I had a 3.4 in HS and an 1800 on the SAT (one try). What GPA would be good for my first year of college to get accepted for next winter?
For the college that I transferred from, Bellevue College, the average GPA for accepted transfers to UW-Seattle was 3.5, so the overall average should be around there. However, the closer you are to the credit total of 90 credits and which quarter you are applying for will increase the chances. I believe it was ~65% acceptence for Washington Community College students with 90 credits versus the ~39% transfer rate overall. I’ve lost the link and don’t remember about winter, but Fall quarter is less competitive than Summer to apply, and for previous years there was a ~10% difference in acceptence rate between the summer and winter quarters for CC students with 90 credits. I was accepted for transfer for Fall 2015, with a 3.83 GPA and 83 credits to be completed by quarter start.
Also, since you did not specify what college you are attending (or rather, what type), I’d like to add that Washington state community college students have a much easier time transferring to the UW versus those from other four year institutions (WSU, WWU). From the UW’s admissions newsletter archives, the rate of transfer from 4-years as a group is in the mid twenty percentile. According to the College Board, there are “significantly higher requirements” for non-resident transfers.
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/university-of-washington#
(under “For transfer students”)
Thank You!
@Readyandwaiting - Did you transfer after one year at a community college? Same major at both community college and UW? I’m an international student planning to attend community college in Washington to transfer into UW Seattle (CS major). Any opinion or suggestions?
Do you think its easier for residents of Washington to get accepted?
@Readyandwaiting - Oh, and did you transfer to UW Seattle?
@crseven No, I transferred after two years of community college, after I accumulated close to 90 credits as I said before. Coming out of high school, I considered transferring to the UW as soon as possible. I was not rejected for Freshman, I didn’t apply before and then changed my mind at the last minute. However, once I considered the financial benefits of staying at Bellevue for another year, I decided to wait a bit longer for applying.
As for major, I also intended to study Computer Science. However, I eventually changed my major to ACMS economics option due to the competitiveness of the CS dept. as well as gradually declining interest on my part. If your dead-set on CS, then you should probably meet with an advisor for the dept (which would be available to you regardless of whether you are actually attending the campus).
I’m not exactly sure to what degree being an international student will affect your chances, but I’m sure it’s negative. If you look at the Transfer page under the UW’s “goals and priorities,” it plainly states that Washington state community college students are of the highest priority for acceptence (and I provided some figures for rate in earlier posts).
http://admit.washington.edu/Admission/Transfer/GoalsPriorities
Also observe how they say that students well prepared for their major is the best prep for admission:
@crseven Continuing on from my previous post, readiness for major means all of your intended major’s prerequisites should be completed. Also, the closer you are to an associate’s (or 90 transfer credits completed) will improve your chances. In my case, although I had CS as my intended major while a Bellevue and later changed it to Math when applying for transfer to UW-Seattle, it didn’t make a difference on how it would impact my acceptance regarding general admission. Many of the recommended courses for CS (Calculus series, CS 1 and 2, Diff Eq., Linear Algebra) are also prerequisites for the Mathematically related majors. I even forgot to remove the “CS Major” listed on my Bellevue College transcript before mailing it, despite having my application stating my intended major as “Math.”
Also, since your intending on CS, here’s a link to the UW academic planning worksheet regarding the CS major:
http://admit.washington.edu/apw/CSCI-2015.pdf
You should also be considering additional majors (Ex. Informatics, ACMS Algorithms option) as back-up plans in the case of too steep competition. In fact, despite having only attended the UW for five days as of today, I’ve already overheard a couple of conversations about CS competitiveness on campus.
Bottom Line, your best chances at General admissions as a transfer student would to have all prerequisites completed for you intended major, to have as many transferable credits as possible (90), be applying from an in-state community college for Fall Quarter (previous posts), and, of course, earn the best GPA possible (3.5+, but in your CS-Major case, you should have 3.75+).
“For autumn 2014, the Seattle campus offered admission to 53.2% of all Washington community college applicants. This compares to offer rates of 55.2% for high school applicants and 17.4% for applicants from four-year universities and non-Washington community colleges. The offer rate for international transfer students was 35%. 65% were from Washington community colleges.”
http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/at-the-uw/for-transfer-students/transfer-newsletter/