I am a sophomore in a community college and am wondering what my odds would be for transferring to a top math school like Princeton or Stanford would be?
Highschool GPA: 3.9 Unweighted 4.3 Weighted
College GPA: 4.0
SAT scores: 750 Math, 620 Reading, I am not a great test taker.
Activities:
In addition to my 2 years as a college student, I duel enrolled full time my senior year.
Starting my sophomore year, I work as a math tutor 10hrs a week , tutoring cal.3 and below in my college’s math lab. I also tutor physics because the math lab doubles as a physics lab.
Starting my freshman year I also work as an educational aide for a math professor 10 additional hrs a week. Started my freshman year.
I am also a full time student.
I have personal research in math which I am working on publishing.
My paper draft was also accepted by the Flordia Academey of Scinces. Where I am scheduled to present this spring break.
I am an honors student
I volunteer every summer since graduating highschool at my local hospital
Here’s the deal with these sorts of places: Their transfer rates are EXTREMELY low. I think at Stanford, and I could be totally wrong about this, just fills spots left by students who leave the school. I couldn’t find any data for Princeton, Stanford’s rate is ~2%. While students do get in, this is going to be tough.
You have nothing to lose by applying, but make sure you have other schools that are within your reach (financially as well as academically). With that GPA, you can get in at a lot of other good schools.
One thing to think about: Finishing your Bachelor’s at a very good school (state flagship level), then a Master’s at a top level school (Stanford, Princeton, …).
When I was a graduate student at a top university, there were students in the same program who had done their undergrad at a very wide range of schools, including many in-state public flagships. I recall there being a group of students from Rutgers, and at least one each from UNC, Michigan, and a wide range of other schools. All had done very well as undergrads, but they didn’t need to go to a top-25 school for undergrad in order to get into a top graduate program.
It looks to me like you stats are good enough for a very good 4 year university, even if it is not Princeton nor Stanford for your Bachelor’s degree.
Princeton is accepting their first transfer class since 1990 this Fall of 2018. I believe they stated that they will accept around 12 students. There’s no telling how big the applicant pool will be, but it’ll certainly be extraordinarily competitive.
According to their website, they’re especially encouraging students from community colleges and nontraditional backgrounds (veterans, first-gens) to apply. I see a strong application for you, OP, I think it’s worth a shot.
In general, it’s probably not a good idea to apply for transfer at schools with sub-5% transfer acceptance rates. For a given individual with any application weaknesses, the odds at such schools can be effectively 0%.
For a few reach possibilities, you could look into the liberal arts colleges mentioned on this thread (but you should check these schools as well to verify whether they are transfer friendly):
Overall, your excellent academic record could provide you with some top options, @Mlovett, but you would need to explore a range of colleges carefully first.