Yeah I think you are right. I applied to JHU, Cornell, and Vanderbilt with concentration in political science, and I tailored that with a career interest in law, and political science is a good pathway for pre-law track. I was confused about how much major will play a role on transfer application because my crime science cohort last year transferred to Penn’s BA Criminology program. I guess they might look at major as one factor for transfer admission, but I am guessing fitting into community could be an important indicator for admission. I think Penn CAS has a range of different majors, and if the same major was applied by different people. They might take into considerations of it, and I heard from Cornell / Penn admission panel session that department faculty sometimes play a role on admission, so I was not sure how much major will play a role. I also heard from Vanderbilt admission that they will consider diversity of the student profile, so I am guessing the spread of majors could be a factor in diversity.
Penn uses a holistic review process, and I guess that means they consider every factors in the application profile, including majors, penn contact, career interest, academic, etc.
There isn’t really a clear line between how much major could play a role, and they will offer admission compare with their current students to fit the community, and diversity on their campus.
I’m confused by one thing, do you have to move to the US? Or is it just that you wants to.
Also diversity only applies to domestic applicant, you will probably considered as an international applicant
Yeah, I will undertake law school after undergraduate at US. I am guessing there are variety of complex factors on admission, and not a single factor can help earn admission.
You should apply to Michigan as a backup; it has a top 10ish law school (and accepts a lot of its undergraduate) and are nicer towards transfer applicants. The schools you apply to are pretty impossible to get in (definitely worth applying, but more like a lottery). In terms of reputation Michigan is definitely on pair with Cornell (I’m applying to Cornell just for better aid, or else I’ll be content with staying in Michigan). Top law schools takes plenty of Public U students, and Berkeley/Michigan are generally the two most reputable ones (students there will not be at a big disadvantage compared to students of Cornell/Vanderbilt)
Thank you so much, I will take you advice, but I thought the deadline has passed. I am thinking about either reapplying next year if I didn’t get in.
Yeah best of luck. This year is tough; I didn’t want to apply for transfer initially, but at the end I decide to. I am kind of banking on my extensive amount of Graduate courses to help me stand out (which might be a bit unfair to Community College students)
Best of luck ! I hope everybody will get their dream offers.
I’m curious on one thing, how is the track record for American JD admission at your school? It seems really hard to get into an American law school as an international student
Nevermind Vanderbilt has a super high transfer acceptance rate you should just count on that lol
lol Yeah I am counting on Vanderbilt because they have 1/4 of transfer rate. I connected to two UCL cohorts who went to HLS with a first class, no idea about LSAT. Therefore, I think the highest international applicants can get could be HLS because YLS and SLS is known to be elite and small. Penn is really my dream target transfer school because it has the only criminology degree at ivy league, and its excellent course content. I think applying to university is like applying to work because these law firms I am applying to will set up a benchmark for your academic, but universities also consider course rigor - Although most applicants have a 4.0 GPA, a high 2:1 around 3.6-3.75 US GPA is their academic requirement. After applicants go through academic pool, they will be evaluate through these factors - career interest, major, why penn. Therefore, I think essay really plays a dominant role in terms of how applicants want to explore resources at Penn.
I didn’t do too good of a job on the essay; especially the last one (I only had enough space to write about my experience and how it contributes to Penn community; but I did talk about how Penn community would impact me on the first essay so I didn’t want to repeat myself). I wished I could articulate that better lol, but I hope they aren’t too picky on my essay
Best of luck ! I think Penn admission do have an idea of who is likely to fit in the community in terms of academic, and other factors, so I think they might offer admission to candidate who can both fit in their school academically, professionally, and outside of class.
I just heard from other chats about spaces available for intended majors, so I am guessing that could be connected with the major decision. I guess this is why they say holistic review because not only will they consider transfer applicants’s intellectual ability and outside talents. They also need to consider whether there are students transferred out from that major or colleges to give enough spaces for transfer, so that makes the admission process complex.
Yes major is a factor, but more has to do with complementing your experience. I don’t think they will accept one over another just because one major has more space. This is just because CAS allow for easy change of major
Have you guys all submitted your MT report? My son just uploaded his and the status changed after 30 minutes like they promised.
I asked my school’s administrator to send it
You can do that yourself.
Someone still have to sign it, but self upload is possible