What are my chances? (Transfer to UPenn, Princeton, Cornell, NYU, Swarthmore, UCLA?)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey there CC, this is my first time posting.

I’m constantly reading other user’s chance posts, so I was hoping someone could help me out.

Anyway, I am a current senior, and I know that my academics, ECs, and test scores are all average, or below it. I am planning to apply to mostly match schools or safety schools, and completely cut out any schools that were even remotely out of my reach. It would just be a waste of time and money to apply knowing that I won’t get in. My two plans at the moment are to either go to one of my match/safties and transfer out, or take a gap year altogether and boost my application.The reason I want to apply to these schools, in particular, is not because of the name, as there are other lesser known schools that I will apply to, but because of the course rigor, proximity (save UCLA), and tuition. I qualify as low income, and when speaking to other undergrads, they all confirm that most of the schools are tuition friendly. Even state schools are too expensive, and so I plan to polish my application in order to help my chances at any of these schools. Based on what information I put below, is it even realistic for me to have a better chance after getting my act together?

Side note: As you can see, my current stats aren’t what these schools are looking for. And I understand that. I did touch on the reasoning behind these scores/grades in my original essay. However, because I am applying to match/safety schools, I submitted a completely different essay that was less personal and more practical. I was actually fortunate enough to have others look over my original essay, and some of them told me they were moved to tears by the end of the writing, so I am very confident in that essay.

Profile:

Academics

9th GPA: 3.1
10th GPA: 3.2
11th GPA: UW 3.3 / W 3.4
12th GPA: UW 3.9 / W 4.4

No APs because of none available freshman year, and sophomore year no room left. Junior year I switched to homeschooling (explained in the essay, unavoidable circumstances), and it was too expensive to take AP courses, as they were $500 each AND I would have to pay the test fees, which were just too high.

12th Courseload: AP Bio, AP French, AP Physics, H Eng 4, H Pre Calc, H US Gov

Testing

SAT: 1300 (retaking in March, practice tests all yield 1500-1570)
SAT 2 Biology E: 630
SAT 2 French: N/A
SAT 2 Physics: N/A
ACT: 30 (retaking in June, aiming for 33-35)

Extra-curricular

Bio:
Research project with local professor/undergrads in Summer 2018
Competing in local science fairs to hopefully qualify for INTEL

French:
French 1, French 2
Self-studying French at home
English/French blog with ~1000 monthly readers
Helped start a French club at old school

Others:
Speak a third language fluently
On chair/office board for a business club for 3 years
Received state recognized award for project done with this club
Played cello for 8 years & play for local orchestra
Practiced Muay Thai for ~2 yrs, not of age to compete professionally
Plan on either playing lacrosse or doing cheer in college, have experience in both lacrosse (5 yrs), cheer (2 yrs)
3 letters of rec, 2 are personal and complete in my opinion, 1 was a backup

What I plan to work on during my (possible) gap year:
Volunteer work at local child trafficking prevention center.
Continue research at a local university.
Qualify, legally, to start competing at UFC-sponsored events.
Travel abroad and post to my YouTube channel dedicated to travel/vlogging, etc. SUB count ~10,000

Basic INFO
State: Pennsylvania
Age: 17
Gender: Female
School Rank: No ranking
URM, very low income (under 30k per year), first-gen?? only one parent attend college, but over 20yrs+ ago, & in another country.
Preferred Major: Biology, Neurobiology, Molecular Biology
Preferred Minor: French, Russian

Lots of thanks to anyone that reads. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

2

It may not be clear what I am asking, but to reinforce:
(1) Would it be possible to pick my grades up freshman year of college and then transfer?
(2) Would my gap year activities be too underwhelming?
(3) How are my current stats compared to other transfer students in high school? Do colleges look more at high school transcript, as opposed to college transcript?

3

@lovelymary, there are a lot of points to make here, but let’s start with an obscure one: I think that you will find that the vast majority of parents of college applicants went to college 20+ years ago. Think about it.

In the meantime, I think that you need to back up and get more info than hearsay from other students. Always start with the money: have you run the NPCs for the colleges you are applying to? As an OOS student, UCLA will be ~$70K for you, and you don’t have the portfolio to be one of the tiny number of people who gets serious FA from NYU.

Transfer acceptance rates at top colleges are a fraction of the acceptance rates for freshman, so even if you suddenly morphed into an academic superstar in college, your odds of getting in are very low- and you would want to apply during sophomore year, when you have a full year of college grades. Applying to transfer during freshman year your HS stats count a lot- in general, if you wouldn’t be a likely candidate as a HS applicant, don’t try transferring in during 1st year.

I don’t see anything in your gap year plans that would transform a 3.37 UW GPA w/ low test scores application into a Swarthmore/UPenn/Cornell success story.

You say that you are not looking for ‘prestige’- but your reasons for listing those schools (course rigor, location and proximity) are not convincing. They don’t even make sense for each other (Swarthmore & UCLA are nearly as different as two colleges can be).

Imo, you should go make friends with your matches & safeties

4

Thank you for your insight! Yeah, I guess the part about 20+ yrs doesn’t make sense, not sure why I put that in anyway. I don’t doubt that I will enjoy whatever school I end up going to, but “prestigious” schools don’t make up my entire transfer list. I just know that some of the colleges I might transfer into are not as competitive, and thus have no reason to be mentioned. You are right, a low GPA won’t help. But I guess there is no harm in trying, right? Thanks again!

5

@collegemom3717

6

Update: I’ll just grade my essays if that makes more sense
Original (will be reapplying/applying after gap year with this one) 9/10
New (applying currently with to safety/match schools) 7/10