im kind of freaking out about transferring because i dont know where i stand at all. i have a good gpa but i also feel like i made a lot of mistakes not thinking through my transferring and that i might not get into any of them - but my peers and family are pushing me to apply to upper tier colleges. do i have a chance? i applied to some schools with high transfer rates. my ideal school is an LAC or a school similar to LAC.
schools im applying to:
boston college
boston university
barnard college
cornell
university of michigan
cal poly san luis obispo
scripps college
claremont mckenna
ucla
uc san diego
uc berkeley
uc davis
usc
i have safety schools not listed here, but there are the ones i want to get into
STATS:
major: psychology (BA)
gpa: 4.0
high school gpa: 3.7
sat/act: none (optional to send this year?)
race: asian
california community college, no need for financial aid
extracurriculars: very average, inactive youtube channel (with videos up to 200K views - talking about mental health and the kpop industry), psychology club 1 year, piano and flute recreationally
essays: id be confident to give a vast majority of them a 9/10.
i understand that UC schools tend to accept a lot of students from california community colleges, but i made the mistake of not checking my major requirements. i have 2 missing from UCLA (biology and chemistry), but will be able to get them done by the end of spring before transfer. for davis, i have everything on assist done but from my understanding, you also have to get a biology course done, which i will also have at the end of spring. uc san diego has a minimum of 3 prerequisites you need done before transfer - i have all of them, but it is the very minimum. as for berkeley, its probably a no shot since im missing 4 (will have 1 done by the end of spring) but assist says we can take them during the 1st semester. i dont understand why Berkeley has completely different requirements for psychology than the other ucs, but that was my fault for not checking. im not sure about UCLA/Davis because i will have the requirements done before transfer, but they will not be able to see all my grades - not sure how much of a problem that is.
i will have IGETC done before transfer and 60-62 credits. i chose to take a lot of psych courses rather than science (lab) courses. i also hear that colleges like when you take psych courses at the school, so im nervous about this.
please tell me if i have a chance for any of these schools.
I would say your chances are better at the California schools because you’re coming from a Cali CC.
Yes you have a chance, but all of these are reaches. This past admissions cycle, in particular, they were highly competitive (low teen to single digit acceptance rates) as far as transfers.
Aside from Scripps, Claremont and Barnard, the remainder of your schools are medium to large universities. It’s not too late to apply to LACs if that’s your preferred school type.
Hi! Thank you for replying. It means a lot. Were you saying the ones you listed were reaches, or all of them were?
There are definitely ones I fully expect to have no chance of (just taking a long shot!). Where can I find the updated transfer acceptance rates? I am applying to UMich (other than the fact that I like the school) and Boston College because I saw that the rates in 2019 were 39.41% and 33.72% respectively - not super high but not impossible. Did something change? I can’t seem to find the recent years.
I will continue to look for LACs, but it’s been relatively hard trying to find well-suited ones for me not in the middle of nowhere/good for my major/mildly prestigious for my parents. Let me know if you have recommendations.
This year was a tough year for transfers. Many schools received record numbers of transfer applications but it’s anyone’s guess whether that trend will continue this year. Just a few examples of some of the schools you’re interested in:
Boston college supposedly accepted 75 out of 1850 applications.
Scripps didn’t accept any transfers and refunded application fees this year.
Cornell is tough because they take most of their transfers into one of their schools and the acceptance rates vary fairly significantly between schools. In addition they also offer guaranteed transfer options which skews their acceptance rates as well.
**2019 New Transfer Students by College ****
Agriculture and Life Sciences: 223
Architecture, Art, and Planning: 10
Arts and Sciences: 44
Engineering: 23
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
The Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management: 47
School of Hotel Administration: 74
Human Ecology: 49
Industrial and Labor Relations: 118
UMichigan had a better acceptance rate ~39%
5726 applications and 2248 accepted but 72% were from 4 year schools and 28% from 2 year/CC schools.
I don’t know about BU. Historically they seem to take alot of transfers. Don’t know if that continued this year. There seemed to be alot of complaints about the process/lack of communication this year. I personally know 2 transfers who didn’t hear until early June. Made planning very difficult.
I’d continue checking the common data sets for each school….not sure when they will update them….for a better picture of the transfer rates for fall 2021.
This website might also be helpful but they haven’t updated their data for 2021 yet.
I agree finding LACs that aren’t rural is a challenge. Bryn Mawr might be worth a look. Located in a pretty Philly suburb, part of the consortium with Haverford, Swarthmore and UPenn. Also Macalester, Trinity and University of Richmond come to mind.
Thank you so much for all your help! I’ll definitely read into everything you’re saying. Also, thanks for the notice about scripps - I didn’t realize that happened. I’m just praying for an easier year, but I’ll adjust my choices a bit. This was really helpful.