Transfer students: Result, Reply from MIT

<p>I got my reply from MIT. I didn't get in. :( I feel very sad right now... :(
I want to know what reply others got. If you got accepted, could you please tell us what, probably, made you get accepted? Thank you very much.</p>

<p>Transfer admission has been especially competitive because MIT has been overenrolled the past few years. This means that all the transfer applicants were not only competing with eachother, but rather with the students already at MIT. It's also not handled by the regular admission committee, if I recall correctly. For this reason, it may be hard to locate an actual student that got in through the transfer admission program. A story was published on one of last</a> year's transfer students in the Tech.</p>

<p>Can anyone show me data for the number of people who apply for September transfer vs. the number of people who apply for February transfer? Thanks in advance. :)</p>

<p>There is some information</a> on the fall applicants in the Common Data Set. I haven't found anything on spring applicants...</p>

<p>Ah, that's what I wanted. Thanks.</p>

<p>FYI, Matt McGann has announced that 16 transfer applicants were accepted for fall (double digits!). He did not announce what the total number of transfer applicants was, but will do so soon.</p>

<p>Great news, hopefully I can get in as a transfer next year. MIT is my unquestioned dream school.</p>

<p>there are no transfer applicants here who got accepted? i really want to know what got you in... thanks. :)</p>

<p>The chances that any of the 16 people who were accepted as transfers actually read the MIT CC forum are pretty small, don't you think? And as with freshman applicants, there is unlike to be an easy answer to the question "what got you in?" You might have more luck asking on some of the blogs.</p>

<p>lol that's what I figured</p>

<p>I just wish there was a better way for me to convey my interest in both MIT and theoretical physics to the admissions staff. I wish I could just go up to Cambridge and talk to Ben Jones, Matt McGann, and the rest of the admissions commitee.</p>

<p>Do you really need to have a semester of chem and bio by the time you apply to transfer? Ill have the two semesters of physics and calc (im a physics major), but due to core requirements at BC, theres no way I can take chem and bio, and probably not even one of them. Does this mean I am ineligible to apply as a transfer?</p>

<p>The Transfer Students section of the MIT Admissions webpage is really quite helpful in this regard.
[quote]
Are there specific courses I should take before I can apply to transfer?
Yes. We recommend that prospective transfer students take a variety of mathematics and science courses before applying. We like to see you taking full advantage of your institution's offerings in these areas. This includes one year each of college-level calculus and calculus-based physics, and one semester each of biology and chemistry. ...</p>

<p>Will my application be reviewed if I have not completed all the recommended course work?
Yes. However, at the very least, you should have one year of calculus (or higher level of math, whichever meets your ability level). Depending on your major, you may have covered more ground in one science discipline or another, or you may have more engineering than science courses. Fortunately, each decision is made on a case-by-case basis and depends on your course of study and institutional offerings.</p>

<p>It is also very important to understand that the transfer admissions process is highly competitive - even more so than the regular admissions process. Applicants with a wide breadth of mathematics and science courses may be at an advantage. It is rare that a student is admitted without, at the very least, the specified course work in calculus and physics.

[/quote]
Be certain to have equivalent calculus and physics coursework completed, and it's better if you can get in more of the science core. Realize that while you'll be evaluated individually, you'll be competing in some sense against transfer applicants who may have completed all the science core. I think the relevant quote there is "Applicants with a wide breadth of mathematics and science courses may be at an advantage."</p>

<p>ok so at least ill have the calc and physics. maybe next semester ill drop linear algebra and take chem or bio instead. I have the AP credit for chem (5 on the exam), so would it be better to take bio if i could only take one?</p>

<p>MIT does not give course credit for AP Chem (it's the only one of the "big four" that doesn't "count", everyone is required to take a chem course at MIT unless they can pass the placement exam, which is considered immensely difficult to pass out of) so perhaps that's a reasonable strategy (just don't expect to get credit for AP Chem). Note that they say, "Applicants with a wide breadth of mathematics and science courses may be at an advantage," so the broader your range of courses before you apply, the better.</p>