Hey everyone. I’m currently at a community college and will be transferring for Fall 2018. I wanted to know if anyone with any prior transfer experience (or who know others who transferred) could tell me my chances of getting into a top-tier university.
Major: Political Science
Units Completed: 50 - GPA 4.0
Units In Progress: 13
Units Planned - 10 business class units in spring to get a second AA.
EC’s: Work, AGS Honor society, Veteran related club and honor society.
History: Immigrant, Marine Corps Vet, co-founded a family business, took care of father while he battled cancer (during school and work).
Safety Schools: UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara.
Reasonable Schools: UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley.
Reach Schools: Stanford, Cornell, Columbia.
I know Ivy’s look at high school records too, but my high school grades weren’t so great at a 3.6 weighted and a 1670 SAT (out of 2400).
Please let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.
Good job on such an excellent academic record! Your EC is involvement is a little light but this is mostly because you’re working, which is perfectly fine! I think you’re a great match for the colleges you mentioned in “Reasonable Schools”. I’m sure you’ve heard this already but Stanford definitely has a soft spot for transfer students that come from and CCs and especially veterans, so while it’s still a reach, you can rest assured that you’re a very strong and qualified applicant! Thank you for your service and good luck on the admission journey 
edit: I wouldn’t worry all too much about your SAT scores and high-school record at this point. You excelled at college while having to carry plenty of responsibilities. That’ll always outweigh the minimal impact a slightly higher test score can have.
@AGoodFloridian Thank you! I’ll definitely apply to Stanford.
Note that the Ivies accept few transfers every year. Cornell takes quite a few, but many of those are instaters, who attended a local community college with transfer rights into the ‘Contract’ colleges, not Arts & Sciences (which houses Poli Sci)…
In addition to Stanford, Dartmouth also has a soft spot for Vets. Check out it Government program (fancy name for Poli Sci).
Thank you for serving, and good luck.
@bluebayou Hey, thank you for your advice. I’ll check out Dartmouth.
The Ivies will look at you high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores.
If you are not a California resident there is no financial aid at the UC’s. Can you afford $60,000/year?
UCSD is not a safety even if you are a Ca resident.
@TomSrOfBoston Thanks for the reply, I’m independent and low income so I should be getting financial aid, I also have the GI Bill if I need it. For my major, the UCSD acceptance rate is around 50% and my GPA is well above the 75th percentile, so I’m not too worried about UCSD. I’m also a CA resident.
@SmartJarhead Check out Claremont McKenna! They have a strong political science major and are quite generous with their financial aid (I believe they meet full demonstrated need for all accepted applicants, including transfers). It’s a much smaller college than the others on your list but still a very valid choice. It’s still a reach college with its low acceptance rate though.
Stanford admits only a few dozen transfers per year, but seems to emphasize nontraditional students, including veterans.
Princeton recently started admitting (very few) transfer students. Its announcements suggest a similar emphasis.
Columbia is probably the best known super selective school in terms of transfer students. It has an entire division for nontraditional students in liberal arts majors (General Studies).
It sounds like you took time off between high school and college to serve. Your high school grades will carry less weight in that scenario.
For political science and a bit less selective than the ivies, why not a school in DC like American or GWU?
You have a lot of great options in California which are really good. No need to feel bad about attending any of them, even your “safeties” if the financial aid money doesn’t come through.
@AroundHere Hey, I haven’t really looked into the DC schools because I plan to pursue law, not politics. Poli Sci is just a good major for law school hopefuls. I have a lot of ties and responsibilities near home so I wouldn’t want to go out of Southern California unless it was a really well-regarded school like Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.
Then try Georgetown or Johns Hopkins, both are within DC area and are well-regarded.
Law school is another big tuition expense. I’d probably stick with the California in-state tuition options unless a private school throws a ton of money at you. If you’re good enough to get into Dartmouth, you should be able to get into just about any California public, too.
College Transitions Dataverse has a top 20 list of law school feeder schools. California schools you’re missing from that list are Claremont McKenna and Pomona. I do not know how transfer-friendly those schools are, though.
I second Claremont McKenna and Pomona- they have phenomenal outcomes for law school and are in SoCal. They’re disproportionately represented in all the top law schools. The listing of the schools with the highest LSAT scores had Pomona and Claremont near the top (http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1190895-mean-lsat-score-by-undergraduate-college.html) Pomona is also very friendly towards community college transfers.
Okay, can’t post the 20 feeders link, but it is: Amherst, Brown, Claremont, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, Hamilton, Harvard, Middlebury, Northwestern, Pomona, Stanford, UChicago, Michigan, UPenn, USC, Yale, and Yeshiva.
Political science is the most common major for LSAT takers (a reasonable proxy of law school hopefuls). Whether it is better than any other major is probably more of an individual student thing. Since you are earning a 4.0 GPA in political science now, it seems to be a good major for you in that aspect (GPA and LSAT are the biggest factors in law school admissions; see http://lawschoolnumbers.com ).
https://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/applicants-by-major lists the majors of law school applicants and some other characteristics of applicants by major.
https://www.lstreports.com/schools/ can give you an idea of how graduates of various law schools do in finding law employment.
@ucbalumnus Thank you for those website links, I’ve bookmarked them all and will use them when its time to apply to law schools.
Note that http://lawschoolnumbers.com/ also has some pages on undergraduate preparation and course selection that you may want to read now.