<p>I was wondering how likely it would be to transfer from Vanderbilt to Upenn/Columbia [Arts and Sciences for both]</p>
<p>I'm a rising sophomore, I have 40 hours under my belt so far, and I have a 3.5 GPA at Vanderbilt</p>
<p>My ACT score was a 33 in High School. I have a bunch of ECs that I've done.</p>
<p>Any chance of me being able to transfer successfully. I just want to be closer to home.</p>
<p>You have a solid shot! just make sure that you’ll write kick-ass transfer essays :D</p>
<p>jw, why do you want to transfer from vanderbilt? I was thinking about possibly transferring there in the future…</p>
<p>You have a very solid chance at both schools as you would have been a competitive applicant as a first year. Penn’s transfer rate is somewhere around 16% so I think you have a great shot there, but Columbia’s rate is probably lower. Good luck!</p>
<p>I don’t mean to butt in your business, and I think you will be competitive as long as you justify why you want to transfer. Vanderbilt is a fine school, and if you’re looking into grad school, I think it might be helpful to consider that undergrad is not as important as your graduate degree.</p>
<p>As a heads up, transfers at Columbia are required to complete the entire core curriculum in a shorter amount of time. In your case, you will have only 2 years, so you should look into whether 1) you made a lot of progress with your major and 2) if several courses that you’ve already taken could exempt you from the core requirements (i.e. global core classes). I don’t know much about the requirements for the engineering school. That said, I do not regret at all transferring to Columbia, and I had so many more opportunities open up to be just from the fact that I go to school in NYC. I know of several people from Vandy who transferred as sophomores, and they’re having a great time as well.</p>
<p>I think Penn is also a great school, and an easier one to adjust to because of the fewer general ed requirements and more active social life. Ultimately, you might not need to think real hard until next May when decisions come out. So focus on avoiding the sophomore slump, make the most of Vanderbilt, and best of luck.</p>
<p>As someone who has transferred into the Ivy League (Brown), I’m afraid that you aren’t actually competitive for the schools you’re looking at. The most important part of a transfer application is your college GPA, particularly since as a rising sophomore you’d be entering any institution that accepted you as a junior. I admit that I don’t know that much about Northwestern, but as for Columbia and Penn I would say that your chances are very low. The Ivies in general, as well as other fairly elite institutions like Northwestern, attract a huge number of highly qualified applicants. Admission rates tend to be quite low, in many cases lower than the regular freshman admission rate. The bar is therefore set very high for transfers. Most people who get into an Ivy League or similar school as a transfer had a GPA of at least 3.7, i.e. they basically had straight A’s and A-‘s. I for instance had a 3.92, and two friends of mine at Brown who also transferred in had a 4.0 and a 3.85 at their old schools.</p>
<p>Out of the thousands of people who apply to transfer to an Ivy League or similarly high end school, (and it really is thousands), a 3.5 GPA isn’t going to standout much. Just having a bunch of EC’s or a high ACT won’t make up for that. Plenty of other kids also have excellent ACT or SAT I scores, and lots of EC’s with much higher grades than you. The fact that Vanderbilt is a fairly well respected school won’t be enough to make up for that gap either. Transfer admissions are largely a numbers game, and an admissions officer would be much more likely to take someone from the University of Tennessee with a 4.0 and similar test scores and EC’s than you. If you have an amazing hook, such as overcoming extreme poverty or successfully founding and managing your own company, then you might have a shot. Otherwise though, I would say that your stats would really only get you into a school as good as or worse than Vanderbilt. I’m not saying this to be mean or break your spirits. I just think you should understand that the odds are heavily against you, and it is extremely likely that you will be rejected by all of these schools.</p>
<p>I got into Northwestern in high schoool</p>
<p>I had accidentally typed in Northwestern, I really only meant Columbia and UPenn because I live closer to those schools</p>
<p>I am a rising freshman in Vandy. Is getting GPA 3.5 difficult in Vandy? What percentage of people get GPA higher than 3.8?</p>
<p>@spectravoid:</p>
<p>I have the same question as Psiovana. Is getting a 3.9+ GPA that hard at Vandy?</p>
<p>Successful transfer applicants will be athletes, for the most part. Harvard magazine had an article about two swimmers from University of Tennessee that transferred to Harvard. One of my friends transferred to Penn from UC Santa Barbara to run track. TV last year showed a transfer from Notre Dame to Stanford – he played football. These are anecdotes, of course, but they would seem to confirm that the Ivies prefer established athletes in their transfer pool, as not much else separates all the candidates with stellar grades, scores and great undergrad institutions.</p>
<p>Just from the information that you supplied in the first post, I would say that your chances of transferring to Penn/Columbia are very small. I also think that you’d need a more compelling reason than wanting to be closer to home to have any chance of success.</p>
<p>kellybkk: While athletes likely have a greater chance of admission (vis-a-vis us mere mortals), I don’t think you can justify the claim that “successful transfer applicants will be athletes, for the most part.” It certainly wasn’t what I observed at Penn at all, though the other Ivies may have more skewed pools. </p>
<p>OP: Your GPA is on the low end and is a serious liability. Though it could perhaps be mitigated by a particularly rigorous schedule, a stellar recommendation, or unusually resonant essay (among other things), you have an uphill battle, but a winnable one, IMHO.</p>
<p>Start early by stacking the deck where you can (I say that in the most ethical sense): start thinking of whom you’ll be asking for recs, potential essay topics, and by planning a schedule for next semester that will help your GPA (not by taking fluff classes, but by being smart about what classes in which you will excel in and in which you will perhaps cultivate strong relationships with profs). </p>
<p>geowash10 is exactly right: how you justify your decision to apply for transfer admission is crucial, and I’m sorry to say, simply moving geographically closer to home won’t cut it. The strongest cases, IMHO, are academic ones, as colleges are in the business of providing educations first and foremost, not $50,000 ultimate frisbee lessons (not that you shouldn’t mention social/extracurricular clubs, just that they shouldn’t be your primary focus, IMHO). What does Penn (among the others) offer you academically, intellectually, and personally that Vandy does not? How will a Penn education aid in longterm career goals? Your transfer essays, assuming they haven’t changed much since I applied (2008), will require you to answer similar questions, so start crafting a case early and planning.</p>
<p>@wayward_trojan:</p>
<p>Would that be harder to transfer from USC or Umich than the OP? Suppose I have the same stats.</p>
<p>To those kids who were asking</p>
<p>I only know 1 person at vandy who pulled a 3.9+ his first year, and I know a lot of people. I only know of very few people who also pull B+ or higher in the weed out classes: Math/Chem/Phys/Bio</p>
<p>It is more plausible in the Peabody school with the HOD majors</p>
<p>I love Vandy, but I really just want to be closer to home, as do my parents.</p>
<p>So that would leave Penn, Columbia, Swarthmore [don’t like], Hopkins [don’t like], Princeton [can’t get into], and Georgetown [which isn’t as social as I would like it to be]</p>
<p>@EEatPurdue: It’s really hard to say. IMO, all of those schools are on par with one another and I doubt that applying from one would carry a significant advantage over applying from another.</p>