Transfer to Ivy

Transfer Students
1

Hello everyone,
I am an international sophomore student at the University of Toledo and planning to transfer to Ivies(I need full financial aid and only they are need-blind and I do not like the community of my university as most of them only care about classes and no events happening in my department) but I wanted to have an idea of how good my profile is?
Majorly, I have a 1510 SAT, 4.0 GPA,244th and 339th rank at IEO and IMO, I am the President of ACM chapter of my University and co-founder of an animal welfare organization back home.
Looking at just these achievements, how good of a chance do I have? (Honestly, not a person who can do miracles with essays)

Also, it’s my 4th semester at UT. How many credits can I transfer from my university to MIT? Can I get 100% aid without taking any loans if my family’s income is very low? I tried looking on their site but couldn’t find any specific information.

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Your topic might benefit from clarification. For example, your title states Ivy, but you later emphasized a non-Ivy school (MIT).

You also may want to state your intended major.

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Transferring to highly rejective colleges as an international who needs significant financial aid will be tough, the odds are really stacked against you. There are only 7 schools that are need blind and meet full need for internationals (and you have to confirm they are so for international transfers): H, Y, P, Dartmouth, MIT, Amherst, and Bowdoin. These schools take very few transfers, and typically the majority transfers they take are from the US military, select two year schools, and recruited athletes. Look at each of their CDSs to see the number of transfer applicants admitted for 2021-22 school year (the latest CDS currently).

Did you apply to any of these schools when you were coming out of HS? Are there any schools beyond U Toledo that accepted you out of HS that were affordable?

In terms of transfer credits, you have to reach out to each school you are applying to and see if they will work with you before your acceptance to figure this out. Some will do that, some won’t spend the time until you are accepted. You can also check Transferology to see if U Toledo and your target schools are on that system.

I am not sure what this means. I can’t imagine you can’t find people like you at your school, or appealing events to attend. Not sure what you mean by events in your dept…but if there aren’t any, why not spearhead some?

Have you taken advantage of Toledo the city? There is much to be involved in whether as part of the school or not: groups to join, clubs/orgs to join, etc.

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Deleted, no longer relevant.

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Oops, I will edit my post

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I should have stated all the need-blind and full need universities. My major is computer science

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MIT and the 8 Ivy League universities are all exceptionally difficult to transfer into as an undergraduate student. These would all be very high reaches for you. I know that some students have transferred to MIT, but in my four years there I never met anyone who had come in as a transfer student. Cornell might be marginally easier to transfer into compared to MIT, but only marginally.

Getting full credit for the classes that you have already taken is also likely to be both a challenge, and something that you will not fully know until you have already transferred. One issue is that MIT classes cover a lot of material very quickly, and MIT probably will not assume that your classes have covered as much material.

Have you looked for internships or research opportunities at your current university? You might also consider taking a semester or even a year abroad if you want a change of location.

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Thanks for your responses.
I did spearhead the ACM chapter of my university last semester but there was no involvement from students for coding competitions or hackathons.

Even almost all of our co-ops are meant for electrical and mechanical eng. students so I do not find much opportunities for growth in my field.

I believe I do have a good academic profile but can anyone tell me how do my extracurriculars look like? Are those universities looking for something exceptional in these 2 categories.

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You gave us your HS stats, but what about your current University ones? You are past the point of your HS record speaking much, if any for your transfer odds.

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That GPA is from my high school. As part of the ACM club, we(including me and some graduating seniors), secured 36th rank in the US at the IEEEXtreme Coding Competition. So, that’s something more to add.

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There are other schools that meet full-need for international students- they are just need aware, but your odds may still be higher. MIT, for example, is harder to get into as a transfer than as a first year.

Your reason for leaving- that you haven’t found people to do hackathons with you and that your school hasn’t come up with co-ops for you- are not compelling. The people who transfer to a Harvard or an MIT are the sort who make those things happen.

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Your HS stats are no longer relevant. What is your University GPA?

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I meant from my college.

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I agree that I could have organized such events but the most important thing is to have a community of people who would all be interested to do it. Even, in some tech-events, we had such low participation and interest from current students.

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And as you can see…all of the Ivies are NOT in that list. Missing are Cornell, Columbia, Penn…

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I have to agree with everyone on this post that because you’re looking to transfer into elite universities your chances are almost none.

Why do I say this? Well the first and worst issue is that you need 100% financial aid. That’s hard to come by at most universities, and yet you expect the most elite, competitive, and most applied to universities, in the world, to accept you. I am assuming that you already applied to these universities, in your first attempt, to come to the US as a student, and you were rejected; am I correct?

Another issue is that these classes at these elite universities are small. There aren’t enough seats for the hundreds of thousands of students that want to attend these schools. If there is a transfer that is accepted, it’s usually a US soldier or an Olympian, or someone that has made international headlines. These seats are finite and you have to hope and wait that someone transfers out in order to make room for another seat. That rarely ever happens.

Your major is computer science. This is a big issue because a number of US schools are impacted and don’t have spaces for computer science majors. The elite universities that you’ve chosen are not known as the best for computer software studies.

Because you are international, in need of full funding, and have chosen one of the most impacted majors, and you are already receiving an education in computer science, I don’t see your transfer applications as being successful.

It is well known that transfer students just don’t receive the same kind of funding as entering freshmen. The schools hold their funding to entice new freshmen, recruited athletes and underrepresented populations.

If you were to be considered an Ivy League-caliber student, then you would have by now:
created your own hackathons for UT,
drawn interest from regional schools participants, college internships corporate businesses, etc.
obtained funding, supplies and programs from local and national sponsors,
added these events to your university calendars.

My kid and a group of his friends did this. But it takes time, planning and a lot of dedication. You have to develop relationships with students, professors and local businesses. Work at the university that loved you, and love it back.

Edited to add: How do you plan on getting loans? You can’t get loans from any US Bank, loan company, or federal student loans, because you don’t qualify for funding as an international student. Any bank would ask for collateral. If you’re low-income, you wouldn’t qualify for loans.

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17

Hello there,
Thank you for your response.

I agree with you but isn’t MIT, Harvard among the best that offer CS programs?

I definitely thought of creating my own hackathons for UT and shared interest in the Student Advisory Board but I didn’t get any response from seniors but just that it is a goal for the future.
I went to MIT last week and spoke with a lot of students about the university. The kind of community and engagement they have is what I want to be a part of.

I am also planning to apply for Comparative Media Studies major at MIT. Do you think going for a less competitive major can increase my chances?

I didn’t make it to the headlines but I reestablished the ACM chapter of UT and I am a board member of the student advisory board and the engineering council. Are these achievements considerable among the Ivy league applicant?
I do not believe that every kid in MIT has international recognition.

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Yes and your chance for admission to these two colleges as a transfer CS student…or really any other major is beyond teeny.

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I hate to be a downer and I generally believe that it’s always worth taking a shot at your dream, so definitely apply to your dream school(s), but you need a better back up plan. Your profile, combined with the fact that you are a transfer, is not very competitive for Ivy/MIT. People with far stronger resumes are rejected everyday from these universities. It’s a dream, so go for it, but understand that it would be like winning the lottery. You need a Plan B if it doesn’t work out (hopefully staying at your current university would not be such a terrible option).

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I don’t believe that it would be unreasonable for you to tranfer for reasons of your own choosing. Nonetheless, in creating a list of prospective transfer destinations, it might be prudent for you to consider recent transfer acceptance rates.

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