Transferring next Fall, trying to build my list.

Transfer Students
1

Hello everyone,

I’m currently a community college student and I am working on my list of colleges to apply to next Fall. I have 39 credits and a 4.0 GPA, which I don’t expect to drop. I live in Arizona at the moment, but to be honest, I can’t stand the heat here. My goal is to move to WA after I graduate and to work at a company like Microsoft or Amazon.

My stats:
Current college level - Sophomore, 39 credits, 4.0 GPA.
High school GPA - 3.56 (homeschooled, so I’m unsure about unweighted vs weighted)
ECs - nothing extraordinary, I’ve had a couple of jobs and program as a hobby.
SAT & ACT - I haven’t taken either of them, but I wouldn’t mind attempting them if need be.

With that out of the way, here’s what I’m looking for in a college (sorted from most important to least):

  1. Great merit aid package. My mother makes close to $40k per year and I’m not really able to pay out of pocket for tuition, so I will be relying on students loans and scholarships.
  2. Lots of nature (forests and mountains, I’m tired of the desert), with an abundance of hiking trails within a 30-45 minute radius.
  3. A great CS program.
  4. Rain! (seriously, I miss the rain)
  5. Laid-back atmosphere. I’m not the type of student that spends every waking moment studying, but I’m also not the partying type.
  6. Not a party school.
  7. Left-leaning politically.
  8. Small to medium size college.

Here is my list so far:

  1. University of Idaho (WUE participant, the proximity to WA is a huge plus)
  2. Western Washington University (WUE participant, but I’m still trying to figure out if they apply it towards transfers as well)
  3. Northern Arizona University (I know that I said that I wanted to get out of AZ, but Flagstaff has excellent weather, plus the possibility of receiving a full-ride scholarship is tempting)

I would greatly appreciate any ideas or recommendations, thanks a lot for reading!

2

One thing that I forgot to add, my dad makes ~90k annually but he will not help with payments. From what I’ve read, that can affect merit aid, so I wanted to mention it.

3

I don’t know much about CS programs, but I would encourage you to look at schools in Oregon too! Look into Univ of Portland and Reed College, I’m sure there are others too! Good luck!

4

@Slader166 Make sure you’re looking at scholarships for transfer students. There is very little merit money for transfer students and I couldn’t find a full ride for transfers at NAU. And WUE at Western Washington is for freshman only. Idaho WUE is competitive for transfers and would leave a cost of $25k/yr, which isn’t going to be affordable for your family because you can’t borrow enough. If you apply to some privates, avoid those that use the CSS Profile as that will require your father’s income. As a homeschooler with a lower high school GPA and no test scores, those privates are probably out of reach anyway. You may very well have to stay in Arizona and go to your local commutable 4-year.

Hopefully folks will offer up some specific school suggestions.

5

@itsgettingreal17 Thanks a lot for posting. I think that I misread about NAU offering a full ride, I couldn’t find anything about one either. WWU is off my list, admissions confirmed that they don’t offer WUE for transfers. I believe that I would do pretty well with the SATs or ACT, but I didn’t think it would be necessary to take them since I’m already a Sophomore in college. If that’s incorrect, I’d definitely be willing to attempt them. Do you mind explaining why Idaho would leave a cost of $25k/yr? Is that the tuition cost without WUE?

6

[quote]
With that out of the way, here’s what I’m looking for in a college (sorted from most important to least):
2) Lots of nature (forests and mountains, I’m tired of the desert), with an abundance of hiking trails within a 30-45 minute radius.
3) A great CS program.
5) Laid-back atmosphere. I’m not the type of student that spends every waking moment studying, but I’m also not the partying type./quote seems at odds with (2) & (5). You should talk to some students in a CS program at a 4-year college or post in the forum here. Ask them how many hours per week they spend on school. The workload can be quite high; both tough math classes and programming assignments that take hours to complete. It is especially frustrating when there is some bug you just can’t find but the program isn’t working.

I’m not saying you’ll spend every waking moment on school, but I don’t think you’ll be doing a lot of hiking or have lots of free time either. Outside of class it wouldn’t be surprising to see students are spending 30-40 hours or more on assignments and studying.