Chance at a wide-variety of top universities as a *transfer* student

Transfer Students
1

Applying as a transfer is more difficult if I am correct, so this could be interesting.

School of interest are:
Columbia
NYU - Stern
Cornell
UPenn - Wharton
Dartmouth
Georgetown
Rutgers
Brown
Carnegie Mellon
CUNY Baruch

—throw in similar schools or some that may be a better fit. Obviously if I’m interested in some Ivy’s I’d be okay with any of them.

High School:
GPA: 4.0 UW, 4.3 W (4.5 scale for W)
Class Rank: 1/91
ACT: 31
Various leadership activities
** as a freshman engineering applicant, I was accepted to Illinois and Georgia Tech Engineering if that puts into perspective the kind of essays I had (rejected from Stanford though and a few others)

First Year College:
Honors Scholar - 4.0 GPA
-Part of the honors college - most courses are honors
-Originally an aerospace major so applying to business college with a mild STEM background
-also involved in aerospace clubs but they may be irrelevant for business

** The huge drawback… I did not choose to give to Georgia Tech or Illinois, I instead took a full ride to University of Alabama in Huntsville, and I’m worried that might make them just overlook everything else immediately.

2

…

3

as an aside, why did you choose not to go to UIUC or GT, both extremely strong engineering programs?

4

$40,000 per year vs. $0 per year

5

What makes you think you will pay $0 per year?

6

Are you going to need financial aid?

Students who get the huge merit scholarships at U of AL are the same caliber as students who get admitted to the places on your list. The admissions offices know that. So don’t worry that U of AL will be some kind of black mark against you. Your stats make you a reasonable applicant at these places. Make your final list. Apply. See what happens.

Wishing you all the best!

7

Like all transfers you should explain why UAH isn’t meeting your needs.

8

Rutgers’ deadline was Feb. 1st, so you can cross that school off your list.

9

OK, so you’re aiming for business. That makes telling a good story for Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown tough.

But you should be applying to a bunch of b-schools like Haas at Cal, Ross at UMich, McIntire at UVa, Goizueta at Emory, Kelley at IU, and K-F at UNC.

And yes, what happens if you don’t get much or any fin aid/scholarships?

10

Also, given your circumstances, why isn’t UM-TC on your list?

BTW, for quantitative finance, a free engineering degree from UAH followed by a quant finance masters from a good program probably makes more sense.

I’m in quantitative finance and being a rocket scientist with good grades with a good quant finance Masters is going to sound more impressive than being a BBA even from a good b-school.

11

A thousand upvotes on what @PurpleTitan said. You are poised to get into any number of high prestige business masters programs and you might even be able to find an employer after you graduate from UAH who would pay for it.

Getting into GA Tech and UAH honors with a 31 ACT implies that you have a lot of other things going for you, so you may well land a transfer to one of the schools you list. Just not sure it makes strategic sense.

12

Thanks, @Otterma.

For quant finance (or any quant role), quantitative aptitude is most important, and you will develop those more in a solid engineering program than in an BBA. Anybody can learn finance. That stuff’s easy. Not everyone can develop strong quant skills. So quant finance shops will take kids with strong quant skills and teach them finance. They won’t take kids who know finance and teach them math. And if you really think you need the brand name and recruiting and networking opportunities, just pay for a good quantitative finance masters program (they’re typically easier to enter than the corresponding undergraduate program).

13

@clightfield24 Penn Wharton transfer is insanely hard, it is similar to Harvard, Yale, Stanford transfer in terms of difficulty. Penn CAS transfer chances are more in line with the other non-HYP ivies.