<p>It looks like my deferred U of M son will be attending MSU in the Fall much to his chagrin. He wants to apply for U of M again as soon as he can, and I am wondering how all of this works.</p>
<p>Does he wait an entire year then apply as a sophomore?</p>
<p>What kinds of grades will they be looking for from his MSU experience in order to consider him as a transfer candidate?</p>
<p>Any guidance will be appreciated. Both of his brothers are at U of M and from a selfish standpoint, it would make life a lot simpler if they were all at the same school! :)</p>
<p>I said this already on the MSU forum, but I’ll put it here, too- if he doesn’t want to go to MSU, don’t send him to MSU for the year. There is no point in paying money to go somewhere you don’t want to go. Send him to a cheap CC or something for the year and just save your money.</p>
<p>I’ll let others respond to the other questions.</p>
<p>Generally, students who were not strong enough applicants to get admitted to Michigan as freshmen have to wait until junior year to get accepted. Sophomore transfers are usually students who would have or did get in as freshmen. </p>
<p>Technically, the earliest one can reapply is for the Winter term of freshman year. However, those who are accepted for that term seem to be exclusively people who got in as freshmen. It seems even strong 2nd semester senior grades won’t help. For sophomore transfer, it seems that some strong borderline applicants with good first semester grades can get in. The earliest term that weaker applicants can get in is the Winter term of Sophomore year and of course junior transfer for the fall term. </p>
<p>I think for MSU students, a GPA of at least 3.6 is necessary and 3.7 to be safe. I have a few friends that transferred in from MSU and all of them had at least a 3.7 except for one person who had a 3.6 something. Another one of my friends had a 3.5ish GPA was not accepted. Make sure that he takes all core (math, science, social sciences, humanities, foreign language) classes his whole time and no bs classes (gym and stuff like that) and has a good number of credits. Transfer admission is much more straight forward in that GPA and credits are the most important, while essays and ECs have a secondary importance. The more credits and the higher the GPA the better basically. If you can get to 55 credits, high school grades won’t even matter anymore. </p>
<p>Personally, I was a Sophomore transfer for the Winter term, I transferred after 3 semesters, and I went to the University of Pittsburgh, which I feel that the admissions office regards kind of similar to MSU, based on my conversations with them. I had a 3.6 high school GPA and a 33 ACT when I applied as a freshman but was waitlisted. When I applied as a sophomore fall transfer with a 3.6 GPA from Pitt, I was denied. I tried again after one more semester with a 3.71 GPA with 46 transferable credits and I was accepted. Anyways, best of luck and I hope everything works out.</p>
<p>Fafsa parent, first off, you said your son has been deferred, so I am assuming at this point that this is “plan b” planning, because as I’m sure you know, he could still be admitted!</p>
<p>Some of my son’s friends have transferred in, so while my knowledge isnt first hand, hopefully it helps. One fellow started reapplying (from western) in his freshman year, but ultimately wasn’t accepted until his junior year. That gives some credence to Umich’s position that it prefers to see two years of performance elsewhere.</p>
<p>Three of my son’s friend all successfully transferred from their local community college after completing their Associates degree. if you are in-state, umich has a transfer agreement with the cc’s. I believe last year there were about 3600 transfer applicants with about 1200 who actually matriculated/transferred.</p>
<p>I agree that if it suits, attending a local cc is a great way to transfer in, and especially cost-effective. However, if your son is looking for the “away” experience of college, then msu makes sense. However, you also have before you an excellent opportunity to coordinate a meaningful gap year which, if it involved volunteer work abroad, or sone kind of meaningful work/research/independent study/adventure, could tip things in your favor the following year. Just a thought.
Best wishes for happy news, sooner or later ;)</p>
<p>All I can share was my son’s experience. He is at Grand Valley (despises MSU with a passion, that’s my fault). He had a 3.6 unweighted (honors/AP) and a 31 ACT and was waitlisted and denied.</p>
<p>“Does he wait an entire year then apply as a sophomore?” - Not necessarily, my son applied for Winter term before he even had a semester of grades at GVSU. U of M said no for Winter but allowed him to change his application to Spring/Summer or Fall. They obviously wanted to see at least a semester of grades. He changed his application to Spring and sent them his first semester grades in early January and was accepted a couple of weeks later to LS&A.</p>
<p>“What kinds of grades will they be looking for from his MSU experience in order to consider him as a transfer candidate?” I think this depends upon how close he was coming out of High School. Do you feel he was extremely close to getting in? My son did a 3.8 or so in his first Semester at GVSU and was accepted but that seems not to be the norm. I think the farther your son was from getting into U of M initially, the longer he may have to establish his grades at MSU.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to do the Freshman dorm thing even at the plan B school. I would however have it a place where the environment is conducive to getting good grades if transferring is really his goal. Cow College may or may not be that spot.</p>
<p>Washtenaw Community College has a special program that helps transfer students got into Michigan. We also considered U of M Dearborn and Flint but they were lacking the Freshman experience and was not sure if it would really help his chances. The vast majority of his friends went to MSU so i’m sure that would have been a better route socially but he really wanted to go to Michigan.</p>
<p>GVSU is a good school (not significantly below MSU) and is pretty quiet unless you make an effort to explore (especially Grand Rapids). Plenty of room for a car and less expensive than MSU or Michigan.</p>