<p>I transferred into a top 20 college last year, however I do not believe I would be more qualified to give advice than any other transfer student who applied to them. Even so, the verified sources you speak of like to manipulate words and statistics to encourage all students to apply in order to gather as many application fees as possible. By the end of my mammoth post, I hope to raise a greater appreciation for the complexity of the transfer process.</p>
<p>I think I overstated my words earlier and got misinterpreted. Although transfers coming from top 20 universities make the application pool much more competitive, the vast majority of transfer students come from colleges ranked below 20. I was trying to show you how much of a competitive edge you have over said majority.</p>
<p>My objective in posting here is to guide potential transfer applicants to get into the best colleges they can. To do so, I simplify a lot of concepts about college admissions. However, Dartmouth lies in the “do not apply” tier of colleges, where the chances are too low for admission to be reasonable. Each of these colleges have to be examined on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>Athletic transfers. [One</a> such transfer moved from Clemson University to Dartmouth.](<a href=“http://thedartmouth.com/2011/05/27/sports/anthony"]One”>http://thedartmouth.com/2011/05/27/sports/anthony) Clemson is a school less known for their academics and more known for their athletics, I would argue. Then, I would suggest some of the transfers from lower-ranked schools are accepted for their athletic merit, and account for some of the schools the Dartmouth representative listed. Indeed, you will see Clemson on [Dartmouth’s</a> sampling of colleges](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/admissions/facts/admissions.html]Dartmouth’s”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/admissions/facts/admissions.html), along with Cornell, Rice, Williams, Middlebury, Berkeley, and Lehigh. Just one is an Ivy League but the others are rather prestigious as well. We are talking about one applicant here, but Dartmouth accepted just 30. Indeed, there are lower-ranked colleges there as well. Athletic transfers have to be less than everyone accepted, so some more analysis is needed.</p>
<p>Prestige is multi-dimensional. Here is a key difference between high school and college. Certain universities may be ranked low overall, but be ranked very high in a particular field or major. Take UT Austin, as your example, ranked 46 on USNews but 25 by ARWU and 1 in accounting and petroleum engineering. Someone majoring in accounting at UT Austin with a 4.0 would be super competitive at all accounting programs, except for schools like Dartmouth where admission is almost impossible.</p>
<p>Needed diversity. Here is where my argument becomes based in conjecture rather than evidence. How would having everyone accepted coming from colleges like Cornell and Williams look on the transfer website? Then no one from any college ranked below 50 would even bother trying, and Dartmouth would lose out on all the potential application fees. Therefore, as a means of bringing hope to prospective transfers, they throw in some community college students, in addition to the ones who would have been accepted from top 20 or 30 colleges. On their website, Dartmouth states 38.8% of 2012 transfers had a perfect 4.0, while 22.2% of applicants had less than a 3.6 GPA. Again, nobody would apply after seeing more than half of the applicant pool having a 4.0. This is by far my weakest and most preposterous argument, but I believe in what I say. Transfer students are meant to fill voids. For need-blind schools like Dartmouth, they might seek racial diversity to compliment their majority white student body, or diversity of majors to balance their many liberal arts students. And they can take as many as they want from community colleges.</p>
<p>And then there are the reasons unknown to me. Why Dartmouth hates taking students from other Ivy Leagues is outside of my knowledge. However, at colleges with double-digit transfer acceptance rates, you can be sure coming from a top 20 school adds a massive competitive edge.</p>