<p>Hey y'all,</p>
<p>I will be entering my sophomore year at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa this fall and I've been thinking about transferring. I have over 30 credits from UA as of right now, and 18 more from APs in high school. I originally chose UA because they gave me full tuition as an out-of-stater and I was drawn to the idea of attending a big Southern school. However, I've been considering transferring to a bigger name school which is a little closer to home (I am from New England) and has a strong program in Economics. I believe I have the stats to get in many places, but I'm not sure how the financial aid process is going to work. As I stated, I chose UA mainly because of the scholarship. Any advice regarding which schools are generous with financial aid/scholarships for transfers would be much appreciated. Receiving some sort of financial aid is pretty much a necessary component of this process for me if I am going to sell my parents on it. </p>
<p>STATS:</p>
<p>High School= 4.55 GPA (weighted), 2230 SAT (superscore), Lacrosse Academic All-American</p>
<p>University of Alabama= 4.23 GPA after 2 semesters (pre-Law with intention of eventually declaring Econ/PoliSci double major)</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>You look like you are in good shape. What are your extracurricular activities?</p>
<p>Penn has a major called PPE (philosophy, political science, and economics) and has a pre-law program as well.</p>
<p>EC’s:</p>
<p>High School: Captain of both the football and lacrosse varsity teams, NHS member, Nat’l Merit Commended student, many community service hours etc</p>
<p>Freshman year at UA: I wrote opinion columns for the Crimson White (school newspaper), played club lacrosse, completed many community service hours (including an 8-day service trip in the Dominican), Honors College, joined Academic Honors Council at the end of the year. </p>
<p>I’ve been published on Huffington Post for my newspaper articles. Also I currently am working two summer internships back home.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback about Penn, sounds right up my alley.</p>
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<p>Is that counting A+s as 4.3 or something? When calculating your gpa, most colleges will account for - and + for all grades except A+.</p>
<p>Yes it is. That includes A+s, so if I haven’t received a grade below A, would I then report a 4.0 (not a 4.23) to these colleges? Sorry I probably sound clueless.</p>
<p>I’d just report 4.0, but I think either will be fine. They’ll see your transcripts and will see the A+s; they may recalculate your gpa themselves anyway as some colleges don’t have - or + grades at all.</p>
<p>As far as need based FA, that varies with the school: some treat fr and transfers the same (these tend to be the more selective, highly endowed schools, although there are exceptions like Brown which has need aware admissions and limited FA for transfers), others give less FA to transfers. It’s important to read the college websites to see what their transfer FA policy is.</p>
<p>There are also significantly fewer merit scholarships for transfers and they tend to be for lesser amounts. See the Resources sticky thread at the top of this forum for a link to a thread with some schools with merit awards listed.</p>