools.</p>

<p>Yeah, i know that i have almost no chances at any of the ivies. well, cornell i might get into, but im not sure id go anyway. Dartmouth i know one of the professors really well and if i could get a recommendation from him i would apply, but otherwise ivies are pretty much out. I dont want to go to the south. but i was going to apply to colgate, vassar, williams, amhearst, colby ect. i like cold weather, heat, not so much.</p>

<p>Cornell admitted 22% of transfer students - making it much larger percentage than the other ivies. Note however, this number also includes the high school seniors that were told to attend another university then guaranteed transfer acceptance upon good achievement. Dartmouth only accepted 38 transfer students, or 5%. Amherst and Williams are both around the same percentage. Vassar made it up to 6% and Colgate up to 12%. But all these schools accept transfers based on retention rate which varies year to year. My advice to you would be to look into large universities that rank near the ivies – U Michigan, U Virginia, etc. I say this because if you were to apply to only the schools you mention, you may not get into any. With such low acceptance rates and typically an entire pool of well qualified candidates it’s difficult for admissions officers to make a decision, especially since you don’t get an interview when transferring. If you dislike being in the city so much and want to get out, apply to larger universities that will have room for transfers, that way you will have alternatives if you don’t get into any of your reaches.</p>

<p>i like both u mich and uva, im definitely considering applying there. i really like all of the california public schools too, but they dont accept transfers with less than 60 credits, so i cant apply until after sophomore year which i dont want to do. do you know how difficult admission into michigan and virginia is for out of state students though? im not sure if i could live in virginia, im from maine and it would be a very different climate. it would be nice to have somewhere that i could golf all year round though. i have grown to love the city but i still miss nature at least sometimes as a respit. do you know if my golfing would help me in applying as a transfer? i did not play this semester at fordham but if i decided to play i would be amoung the better players on most college teams. i think i will play, wherever i choose to go. but i dont know if that has any sway in admissions. my list of schools that i am looking at now is columbia, dartmouth, cornell, Amherst (i think they might only accept transfers after soph year too), colgate, university of michigan, university of virginia, nyu, vassar, bowdoin and colby. i know many of those i have virtually no chance of getting into, but i still have some hope, my essay will be good. are there are other schools that i should look into? that have as of yet not been mentioned? i am a psychology major, and i am thinking about grad school in that field.</p>