<p>Hi everyone. I'm seriously considering attempting the transfer process (matriculating as a junior) from a top 25 LAC -------> Brown, Dartmouth, and Yale. I think I might have a shot, particularly after this past fall semester. </p>
<p>3.889 GPA (3.67 fall, 4.0 spring, 4.0 fall) <---primarily within honors program
1390 SAT (750 V, 640 M)
SAT II's: 760 Lit, 740 Writing</p>
<p>EC's
honors program
newpaper editor
founding member of sexual assault group
numerous habitat build sites
elected to SGA for academic affairs
freshman year essay selected for publication as example for incoming freshman class
club rugby
etc</p>
<p>My main qualm is this: I was expelled for plagiarism junior year of high school. We're required to make note of any academic dishonesty in our transfer applications... so i'm not going to leave that part out. but i fear that it'll knock me completely out of the running. </p>
<p>does anyone have any advice on how i might deal with it? or if i need to, even? or if i should perhaps shoot a bit lower in terms of schools...?</p>
<p>do they have to obey a request to have my record expunged? and does this also work for private school?</p>
<p>in response to how i managed to get into a top 25 lac... who the f*** knows nowadays.. the college admissions process is a mysterious hell-beast. </p>
<p>i think it was probably a combination of great references, decent scores, great essay, and lots of luck. oh, and i took a year off after high school and took a high profile internship for six months.</p>
<p>How severe was the plagiarism? If they see that you've turned that experience into something positive, they'll probably overlook it; you were, after all, probably about 16 at the time. Plus, if you go to a top 25 already, it couldn't have been that serious. If I were you, I would definitely give it a shot.</p>
<p>I know some likewise brilliant kids in my hs that got expelled for stupid reasons and wound up at stateU. Best of luck to you. You should know though, that even if you don't reach your dream of graduating from an ivy, it may be easier to stand out as an excellent student at your LAC and make your post-graduate plans just as feasible.</p>
<p>it's not even necessarily my dream to graduate from an ivy... i am fully aware that i probably stand a better chance in the job market as phi beta kappa, fellow, etc, from my LAC than as a less outstanding graduate from brown, yale, dartmouth, or any of the rest. </p>
<p>i appreciate your consolation, though. i suspect that much of my desire to transfer, like many of the other intelligent kids here, stems from a desire to prove that what they were in high school is no longer what they are now... that they can swim with bigger fish... even if those fish are bigger in institutional name recognition alone. </p>
<p>part of me just wants to excise and efface all of my past from my present... the ability to open a previosly closed door seems the best route to healing my self-image... as we know that self-image, more than most other subjective things, matters more in the job market than anything else (i'm thinking of that study which showed that it's not where you go to school that determines life success, rather it's where you applied)</p>
<p>additionally, i'm of the firm belief that in college, you are shaped more by out-of-classroom experiences than within them... no matter how i excel here, i can't help but shake the frustration i feel when i realize that i can't trust one other person here to adequately edit a paper of mine, and that as a theoretical future employer, i could not feel confident with many graduates of this school as my employees. </p>
<p>what i'm looking for is a holistic experience... why else am i paying 40 k a year? if i was looking for purely academic recognition, i'd go to a lesser state school or something else comparable... where i am (an expensive top 25 lac) doesn't seem to merit such a ridiculous amount of money. not when my fellow students can't enhance the classes or the discourse outside classes. </p>
<p>but i rant. ultimately, the expulsion was a good thing. and we'll see where it now takes me.</p>
<p>wow Woland...you basically just put down everything i've ever thought about college and transferring into a form that i never could have said myself. i thank you for that.</p>
<p>I agree those are fine ideas, and a lot of the reason I myself was originally interested in transferring. However, just some suggestions for things to keep in mind: at an ivy, things will be much more intense, and students on average more stuck-up/competitive. Hence, your out-of-classroom experience may or may not be improved to your liking. You also will not get as much recognition from teachers. At a university teachers tend not to go over rough drafts, etc. as they sometimes will at a LAC. While last year the prestige of my college held a great deal of idealistic meaning to me, I have since decided for myself that I will likely be in many different positions at many instances in my life, I will meet some brilliant people and some not-brilliant people wherever I go, even if the respective %s of each of those change by environment. I seriously doubt there is not ONE person in your class who could edit your paper -do you actually know everyone in your class? I bet you there are a handful of people in your class with a perfect GPA. In the end, I feel for me and my future it is best not to go to a much more competitive environment where I'd likely be an average student, because even if that improves my intellectual growth more for two years, it might hinder my mobility afterwards, and would definitely hamper the fulfilling social life I have become accustomed to since high school. So just make sure you weigh the pros and cons in a realistic manner, and don't be convinced the grass is greener for the sake of symbolism. You will always have more chances to compete at the top levels, even if it takes you a bit longer to get there than it does Harvard graduates.</p>
<p>escape, well said. I feel the same way...I am transfering from a top 25 LAC and could probably get into Yale with a combination of my stats (which are borderline) and connections, but I know that at Yale the pressure and the insane workload would not be worth it to me....I have a bunch of friends there who don't sleep, and although I want to be challenged (which is partly why I am moving on to another school), I also value a balance in academics and social life and would never sacrifice my sanity for greater prestige.</p>
<p>i've had my expulsion removed from my high school transcript... in light of that, i thought that in addition to brown, i'd send out applications to harvard, yale, and hopkins... my father went to hopkins undergrad. and i'm an english major, which i think they'd like. </p>
<p>does anyone think i'm shooting too high? should i limit myself to brown and hopkins? or is there just no way of even guessing at this point? the main problem is that i'm more or less unable to work on any and all transfer apps that i might send for more than five days total (complicated to explain so i won't bother). </p>