I am currently a senior at a ridiculously competitive public high school (Ranked top 20 in United States).
I thought I did well. I have a 4.0 unweighted high school GPA, 4.4 weighted (AP classes count as a 5), 35 ACT, 1550 SAT, a 5 on six AP tests, and a 4 on one. I know that I am at least in the top 7% of my class of 600 but my school doesn’t rank.
I am an accomplished jazz pianist with national awards and I am doing original research right now as part of the selective humanities conservatory program at my high school. I have several leadership roles in these ECs.
I thought I was competitive for Ivy schools out of high school but emailing with my counselor after getting deferred from Harvard, she says that there are too many students at my school with stronger stats that I really don’t stand a chance at any top 25 school.
I’m kinda panicked after hearing this news and honestly don’t know how so many kids from my school could be better. I have never received a “B” grade in my life but there are kids at my school that have 4.6 weighted GPAs. She says I should at least consider community college if I want to go to a top school.
If I maintain a 4.0 GPA in community college, how strong will my chances be for Cornell, Columbia, USC, Northwestern, and UCLA? I would apply to the other ivies but I understand that they don’t really accept transfers. I live in a California and I plan to transfer after one year. I know I will be against a slightly less competitive pool. By the way, I am a white upper middle class male with legacy at Brown University.
Your GC is brutal.
You didn’t get rejected, you got deferred. It means they did like you enough to want to re-review you in the context of the RD pool, other kids in your area and nationally. Don’t worry about weighted, you seem to have plenty of APs and adcoms look at the transcript. You’ll be reviewed holistically.
Hope for the best, have other happy other targets, now. Why go to cc and then try to transfer? Why not apply now?
I have to ask – does she just not like you? have you or your parents done anything bad to her like kill her dog or something?
your counselor should be fired immediately. her advice is terrible. telling a student of your caliber to go to community college is a fireable offense IMO.
I think you are certainly competitive for any top 25 school. I can’t guarantee you will get into any of them of course, but if you listen to this dimwit and don’t apply to any of them, you certainly won’t get in. But my son had very similar GPA and SAT at a crappy high school, your ECs blow his away, and he got accepted to Duke and Northwestern.
it’s December 13. have you really only applied to Harvard? absolutely apply ASAP to Cornell, Columbia, USC, Northwestern, and UCLA. heck, throw in a few more to improve your chances. please tell me you have not taken her advice, stopped applying, and decided follow her insane CC-transfer idea.
i mean, it does not even make sense as a transfer plan. your numbers will qualify you for a number of full-tuition and even full-ride scholarships at a 4-year university, and you can just as easily transfer from one of them. that way, if you do not get accepted to a top 25, you can just stay where you are. if you go to community college you will cheat yourself out of enormous freshman scholarships.
you need to get the ball rolling on:
your Top 25 applications (you could add Virginia and Michigan if you like)
backup schools that will give you big automatic merit scholarships, up to full-tuition and more
Absolutely agree with @Wien2NC, your counselor is nuts.
You need some schools with 30-50%+ admissions rates on your list for safety, but there is no reason to settle for community college or to not even try for highly selective schools.
Many highly selective schools are even more selective for transfers than they are for freshman admissions. Your best shot at a top 25 school is right now, not in two years. If you want a list of schools that are realistic targets for community college transfer google the website College Transitions Dataverse then click on the list Selective and Transfer Friendly.
Thank you all for your advice. Just to qualify what I said earlier: My counselor didn’t tell me I MUST go. She told me that Community College is always an option if I want to transfer into a top university. She said my chances are slim at a 25 but she didn’t say it is outright impossible and she still thinks I will get into a good university.
sure Community College is AN option – but it’s a really awful option for a student of your caliber. sorry, she’s still incredibly wrong and gave you really terrible advice.
@AroundHere is 100% right – “Your best shot at a top 25 school is right now, not in two years.” NOW is the time to shoot for those top 25 schools. we shotgunned 6 and hit on 2 – strangely, the 2 he got accepted by were the most selective. so you never know. but you can’t get accepted if you don’t apply, so get busy.
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She told me that Community College is always an option if I want to transfer into a top university. She said my chances are slim at a 25 but she didn't say it is outright impossible and she still thinks I will get into a good university. <<
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she makes even less and less sense the more I read this. if she still thinks you can get into a good university that may not be Top 25, then there is absolutely nothing preventing you from transferring from that good, non-Top-25 school to a Top 25. and besides, one would assume your chances are better transferring to a Top 25 school from, say, UC-Irvine than from Random Community College.
you should try, right now, to get into the best school that you can get into and that you can afford, and THEN consider transfer plans after you have gotten your acceptance letters – keeping in mind that you still have a chance to get accepted to Cornell, or Brown, or UCLA, etc, as long as you apply NOW before the deadlines.
there is literally no reason whatsoever to choose community college over the best school that you can get into during this application cycle. what does she not understand about this? heck, just taking the full-tuition+ scholarship at Ole Miss, or the full-tuition + full housing scholarship at UAH, then transferring after a year or 2, is still a better option than community college.
@Wien2NC I have already submitted my applications for almost 20 other schools (including 3 other ivies, 2 UCs, several top 25. and some match/safety schools) and the only schools I have left to apply to are Columbia and Cornell.
OK, sounds like you’re set then. hey, would you mind posting back if you get into one or more Top 25s? i love to know if you can rub it in her face. plus it would give me a shot of smug self-vindication that will get me thru my workday.
@Wien2NC I will definitely let you know! In fact, I get a decision from University of North Carolina in January (and I might have a good shot because I am legacy and almost no one from my school applies). Thank you so much for your guidance. You are a lot better than my counselor.
@Wien2NC My teacher(s) from last year said the SAME thing (somewhat)…consider “American U” and “Wooster”…and discouraged me when I said I wanted to go to Chicago…?
But at the same time, she doesn’t value
and I’m the Val of my school
Does your list include any safeties that you would be happy to attend for four years and graduate from?
Which two UCs did you apply to? Did you also apply to any CSUs?
Starting at community college is a reasonable option in California, unlike in many other states. However, it may not be optimal for an advanced student who may want to take upper level courses in the first two years, and the most realistic transfer targets are UCs and CSUs, plus a few more transfer friendly privates like USC and Columbia.
@ucbalumnus I applied to UCLA and UCSD. I applied to Lawrence as a safety and I do like it a lot. I’m not sure if I would spend 4 years there though. University of Miami is kind of between a match and safety for me and I would be very happy to attend if I received some form of aid. I really don’t like the CSUs so I didn’t apply.
Assuming that your UC-weighted-capped GPA > 4.20, then UCSD is probably a low match and UCLA is probably a high match. However, if you are trying for a more competitive major (e.g. CS or an engineering major), then admission will be more difficult.