<p>I'm a senior in high school who applied to colleges this year and if financial aid doesn't work out I'll be transfering from a California Community College. I'm a little bit worried now because I read someone comment on another thread that it is harder to transfer into a top 25 LAC than to get accepted as a first-year. I also was considering going to UC Berkeley. How hard is it to get in as a transfer there, though? I'm not certain what I'm majoring in (double major?) but I've considered everything: Sociology, Political Science, Computer Science, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, maybe even Philosophy. I expect my indecision to clear up once I start taking actual college courses. Basically, my current plan is to follow the assist path to get accepted in to UC Berkeley's major of Chemical Biology. Would this be the best course of action for someone who is considering transferring to a private LAC, too? Or should I follow a different approach? A Chemical Biology major would have me exhaust all the math, biology, chemistry, and physics courses offered at the community college but it would not give me the opportunity to try anything else. I'd also really like to take courses like "Introduction to Political Science", "Sociology of Religion", and "History of Women". Also, what caliber of extracurricular activities do these colleges expect from transfer students? If I have a job, am involved in political organizing, and I take the college orchestra class will that be enough? Or should I try to get involved in the student council or something? If anyone has insight to this process, I would greatly appreciate it. :)</p>
<p>Colleges I'm interested in for transferring:
Swarthmore
Reed
Smith
Haverford
Wesleyan University
Bryn Mawr
Macalester
Grinnell
Wellesley
Berkeley </p>
<p>You can look at each school’s common data set to get an idea of how many transfer applicants and admits each has, but there is generally a lot less information available for transfer admissions selectivity than frosh admissions selectivity. UCLA does have some information available here: <a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof13.htm”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof13.htm</a> .</p>
<p>The UCs and CSUs are generally transfer friendly, but Berkeley is quite selective for transfer students, probably not too much different from UCLA. For transfer to UCs and CSUs, check course articulation at <a href=“http://www.assist.org”>http://www.assist.org</a> .</p>
<p>Is there any particular reason you want to do chemical biology versus any of the other subjects?</p>
<p>Thank you for the UCLA information! Do you think that it is similar to the liberal arts colleges, too? </p>
<p>About the Chemical Biology, it seemed sort of interdiciplinary. I applied as a biochemistry, poly sci, science & society, or computer science major as a first year to the colleges I applied to already. My current plan is to get a phd in genetics. I can get that with most types of science undergraduate degrees so I looked up the average salaries of different undergraduate science majors and biochemistry seemed to be the highest. I’ve heard bad things about science major’s job prospects so that sounded like the safest to me. It also gives me the option to switch majors to pretty much anything STEM. The Biological Chemistry requirements also fill the computer science, microbiology, chemistry, and genetics requirements at pretty much every school. I could even switch to engineering by just adding one extra class. The weird thing is that there is no requirement to fill the IGETC to transfer into that major so if I chose to do a social sciences major I would have to take a few classes. It wouldn’t completely throw me off track because I already have most of the general ed reqs covered with high school classs. I would probably only have to take an art class and 3 social science classes to finish the IGETC after doing the BioChem reqs. </p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean asking if the LAC transfer situation in similar? Similar in what way? I can’t think of 2 processes more different. UC’s have a mission to transfer highly eligible CC students who are CA residents. There are articulation agreements to help clarify the process. So you may see a transfer rate of around 25% for CCC students in the UC data. Private colleges do not have this mission. You might see a transfer rate of 5% and total admitted students you can count on your fingers and toes (Swat) with no discernible representation of CCC students. USC takes a lot of CCC students–you might find a similar disposition of LAC’s for instate exceptional CC students but I haven’t explored that. I have seen that at other selective college such as Univ of Pennsylvania. </p>
<p>My 2 cents: Explore the transfer forum and look for success stories to learn from. Look at lists of transfer rates and target the more transfer friendly (see list.) Be an exceptional student but also have something you do that you bring to the community. Apply more widely within the UC system.</p>
<p>List, sorry not too many LAC’s, you may have to do that one by one:
<a href=“Transfer Acceptance Rates at US News Top 50 - Transferweb”>Transfer Acceptance Rates at US News Top 50 - Transferweb; </p>
<p>Make an appointment with the Transfer Advisor at the CC that you are most likely to attend. Talk your goals over with that person. The Transfer Advisor should be able to tell you whether or not students from that CC have been admitted recently to any of the places on your target list, and what their profiles were.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr has a program designed to encourage transfers from several Philadelphia area CCs. If you read through the information at the website, and contact the admissions office there, you should be able to determine the best way to make yourself an attractive transfer applicant: <a href=“http://www.brynmawr.edu/admissions/criteria/community-college/index.html”>http://www.brynmawr.edu/admissions/criteria/community-college/index.html</a></p>
<p>The problem you will encounter with the Top 25 LACs is they are all very small compared to the UCs and CSUs and people rarely leave them once accepted, so there aren’t many slots available in the upper classes. In a class of 400, 2 or 3% just isn’t many open slots - it’s likely an average of 10 per school per year. Besides being fully subscribed, you’ll be in competition with students who went to other LACs or top National Universities who and want to transfer school type or be closer to home. It’s not impossible, it’s just very, very hard to do.</p>
<p>Smith College admits over 100 transfer students per year and specifically reserves spots for transfers (as opposed to waiting to see if there are spots left over after the regular admits). I’ve heard that they integrate well into the student body (our first tour there was given by a transfer student). Not sure about the admissions rate, though.</p>
<p>They also have an excellent biochemistry program with great research opportunities.</p>
<p>The chances at transfer for any school is available in the Common Data Set. For example, Swarthmore for Fall 2011 had 212 applicants, 19 admitted, 10 enrolled. That is more selective than regular admission, which was 15.1% admitted that year, but yield is higher for transfer, so that probably explains the lower admit rate.</p>
<p>Yes, Smith College admitted 104 students as transfers last year, 300+ applied to the admit rate is 33%. The freshman admit rate is 43% so it is also more difficult as a transfer. And will the FA offer be any better? Granted there will be 1-2 years less to pay but…</p>
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<p>Need based FA for transfers can be the same as for fr matriculants or it can be less, you need to look at college websites and see what their policies are for transfer students.</p>
<p>There are many fewer merit based scholarships for transfers and they are generally for smaller amounts.</p>
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<p>For STEM majors, the job markets and pay prospects tend to be weakest for biology majors, with chemistry majors being only slightly better. Some types of engineering, CS, applied math, and statistics majors tend to do better, although economic and industry cycles can significantly affect job prospects. Chemical engineering is somewhat related to chemistry but probably has better job prospects.</p>
<p>Here is Berkeley’s career survey by major: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm</a>
The molecular and cell biology (including biochemistry) graduates for 2012 found an average pay level lower than that of English, history, political science, and sociology graduates that same year.</p>
<p>@BrownParent
Basically I was wondering if I would need to take the same types of classes and be the same prepared academically for transferring to a LAC. From what I’ve read here, I think I can gather that I would need to be much more exceptionally perpared. I can just transfer to UC Davis, UC San Diego, or UC Santa Cruz if I didn’t get into Berkeley but that would be disappointing for me because I would really like to go to one of the schools that I originally liked and then go to a UC school for my graduate degree. The UC schools are really big and I think I would benefit more from a small college. I see the acceptance rates are lower for transfers but is this just because the level of the applicant’s merit is lower for transfer students? </p>
<p>@happymomof1
Thank you for the suggestions. I think I do need to make an appointment. If I have to go to a Community College I’ll contact Bryn Mawr, too.</p>
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<p>No, academic standards are not lower for transfers. Transfer rates for selective colleges are often lower than fr rates because the retention rates at these schools are high. Since few students leave, there are few transfer seats available for the large number of people that apply.</p>
<p>@Erin’s Dad
@entomom
So you don’t think that it would actually be in my benefit financially to transfer anyway? The main reason that I probably would not be able to afford the college is because my sister is suppossed to attending community college in another city and my parents are paying for many of her expenses. However, she might not actually enroll next year and this would make our EFC to double. So I thought that in two years she might actually be willing to enroll in college or at least my parents or I will have saved up more money. But will this just probably be offset by the worse financial aid package?</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
It definitely sounds like every major has terrible job prospects. Does it make more sense to major in something else if the ultimate goal is a genetics degree? Of course, I’m still pretty much undecided. I thought I would combine it with CS so I could do bioinformatics stuff if I went to a women’s college, would that help? I’m not really planning on getting rich. I just want to be employed. I don’t want to do engineering because I got Bs in AP Physics last year and I’ve never really had a passion for building things. Applied math sounds so much less interesting than theoretical math. I’ve yet to take a statistics course so that would be a bit weird if I wanted to major in it. I do like political science and sociology but aren’t the long term salaries low anyway? And what would I do with those degrees? I like the idea of law school but I’ve read too much about the over-saturated job market. Also, I’m not sure if I’d really make a great lawyer. Medical school is really expensive and I don’t want to be a doctor. I’d rather do research. </p>
<p>Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the FA policies for transfers for the LACs you listed. But I do know that some of the highly selective colleges have less FA for transfers (eg. Brown & Columbia). The problem is that generalities don’t help, you really need to research each school of interest; and some school websites are not clear about FA for transfers, so you may need to call/email some colleges to get details.</p>
<p>If the ultimate goal is a PhD in biology/genetics, then undergraduate preparation would typically be some type of bachelor’s degree in biology (presumably where there are offerings in the genetics subarea). But just be aware that finding a biology job at the bachelor’s degree level may be difficult, and you may have to be open to jobs not related to your major if it comes to that, similar to many humanities and social studies majors.</p>
<p>Having a CS and/or statistics background can certainly help (both in biology and otherwise). Indeed, if you know enough CS, you may be able to get computer software jobs (though not necessarily of any relation to biology). Statistics majors appear to find most of their jobs in the finance and actuarial areas.</p>