<p>Just because there’s a legacy in the school doesn’t mean you’ll get in, unless your grades were a bit above mediocre. Precipitiously, this applicant must explicitly clarify in her essay what she learned and the reason for wanting to transfer other than financial situation. If she’s aiming for bigger schools like Michigan, I’d say she would have a slightly better chance of being admitted. However, I cannot accurately identify the level of transfer for this applicant as it is not mentioned in the post. State University of New York would be an optional-match for the OP (Go to Binghamton), unless you are luckily admitted to such selective schools. Looks are deceiving, but they really aren’t. One point made is that Duke University will be tougher than Columbia since it’s much more rigorous despite of the rankings (Duke isn’t top 10 by the way, even if they have higher stats to get into than Columbia.)</p>