I am currently a first year student in a state school. I attended a prestigious high school, and it turned out to be incredibly difficult. I gave up almost immediately, and my grades were less-than-stellar. However, in college, I am finding myself acing almost every class and having close to a 4.0 GPA (granted it’s only been half a semester, this isn’t too much of a feat, but after the high school experience, this is a miracle). In addition, I am founder and president of the Acappella group here, which I suppose would help me with putting together an application. My dream school is Yale. Obviously one semester of doing well in college is not enough to get me into Yale (and as such I will apply for junior year) but it is not a far off-dream to attend another better-ranked private university for next year.
So now the question is- would it help my case were I to apply for Yale for junior year from a college with more prestige, or would it hurt my application because it looks like I am transferring too much?
Also, let’s say I apply for another school for next year. If I had an 80 average in high school, a 4.0 in college, and a strong extracurricular, what ranked-school could I get into, roughly?