Transfer to Yale in the future - chance?

Transfer Students
1

<p>I've just started my first year at Uconn (Greater Hartford branch campus). So far I like Uconn, but I've always wanted to go to a school like Yale (like so many others, I know). I did average in high school, and did poorly in my AP Bio class, the last quarter of my senior year. I'm wondering is it worth starting the transferring process with stats like mine?</p>

<p>H.S.
SATs: 1790, CR: 590 M: 530 W: 630
G.P.A.: 3.2/4.0</p>

<p>I'm willing to work hard, and get a high g.p.a. (I think Yale wants 3.8). I'm also continuing my E.C.s and planning to get a job, after a semester, if I can handle it with college work.</p>

2

<p>I’m not sure, I don’t think the HS credentials would be good for Yale, but if I was in your shoes, I’d take general education classes, aim for a 4.0 GPA, join the honors program, retake the SATs and get a 2300+ and join all the activities I could on campus. Additionally, I’d make friends with the head of the department of your major and get help in the transfer process. And if you do all that I guess if you don’t get into Yale, your prospects look good just about everywhere else right?</p>

3

<p>Retake the SATs</p>

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<p>If your biggest concern is just keeping a high GPA I say you will get rejected. Yale has ~2% acceptance rate. A good GPA is a given, but that’s really not everything. Pretty much everyone applying will have a pretty good GPA anyways. They want that something special that makes you stand out. THAT is what will get someone into Yale.</p>

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<p>No chance. Simply put, Yale looks for applicants with stronger credentials.</p>

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<p>akalboy is right only if you go to a community college. When elite school take transfers from community colleges, they want someone very special. However, if you attend a large public flagship, the big gun on your boat is your GPA.</p>

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<p>Would someone w/ a 3.8 community college gpa even stand a shot for Yale?</p>

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<p>Y is not a particularly transfer friendly school for people coming from CCs. In the past three years there have been a couple of transfers from CCs.</p>

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<p>@entomom: So it’s extremely difficult, but not impossible. Have you noticed a trend in the types of CC students that have been admitted to Yale? I’ve noticed gpa is very important, especially if coming from state school, but I haven’t noticed much about CC chances.</p>

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<p>No, not impossible. See my post #15:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/598296-yale-transfer-fall-2009-a.html?highlight=transfer[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/598296-yale-transfer-fall-2009-a.html?highlight=transfer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>While my D doesn’t think there were any CC transfers in fall 2008, a member that used to post on this forum and also got in that year says he knows a CC transfer from 2008. So, that means about 1 per year max. I don’t think there were any CC transfers to Y this year, but I’m not completely sure. There were even fewer transfers this year, 18 I believe, and 3 were Intl. students.</p>

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<p>I was referring to transfer in general. Stanford takes a lot of transfers from cc. You will need a GPA close to 4.0 from a community college to not be laughed at; additionally, you will need to have a special something to be admitted. From a flagship, having a GPA close to 4.0 is something special.</p>

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<p>Having a 3.8 from a good school is not good enough for a Yale transfer on it’s own. They’re looking for extremely good reasons for the transfer, or people who have done amazing things in their life.</p>

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<p>What I meant was the GPA is a very important factor. All transfer applicants to Yale must have good reasons (wanting to attend a prestigious school is not one). Good reason + high GPA (in cases of flagships) would make acceptance chances as good as they get. Since the OP doesn’t even specify why he/she likes Yale so much, it seems like he/she just want to go to Yale, “like so many others.”</p>

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<p>ok, thank you for your responses.</p>

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<p>From what I’ve seen, CC transfers to the very top colleges are generally students who would have had a shot at them out of high school.</p>

16

<p>You have to take the CC transfer numbers in context. The fact that Yale even says on its site that it gives “special consideration” to CC transfers initially makes me doubt that the numbers are actually biased against CC transfers.</p>

<p>First, CC transfers can be pretty self-selecting. Many people who are transferring out of CC have no realistic ambitions of going to an Ivy league let alone Yale; many of them are aimed at just getting into the best public school they can for their state. There are of course people who go to CC because of cost reasons (or other reasons that have nothing to do with ambition or academic potential), but realistically how many of them are there, and among them how many of them apply for transfer to Yale?</p>

<p>In fact, I’d assume that the number of people applying to Yale from CC is significantly lower than the people applying to Yale from 4-year institutions. I’d go so far as to put it in the 20s (with no real data to back myself up) compared with Yale’s 750’ish transfer applicants last year.</p>

<p>So if we guess that one person from CC gets into Yale per year (not horribly unreasonable…could be a little high but to my knowledge there’s no data on it and it’s definitely not unheard of for CC transfers to be admitted) that’s 1/20 or 5%. As you bump up the number of transfer applicants you of course decrease the % but even with 40 applicants (probably pushing it) your chances are at 2.5% which is right around the admission rate depending on the year.</p>

<p>Again, I have no data to back myself up, but it’s something to think about. You can’t just say “only a couple in the past few years” and then just assume that Yale hates CC students (okay not literally but you get my point).</p>

<p>As for the OP…Your high school stats are horrible (for an ivy, obviously not for the population at large) and will definitely hurt your chances, but if you do what you say you will and pull your high GPA who knows what could happen, though I’d definitely retake the SAT. If you can’t pull a 2200+ I REALLY would advise against getting your hopes up. Write a compelling essay. Once you have the basic credentials you just need something to catch their eye for you to have a shot.</p>

17

<p>^I agree that nobody has stats on how many CC transfer applicants there are. However, I’m confident that the number of CC acceptances over the pas few years to Y is a much more defendable number than your projected 20/40 CC applicants. </p>

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<p>Yes, I get your point. Which is that you quoted me, then put the words in my mouth, “Yale hates CC students”, and then followed with the mealy-mouthed, “(okay not literally but you get my point)”. If you’re going to put words in someone else’s mouth, at least be articulate about it. </p>

<p>While you’re doing your statistical analysis, you should also compare CC transfer rates for S as it is the only real comparable school to Y.</p>

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<p>Be less sensitive. Not only didn’t I even intend my post to be directed towards you (if I had I would have mentioned your name somewhere in the post or ACTUALLY used the quote feature), but even if I were directly responding to you specifically my “Yale hates CC students” wasn’t an attempt to put words in your mouth or straw-man fallacy you or whatever other hidden agenda you think I have. In fact, you went so far as to take the part of my post where I directly admit that “Yale hates CC students” is a hyperbole and then someone try to frame that as a bad thing. I think it would have been way worse if I’d just left everyone thinking that I really DID think these other posters thought that Yale hated CC students.</p>

<p>Believe it or not, I actually added to the conversation by providing food for thought, and I even did so without taking snipes at anyone. I made it clear at many points in my post that it was merely something to think about and that I had no data.</p>

<p>And doing my armchair statistical analysis becomes way less fun if I had to go out of my way to actually look up the CC transfer rates for Stanford. And even then extrapolating them to Yale would just be that…extrapolation.</p>

<p>EDIT: Put in the quote.</p>

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<p>Not sensitive, just accurate. Would you like to reference to the other poster(s) discussing the number of CC transfers in the past few years with heerapatel?</p>

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<p>No, not accurate. You unequivocally made assertions (that I was aiming my post at you, that I was trying to put words in your mouth) that weren’t true. You then took the opportunity to use these assertions as a base to insult my writing:</p>

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<p>…which added nothing to the conversation except to satisfy your need for a snipe. Not to mention I have no idea exactly why of all things you decided to call my post “inarticulate” when there are plenty of other things you could have called it that, while no more accurate, could have potentially applied.</p>

<p>And if it weren’t for you deciding to take offense to my post which actually adds to the conversation I wouldn’t have felt the need to reference any poster in particular in this discussion. No one says anything specific that really needs referencing. But if you REALLY want me to…</p>

<p>gopressplay - Refer to my post above…last paragraph, not the rest of my baseless mealy-mouthed stuff.</p>

<p>Dreamingbig - True, but of course easier said than done.</p>

<p>jcmc - I agree.</p>

<p>akalboy - I also agree with you.</p>

<p>shakalaka - Hmm…maybe. But in college admissions it’s less apt to say “no chance” than it is, “your chances are so slim that it’s not worth the application fee.”</p>

<p>IPbear - Eh, I disagree. A high GPA from a flagship, or private school, or any other college won’t really count as a hook when applying to Yale as transfer admissions. A perfect anything always raises the “Oh, that’s cool” eyebrows but when their average for competitive students falls around the 3.8 range it’s hard to say a 4.0 is really a “big gun”. It’s more of the slightly-above minimum requirement stat on your application.</p>

<p>heerapatel - Hey, never say never. A 3.8 at a CC does stand a shot at Yale. But you need way more than that.</p>

<p>entomom - Oh wait, I apparently have already responded to your posts directly, even without my knowledge of doing so. Better skip you so as to not waste time.</p>

<p>heerapatel(again) - Correct, extremely difficult (just like with anyone) but not impossible. As for a trend? Probably the same you’d see in any successful Yale applicant, in that they have what everyone else has and then a little bit more. Of course if you just have what everyone else has then you can make it seem like you have a little bit more by writing an effective essay. And yes, GPA is especially important for everyone.</p>

<p>entomom(again) - Oh, better skip you again.</p>

<p>IPbear - That’s cool about CC transfers to Stanford, I didn’t know that. Well, I’d probably heard that before but didn’t remember that Stanford in particular was good for CC students. But I’m pretty sure you need a GPA close to 4.0 from any school to be considered competitive for Yale, along with something special. I wouldn’t say that a 4.0 from a flagship is something special.</p>

<p>arcadefire - I agree.</p>

<p>IPbear(again) - Okay, that makes more sense, but I still disagree that a 4.0 + a good reason makes it “as good as it gets”. I mean a 4.0 + high SATs + a good reason isn’t “as good as it gets” for freshman admits so I wouldn’t assume that it would be for transfers which is even more competitive.</p>

<p>gopressplay - No problem.</p>

<p>hmom - Yes, you’re probably right with that, though of course it’s not unheard of for someone with subpar high school stats to get into an ivy through transfer. Or maybe it is, I have no anecdotal evidence to offer. But I’d assume it isn’t.</p>

<p>Oh, and just for fun…</p>

<p>[Who</a> Makes a Good Transfer Student? | Transfer & Other Programs | Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/admit/other/transfer/good.html]Who”>http://www.yale.edu/admit/other/transfer/good.html)</p>

<p>“Students may transfer from private or public colleges, and two or four-year institutions, though the Admissions Committee does give special consideration to those transfer candidates with community college experience or military service.”</p>