High School ECs: VP of DECA club, MIT LaunchX alumni, Conrad Innovator, DECA finalist, Data science/software engineer intern at national NPO that addresses generational trauma, Varsity soccer
College GPA: 4.0/4.0
ECs:
-Marriott data science internship: helped predict customer flow around the city as a part of market analysis -Data Science Researcher for endangered acoustic species research team: employed different sampling models to represent endangered species habitat patterns in the Peruvian Amazon -CEO/Founder of NPO: founded a non-profit that specializes in increasing building accessibility for the disabled(used by over 100 businesses) -International research paper in a moderately well respected journal -Translating ASL Using ML: created an application that allows for real time asl translation over any live video format -Dyslexia Diagnosing Desk: extension of Conrad Challenge -United Nations Online Volunteer -Statistics Without Borders Data Science Volunteer -Data Science club member -CS Outreach club member
I am a little bit confused by what you are asking but I will do my best to respond. I applied as a high school senior and did not get into the colleges that I wanted to go to. I am applying this upcoming cycle is a college freshman(a sophomore transfer).
Is there a part of my profile that is weak and could use help?
I am a college freshman(sophomore transfer) currently. I am attending a UC. I was not selected for any of these schools as a high school senior, for my freshman year. I am not an international student and financial aid is not important to me.
I encourage you to bloom where you are planted, and not have the immediate intention of transferring.
Just to be clear, if you applied to all these schools last year, reapplying with one semester of grades likely will not result in admission.
NU would likely be your best chance because they take a good deal of transfers, especially full pays. But again, if you applied last year and weren’t accepted I doubt there will be enough new data to result in a different decision.
I think you have a shot at all of them except Harvard, Stanford and MIT. Those 3 take so few transfers that no one has a quantifiable chance.
Much will rest on how you present yourself in your application. Clearly you’re doing well where you are so you’ll need to make a persuasive case why transferring is beneficial for both you and your prospective school.
Relatively speaking, yes- but the numbers are skewed by 1) the number of CC articulation students and 2) the number of deferred entry transfers. IMO that the OP was denied, not offered a deferred option, makes success on a second go more problematic.
OP, remember that Harvard explicitly asks for an academic reason to transfer, which will be hard to muster if you are at UCB or UCLA.
As @Mwfan1921 indicated, one semester of college doesn’t add much to your application portfolio- and now there are fewer seats available.
How would anyone know how this student is doing at college. He is a freshman in his first term. When he applies to transfer, he will have only one semester or quarter of grades to report from college. And he is projecting a 4.0…doesn’t have that yet!
Where did this student apply for admission as a senior in high school? beside one term of college grades (his HS grades were fine) what has he done to improve his chance of acceptance to any college where he applied previously and was denied acceptance?
I’m basing my answer on the info provided: HS GPA, ECs, college GPA as well noting the importance of the transfer essay. If the college GPA doesn’t come through then the odds change. Many many kids apply for sophomore transfers with only one semester of grades (although most submit a midsemester report during the spring semester).
I’m also answering based on transfer info I’ve gleaned through the multitude of transfer threads on CC as well as the first hand experience of my D and a number of her friends as well as fellow students over the years who have done the transfer process with much success.
Of course all those schools are reaches but that doesn’t translate to no chance. I followed a poster on CC this past year who was rejected by Columbia, NYU and Barnard but accepted by Yale. My D was accepted by schools she didn’t get into during her senior year.
The transfer admissions process is very unpredictable. But I encourage all students who want to transfer to give it their best shot. If they must leave their current school then the list should include safeties, matches and reaches. If they want to try for only reaches and they have the stats I encourage them to apply. The answer is already “no” if you don’t ask.
My D wouldn’t be where she is today if she took the advice often seen on this website that you shouldn’t apply to schools you didn’t get into the first time.
No one said OP shouldn’t apply to schools that rejected them before. It is reasonable to state that the likelihood of acceptance is low though, because it is, at all of the schools on OP’s list.
OP has been in college for less than a month so not much will be new in terms of their transfer application content…only new thing they will have is one semester of grades, which is completely unknown at this point.
May I ask how she secured new recommendations? Or, did she maintain the ones from high school? Head swimming about transfers already after a shocking bloodbath last night. Thanks in advance!