<p>Hello CC members.
I'm currently going to low Ivy League school, and thinking about transferring to Harvard next year.</p>
<p>I took SAT1 three times and here are my scores</p>
<p>3rd time
Critical Reading 730<br>
Math 800<br>
Writing 690 </p>
<p>2nd time
Critical Reading 660<br>
Math 720<br>
Writing 730 </p>
<p>1st time
Critical Reading 550<br>
Math 720<br>
Writing 640 </p>
<p>I think my SAT scores are a little lower than average Harvard students especially since I'm an international student from Asia.
Do you guys think that i should retake SAT before applying to Harvard?
Please let me know what you think
Thank you.</p>
<p>you've taken it many times already.
only retake it if you can be certain, or almost certain to have a big improvement (not just a 30 or so point improvement)</p>
<p>and see how you feel about the test, it seems from the scores that there is a tendency for fluctuation, the last thing you want is to take the test and score lower, or around the same in a section.</p>
<p>To be honest, I think you should only retake the SAT if you're sure you can pull off an excellent score. But I should warn you, freshman admission is easier than transfer admission at Harvard. Harvard admits an extremely small percentage of its transfer applicants each year, and all of the transfers I know here at Harvard are very exceptional people. They have a clear reason for wanting to be at Harvard (not just for the prestige!) and they have enjoyed outstanding results at the colleges they had previously attended. Please don't get your hopes up as Harvard rejects somewhere around 96% of its transfer applicants. I would say this to anybody applying for transfer admission.</p>
<p>I again agree with chrisiskey. A recent Crimson article stated that the University was planning on halving the number of transfer admits from approximately 75 to around 40. Keep in mind approximately 1,000 students apply every year. Your scores put you within the range of any other accepted student, so if you're not accepted, it would not be due to your test scores.</p>
<p>i have a feeling it would be particularly difficult to transfer from a lower ivy to harvard just because you won't have any solid grounds for wanting to transfer. resources are approximately equal across the board, and the only real difference is harvard's name--i have a feeling they won't view that as a valid reason for transfer.</p>
<p>That's a good point, but actually, most accepted candidates are lateral transfers. You have a better chance of getting in (by far) from another Ivy than a state school.</p>
<p>chanchito is absolutely correct. I know -- and know of -- the following transfers from these schools: Northwestern, Columbia, Yale, Stanford, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Texas at Austin, Tufts, Deep Springs College, UC Los Angeles, and UC Berkeley. Hanna, who posts on these threads, transferred from Bryn Mawr. These are anecdotal, so don't take it as "official." However, it is safe to say that it is definitely much easier to be accepted from a school that is like Harvard than your average state flagship school.</p>
<p>My guess would be that it's ''easier'' to transfer from these schools because of the type of student you must be to have gotten into them in the first place. If anything, top schools favor taking transfers from lower schools. Williams, for example, expressly says it keeps an eye open for strong CC students. The only problem is that there aren't very many CC students (or state U students for that matter) who can fare well in the extremely competitive transfer process. I think it's a lot like affirmative action in this way; of course Harvard would love to take a poor Native American over a rich white kid, but the former is an academic rarity.</p>
<p>"These are anecdotal, so don't take it as "official.""</p>
<p>I met every Harvard transfer between 1997 and 2002. There are a lot of intenationals, but most successful domestic transfers come from other excellent schools. Wellesley, Georgetown, Penn, MIT, Caltech, and Cornell are major feeders. At any of these schools, you need to be an extremely strong -- close to straight-A -- student to have good odds as a Harvard transfer. If you are coming from a lesser known school (like DePaul or Evergreen), you need to be a superstar in your class; from a CC, you need to be one of the top students the school has ever had.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. As an admissions officer, your job is to do what's best for HARVARD, not to do the greatest good for the greatest number. To use an example from my transfer class, if you have a chance to poach a junior with a 4.0 in physics from MIT who now wants to study poetry, why not do so? The risk is nil, because the kid has proved herself in a demanding college environment, and the benefits are huge, because she's going to kick butt at Harvard and beyond. (Indeed, that's exactly what she did and is doing.)</p>