<p>College GPA
College recommendations from professors
Status and rigor of current college
College ECs
Reason for transfer
High school GPA
SAT/ACT
High school ECs</p>
<p>Anything else? </p>
<p>I realize that the longer you're in college, the less HS stats matter. Still kind of confused on how transferring works. If your current school works by semesters and you want to transfer into a new college for your third year, would the college get only three semesters of grades? And at what point are your HS stats rendered useless/not asked for? Different colleges have different policies, but what's the consensus on when you get a clean slate? </p>
<p>Two scenarios:</p>
<p>2 years at a decent school (not cc & fairly known) with around 3.7 college GPA (so 3 semesters of grades)
solid recs
solid ECs
solid essays and whatnot </p>
<p>horrible high school transcript and SAT</p>
<p>applying to an ivy or a top 15 nat'l school</p>
<p>this possible?</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>1 year at a decent school (not cc & fairly known) with around 3.7 college GPA (so 1 semester of grades)
solid recs
solid ECs
solid essays and whatnot </p>
<p>horrible high school transcript and SAT</p>
<p>applying to an ivy or a top 15 nat'l school</p>
<p>Hi,
OK, after doing my own research and what not, I have come to the conclusion (and others can correct me if Iam wrong) that universities and well known schools will almost always ask for your high school transcript, no matter what. However, the longer you are out of hs, the less relevance it will hold. So, if you are applying to transfer after spending only 1 year at your current school, the hs transcript will hold significance in comparison to if you apply after 2 years at your current school. </p>
<p>As for your concern about your college stats, Iam in the same boat. I would appreciate responses to that as well. :)</p>
<p>Yes, when you apply, in about Feb of your soph year, you will submit grades from your 2 semesters fr year and 1st semester soph year. The school may also ask for mid-semester grades from spring semester. And if your school finishes really early (Apr), you could submit final spring grades (which might or might not affect your decison).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not sure you ever get a “clean slate”, but if you apply for a jr transfer, your HS record and test scores will carry less weight than if you applied for a soph transfer. If you’re talking top 15 schools, they always ask for HS transcripts. And IMO, at that level, your entire record will always be considered to some degree. That’s not to say that you can’t go from a poor HS record to a CC for 2 years and finally to a selective school, but your improvement will likely need to be incredible.</p>
<p>IMO your scenario #1 is possible, #2 is not. My rule of thumb is that if you weren’t a competitive candidate for the school as an entering freshman, then it is highly unlikely that you will be accepted as a soph transfer.</p>
<p>I’ve done this thread before, with no success. It all depends on the applicant and the school, but if I HAD TO generalize, I’d say:</p>
<p>College GPA
Reason for transfer - ESSAY
College recommendations from professors
High school GPA
SAT/ACT
High school ECs
College ECs
Status and rigor of current college</p>
<p>Because if you’ve spent 4 years doing one EC in HS (fencing, in my case) and are unable to continue it in college (no fencing team), you should still be credited. In general, 4 years of HS>1 semester of college. At least for a sophomore transfer. Kudos to you if you can become the president of the student body by your sophomore year.</p>
<p>People often say here that SAT is not important for junior transfers. I recently asked the question of adcom at two different top schools. Scores still matter. You should have the median score for freshmen admits for a good shot as a transfer.</p>
<p>alright, thanks for that information. basically, if you screwed up HS and want to transfer to a top school, the most reasonable plan is to transfer for your JR year. </p>
<p>if your HS SAT was weak and you take it again and do well in college, would colleges consider this legitimate? or does it only matter how you did on it in HS? it wouldn’t make sense for them to care about how you did on it during HS if you can do well on it before you transfer, but i’ve heard people say that they only care about when you took it in HS (i.e. people say that if you’re a senior in HS and did poorly, take it again before you graduate in case you want to transfer). any info about this?</p>
<p>north face, it’s very hard to come up with a general response for you because every college/university has it’s own criteria for judging transfers. Some require SAT scores, some do not. Some place emphasis on high school transcripts, while some do not. Also consider that transfer applicants are a diverse group of people. Some took time off between high school and college. Some are older than the average student. Transfer applicants also have varied work experience. Some are traditional students while some are non-traditional. Most universities recognize this and evaluate each student in the proper context. If you’re 19 years old and two years out of high school, obviously your high school transcript is going to be weighed more heavily than a 25 year old’s.</p>
<p>Most transfer admissions want to know the following: How have you changed from high school (if you were mediocre), and what have you done LATELY. In other words, you have to convince them that you can handle their academic program.</p>
<p>I concur with the list Violaghost has created, with the understanding that this list changes as you get older. The HS documents move down and the college documents move up.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Adding my .02$ to the thread, my friend transferred into Wake Forest University for his sophomore year with way below average SAT Scores (1050/1600) and around a 3.0 cumulative GPA. He did get a 3.9 his first semester at University of Redlands, but it is still a second tier school. To add to this, he is NOT an URM or had any extraordinary hook. </p>
<p>Main point, as long as you didn’t completely screw up in HS, I think you should have a decent shot at transferring to a Top 25 School if you did well in college.</p>
<p>thanks for the input; this is encouraging stuff. still, please answer this:</p>
<p>if your HS SAT was weak and you take it again during college and do well, would colleges consider this legitimate? or does it only matter how you did on it during HS?</p>
<p>SAT scores are used by colleges to predict freshman year success. Accordingly, it leads me to believe that taking the SAT as a freshman in college will not be viewed as ‘legitimate’ by the colleges as the test is designed for HS Juniors/Seniors. Advice: no need to retake the SAT. Refer to my above post about my 1050 SAT friend who transferred into Wake Forest.</p>
<p>My best advice to any transfer applicant: remember, most posts on these threads are just SPECULATION. Nobody should take the posts on this wall as if it were the Holy Scripture of College Admissions. Unlike freshman admissions, these colleges are not trying to ‘pad’ their stats by accepting only the highest SAT applicants. For that matter, USNWR rankings are not determined by the average accepted HS GPA/SAT of a sophomore or junior transfer applicant. </p>
<p>From the looks of these various threads, it appears that most people are attempting to transfer “up” (reaching for a better school than they currently attend) With that said, a bunch of applicants applying to transfer into Top 25 schools will not have the 1500+ SAT and perfect HS GPA that you competed against in the freshman admissions. </p>
<p>Anyway, you cannot worry about your HS GPA as that is not in your control at this point. Focus on your current grades at College </p>
<p>Bottom line: College GPA and Professor Recs trumps all else.</p>
<p>North asks about ivies and top 15 schools. I’m not aware of any that don’t ask for SATs or look at HS.</p>
<p>Some colleges will not accept SAT scores from after you started college. Check with your top picks. This might be something you can focus on this summer to have that part dealt with so you can focus on GPA and ECs.</p>
