4.0 Community college student unsure where to apply

Transfer Students
1

About me:
Grew up below the poverty line, but white.
4.0 at community college across 18 credit hours (27 once I’m done with spring 2020).
Poor high school performance (3.5/1200). Very few extracurriculars in high school.
A collection of 3s, 4s and 5s (and one 2) across 8 AP classes, 6 of which I self-studied during my senior year of high school.
Lots of service industry work experience since I was 14, ranging from 20 to 30 hours a week, and a little volunteer experience (~5 hours a week for a year) during my freshmen year of college.

I’m seriously considering applying to some decent private colleges (the ones that meet 100% demonstrated need), but I quite unsure where to apply.

2

State of residency? In many states, the in state public universities are relatively friendly to transfers from in state community colleges.

Private colleges vary all over the place in how friendly they are to transfers.

In most cases, there is less transparency with transfer admission than frosh admission. Merit scholarships are often less common for transfers.

3

Note that if you want to transfer as a sophomore, your high school record will be significant. If you transfer as a junior, your high school record will be less or not significant because you will have a greater college record.

4

I am in Kansas. I was hoping to pick a few schools from this list: http://www.thecollegesolution.com/list-of-colleges-that-meet-100-of-financial-need/
and shoot my shot. I’ve already been accepted into the top colleges in my state but was hoping for some better options. Would you suggest retaking the SAT? I’d honestly be willing if it would move the needle significantly.

5

Sorry, you lost me at “Poor high school performance (3.5/1200)”.

6

I mean… I was hoping to be able to transfer to Colorado College/Boston/Notre Dame and obviously my high school performance would make that quite difficult… I didn’t do horribly in high school but it simply wasn’t good enough.

7

You may want to look at each college’s common data set section D to see how many transfer students it admits and enrolls. Also, check the net price calculator for each college, since “meet need” depends a lot on how each college defines “need”.

8

Okay, thanks for the advice.

9

What are you planning to major in?

Notre Dame, BC, and Colorado College all have transfer acceptance rates that are higher than their first-year acceptance rates. It doesn’t hurt to lob some apps at schools you’re particularly interested in. The question is, what’s more important - getting into the reachiest school possible, even if you have to put in another year at CC to have a beefier college record under your belt? Or is it more important to transfer sooner as long as you can get into a good school with good financial aid?

The worst targets are schools that are high-reaches and also take very few transfers. Some schools may or may not take any transfers in a given year. Those apps aren’t a great return on investment unless you have a particular burning interest in that school even though it’s a super long shot.

The better reach targets are those that admit transfer students in relatively high numbers (which in addition to improving your chances can also give you a nice social cohort when you arrive). This would include Cornell and USC ( https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-usc-transfers-20170605-story.html ), Emory, Tufts, Vanderbilt, and Wesleyan, as well as the ones you mentioned. BUT, these are all schools where you chances may be a lot better as a junior transfer than applying now, with just one (admittedly excellent, congrats) college semester on your transcript.

On the other hand, there are excellent but not-quite-as-high-reach schools that still meet full need. Examples from the most recent Common Data Sets: St. Olaf accepted almost 51 out of 109 transfer apps received, and enrolled 25. University of Richmond accepted 122 of 284 transfer applicants and enrolled 97. Both are full-need-met schools that could be good targets (insofar as I can say without knowing anything about your interests), although they’re still reaches because your high school stats were in the bottom quartile for accepted students. And the downside of the full-need-met schools that aren’t super-elite is that they tend to be need-aware, which makes it harder to get in with high need. (Richmond is need-blind for first-year applicants but need-aware for transfers.)

If you’re sufficiently low-income to qualify for Berea College, that could be a great target - the college does not charge tuition; students work on campus to cover their living expenses, and everybody’s in the same boat. The alumni network is amazing, which helps students to get internships and jobs all over the country. Most recently they admitted 56 transfers of 101 who applied, and 48 attended. (The high yield tells you what a great opportunity it is.) And further, your high school stats are right around median for Berea, so you wouldn’t be relying on one semester of community college to “level up” your admissions prospects.

Overall I suspect that your transfer prospects will be better a year from now… but if you did qualify for Berea, that could definitely be something to pursue. They have this questionnaire to determine whether you qualify financially: https://www.berea.edu/admissions/quick-estimator/

10

English major. Honestly, yes, getting into a reachy school is important to me because many of these schools meet 100% demonstrated need (even for transfers, in most cases), which would end up being MUCH cheaper than the ~15-20k/year state colleges would cost me. Most state schools simply don’t have any decent transfers scholarships. Most are only around 2 or 3k a year with a 3.5 GPA as the cutoff. I simply feel my 4.0 could be put to better use. I’ve been through many of the net price calculators at these reach schools and they estimate my net costs/ year at under 10k a year. The difficulty is getting in, obviously. I will absolutely be looking into the colleges that you mentioned, so thanks for that.

This leads me to another question: Is an SAT retake a good idea? I’m currently sitting at a 1250 (750 english 500 math) and I firmly believe I could get it much closer to a 1500. Obviously this would involve waiting an extra semester to apply, but if it’s worth it then…

To be clear, the 18 credit hours was over two semesters and I am taking a full load of spring courses. Most of these colleges require me to submit a college report of my spring semester, which includes grades, so it seems to me that they will have a pretty good idea of my performance across 27 total credit hours. To be honest, these community college classes are criminally easy so there is no way my 4.0 gets touched.

In terms of Berea college, I had no idea this existed and look forward to applying.

11

Did you prep for the SAT the first time? With an score that uneven, it could be worth prepping for the math and trying a retake if you’re doing transfer apps this year. There’s a lot of room to bring up that 500, particularly if that was a no-prep attempt. Have you been taking math classes at community college?

Another option is to try the ACT. The ACT math is just one of four sections (English, Writing, Math, and Science) - the Science section is focused on scientific reasoning. Try taking an ACT practice test and see whether you think it might be a more advantageous test for you. (The downside of the ACT math is that it’s fast-paced and some students find it hard to finish. So the question is whether your challenges with the SAT math were in working fast enough, or in the content of the problems. Either way, the good news is that math scores can almost always be improved with prep - both practicing the types of problems, and learning strategies for pacing, knowing when to guess, and so on.)

Do you think you’d qualify financially for Berea? Could be a really good option for you if so.

You might look at Syracuse - they accept a lot of transfer students (more than 400 students a year transfer in, and the acceptance rate is over 50%). While it’s not a full-need-met school, the average percentage need met is over 90% and there’s also merit available for transfers, so it might add up - run the NPC and see how it looks. (The recent turmoil there is unfortunate and worth weighing, but it might also deter some applicants and improve your chances of acceptance/merit.) Trinity U in San Antonio is another with >90% need met, possible transfer merit, and >50% transfer admit rate (albeit in smaller numbers than Syracuse).

Sewanee in TN is transitioning to full-need-met aid (not sure if it’s guaranteed for transfers yet, but worth looking into). Their transfer admit rate isn’t bad (>30%) and it’s a terrific school for English/writing (Tennessee Williams left his estate to the college, to support the creative writing program). Your high school stats would have made it a low-reach, not entirely out of range.

So, this fall is your second cc semester? And 9 credit hours is a full load? (I’m used to a full load for a semester being at least 12… maybe this is a different system.) Did you work for a while and start cc last spring?

Anyway, hopefully that gives you a bunch to look into.

12

No, I didn’t prep. Went in blind. The mismatch is a little crazy. I will definitely consider the ACT because, as you say, the 4th section is one I am sure I could do reasonably well on even though I do struggle some with time management. Yes- I visited the link you posted and was told there was a high change of admission to Berea. Although I don’t relish the idea of being randomly assigned a job, I will still apply.

Sorry for the confusion about the credits- I took 12 credit hours in the fall semester of 2018, 6 credits in the spring of 19, and will be taking 12-15 more in the spring of 2020. I took a reduced load followed by a full semester off because of family responsibilities.

Do you have any more thoughts on delaying applications to the spring semester to improve my SAT/ACT? I am still a little confused as to whether it’s likely to make a substantial difference- because if it’s not, I’d rather just get on with my life and go to a state school or Berea.

13

Ohhh, okay, that makes more sense.

There’s a February 8th test date for the ACT (unlike the SAT which has no January or February test date). You’d have two months to prep, and it would be scored in time for fall transfer apps. That seems to me like that would be an appropriate timeline, and it seems likely that you could post an impressive score if you were disciplined about preparing. That could be a help with the reachier schools you’re considering.

14

Based on your intended major, you may want to research appropriate colleges from these articles:

https://www.flavorwire.com/409437/the-25-most-literary-colleges-in-america

https://contently.net/2014/11/06/resources/tools/training/10-best-colleges-creative-writers/

As a potential reach suggestion, look into Kenyon.

15

I appreciate the suggestion.

16

Check the places on your list, and find out if they will accept ACT/SAT scores taken after high school.

If you are female, take a look at the women’s colleges. Bryn Mawr could be a good option for an English major.

17

Thanks for reminding me of the test scores issue. By any chance, do you know if this is a widespread issue? After spending some time googling, I haven’t found any information on official college websites about this. Should I assume that if a college doesn’t mention it on their website, they don’t care, or should I take the time to email colleges I’m interested in?

18

Ask them. If they don’t accept new test scores, you won’t have to take the test again.