Any advice to transfer to UPenn / Cornell CAS ? freshman from UW Madison and got SAT 1490, GPA 4.0 (probably) and quite decent extra curriculars ? Are chances slim?
Chances are always slim to none for those schools. To put it in perspective, there’s around 40,000 high schools and every student in the top 10% is applying to those same schools. All of them have perfect stats, a list of extra curriculars, and have a “hook.” It comes down to luck.
It depends. Need to search Common Data Set for each school & go to the section on Transfer Admissions. If they do file CDS, then you would need data for the specific school within the university to which you are applying.
Consider Vanderbilt University & Northwestern University as, in the very recent past, their admit rates for transfers was significantly higher than those for freshmen admits.
As far as I’m aware they don’t publish stats for average credentials of accepted transfer students to either of these specific colleges.
For Cornell, it looks like your SATs are within the range for matriculated freshmen in aggregate, and, IRC, CAS is usually just a little bit above that average.
BTW I think you will have to submit your high school records too.
Assuming your credentials are sufficient, IMO there are two questions you should address in your application:
-
Why do you want to transfer here?
(good reason that uniquely qualifies this U over all others is the ideal;
“no reason, just taking a shot at it” = less ideal) -
Why should we take you, over all the other academically qualified transfer applicants? What’s in it for us? What are You going to do for Us if we let you come here?
For this question, extracurricular involvements may be good;
“just going to sit in my room and study” = less good.
Answer: “BTW I am captain of UW hockey team, and I have a standing offer from the Maple Leafs”
= Great answer. For Cornell.
= Less great answer. For Penn. Which no longer has a hockey team.
You get the idea.