AP Credits and Transferring

Transfer Students
1

<p>Hey Guys…</p>

<p>I just got my college decisions and they weren’t exactly thrilling. I have been admitted by NEU, UMass, WPI, McGill, and the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland OH. I have been rejected from BU, MIT, and a few Ivies, waitlisted to CMU.</p>

<p>My Stats: 2200+SAT, top 10% in Competitive MA High School, 6 APs w/4s and 5s, significant involvement in Speech/Debate team (qualed to states, many NFL points, etc) and other decent ECs (mostly Math/Sci focused).</p>

<p>I know that I could have been admitted into more schools or received more Merit aid from the schools I applied to if I did not have a major disciplinary incident in 12th grade. </p>

<p>My prospective major is COMPUTER SCIENCE, although I will double major in a Social Science that interests me.</p>

<p>These are my questions:</p>

<li>Between WPI (school I like better, costs $31K for me) and UMass-Amherst (cheaper, state flagship @ $16K), which school will offer me a better potential to transfer to a top school (Ivies, MIT, Rice, Caltech, Stanford, USC, CMU, UIUC, Harvey Mudd) provided I do research in college, maybe an internship, get a 3.65+, and have good recommendations?</li>
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<p>I didn’t apply to many of the colleges as a freshman because I was not comfortable (and still am not) of OOS, although after two years of college, I will prb. be ready.</p>

<li><p>How will this disciplinary action affect my admissions as a transfer (probably a junior transfer) into these top schools? Will they care if I show better academics and maturity in college?</p></li>
<li><p>Will I have to retake courses for which I receive AP Credit (with a score of 4 or 5 or whatever these schools want) as a transfer or will my AP report be good enough for them? I don’t want to retake Calculus I and II, Introductory CS courses or Foreign Language Courses (although I don’t mind retaking a calculus-based Physics E/M courses).</p></li>
<li><p>Is it worth transferring? It has always been my dream to go to these schools, although having to repeat many courses I have already taken in HS will not be the best educational option for me. </p></li>
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<p>I want to go to a school with good humanities and CS/engineering programs because I am interested in more interdisciplinary research rather than hardcore CS/Engineer (I don’t necessarily want to be a coder at Microsoft, for example) and want a great education and a degree from a school with a top reputation.</p>

<p>Thanks guys.</p>

2

<p>Riding on the bumpy road.</p>

3

<p>Which of these two schools is the one you’d be most likely to be happy at if you aren’t successful with your transfer applications?</p>

<p>31k - 16k = 15k
15k x 4 = 60k</p>

<p>Is WPI really worth a possible additional 60k to you and your family?</p>

<p>You had a “major disciplinary incident in 12th grade”. Are you over that kind of behavior? Or, is there an environment in which you are less likely to repeat that behavior? Not to mention, of course, were there any “minor” incidents that aren’t mentioned because you are focusing in the “major” one, and if so, what environment(s) are less likely to get you into those kinds of problems?</p>

4

<p>In terms of the severity of what I had done, it involved writing a program that brute forced the security system. I did it out of curiousity and I’m over that kind of thing (esp. after the consequences). I am very concerned about my future and want to graduate well from college. This was the only disciplinary incident ever in my HS career.</p>

<p>I like an intellectual environment and I want to have a broad interdisciplinary experience. I like both schools and I want to probably go on to grad school for a PhD (too early to decide I guess). I tend to do better when my peers are more intelligent and disciplined, although when I am intensely passionate about something, I do not need any extrinsic motivation. I am not very social and I tend to enjoy the most when I am alone working on a problem or project that interests me.</p>

<p>HS was kind of a failure for me. I wasn’t really organized, didn’t do HW that much, and didn’t care too much, although I still did well because I am a capable student. I want to reinvent myself in college and really want to gain the most as possible from my college environment and I want to become involved into a field that I am really passionate about.</p>