I will be completing my third semester at a community college in Illinois this upcoming Spring with the hopes of transferring for Fall 2021. I have a 4.0 GPA, and I am confident in my ability to maintain it there. I plan to have 45 credit hours completed at the date of transfer.
My high school grades are poor. I finished with a 2.9 GPA. However, I received my high school diploma about 4 years ago at the age of 16 (I went to school in the UK), so I hope that it will not carry much weight in the admissions process.
I have not engaged in ECs much, as I have been studying full-time and working full-time as well. I signed up for the chess club at my college, but my class and work schedule interfere with their hours, so I haven’t been attending any of the sessions.
I will most likely be able to get one or two strong letters of recommendation from my professors.
My main question is: What are my chances of transferring to the following, or similar, universities to study finance or economics, given my lack of ECs and poor high school grades?
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (in-state), Vanderbilt University, University of Notre Dame, University of Southern California, WUSTL, and Cornell University.
If there is anything else that I could add, please let me know.
Working full time counts as an Extracurricular Activity. I would not worry about not having time to do more than work full time while also being a student.
How many courses have you taken at the community college? Are you doing this full time as well? If so that seems like a lot to do at the same time.
I currently have 16 credits (13 in Spring 2020, 3 in Summer 2020). By the end of the Fall semester, which is within ~ a month, I will have completed an additional 13 credits. 13 credits is considered full-time. However, I still try to bump up my average credits/semester to 15/16 by taking summer classes.
UIUC would likely be your best bet. The university has familiarity with CC’s in Illinois. Create a profile on Transferology. Correlate your CC classes with direct equivalencies @ UIUC. Also, H.S. g.p.a. is in the past. The CC 4.0 matters now.
Link #1: Scroll through for requirements + transfer profile + contact info:
Re: Transfer Guide for Gies:
**For admission to all programs in the Gies College of Business, transfer applicants must have completed, at a minimum, three years of one language other than English in high school or through the second level (second semester of instruction) of one language other than English in college by the end of the semester prior to enrollment. Completion of four years of one language other than English in high school or through the fourth level (fourth semester of instruction) in college satisfies the College’s graduation requirement.
You stated Finance, which is Gies College of Business. More challenging to transfer.
You also stated Economics, which is in College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS). Likely easier to gain admission. If you can pair Econ. with a double major (or at least minor) in: Statistics or Math —> great employment outlets.
Also, CS + X degree (CS+ Economics) in LAS noteworthy - but more challenging to transfer.
How are you set for funding at these universities?
Check the NPC -Net Price Calculator on each school’s website to see what you would be expected to pay. Transfer students don’t get much in scholarships or funding, so you need to consider your tuition, fees, housing, and living expenses.
USC, at about $79k, does have private scholarships, but probably would not cover your total costs to attend.
Take a look at costs first, before you decide where to transfer.
I will have fulfilled all of the requirements for Gies by Fall 2021. I have been looking at the economics major as well, but it seems like employment opportunities after graduation are not excellent based on UIUC’s annual reports.
I’m not exactly sure how much debt I will have to get into to attend any of the universities that I listed in the original post. However, I did notice that most of the high ranking, private universities are generous to those with low household incomes, similarly with my state flagship university. I agree, USC is extremely expensive. However, without applying, I will never know if I could have gotten lucky with financial aid, so I decided to give it a shot.
Employment via UIUC Economics - Having a solid quantitative/computational foundation will deliver greater opportunity. Note the recent addition of the ‘CS + Econ.’ degree. It’s just the direction things are moving toward. Son’s friend just graduated w/ B.S. Stats. + Econ. minor - she has a very lucrative position.
The CS + Economics degree (CS + X option) in Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS): is relatively new, so not sure about employment data. But unofficially know students who have not had any problems finding employment opportunities in CS + X.
If Economics degree in LAS: round out your degree with a quantitative/computational component: minor in Business, CS, Math or Stats.
If your first choice is Business & you have the requirements, go for it & apply to Gies @ UIUC. I know the first-time freshman application allows a 1st & 2nd choice major. If it’s the same format on Transfer App → 1st choice: (Gies) Business.
2nd choice: (LAS) CS + Econ. [CS + X] -OR- (LAS) Econ. [minor in Business, CS or Statistics]
Finally, often an interesting niche or ‘x’ factor you have worthwhile experience in, to accompany any major, will open doors: language fluency, performance talent, art/design ability, creative or technical writing, collegiate athlete etc… It’s not ALWAYS quantitative
Keeping up straight A’s with both working full time and studying at least 12 units per semester is both tough and impressive. I can see that one semester of this will not make up for your high school GPA, but two or three or four semesters of this probably will. I think that if you keep this up you should be able to transfer to a very good program.
Be aware that at UIUC or other top universities it might not be possible to work full time and study full time and keep up good grades. Hopefully you will get enough financial aid to allow you to cut back dramatically on your work hours. I think that if you get into a “very good” program that would allow you to cut back to 10 hours per week of work, and a “slightly higher ranked” program that would require more than 20 hours of work to be affordable, I would take the program that would require less work hours to allow you to focus more effort on your classes.
Best wishes and I hope that this works out for you.
