Chance me pls. Plan to apply for transfer in Fall 2027, from sophomore year to junior year: Cornell, Columbia, Brown, UCLA and UChicago. History and Art History double majors [international in US, 3.89 first year college GPA]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hi everyone! I’m planning to apply as a transfer student next cycle to Cornell, Brown, Columbia, UCLA, and UChicago, and I’d really appreciate any advice on my chances, school list, and what I should focus on over the next year.

Here’s my background:

- International student at Rutgers University majoring in History and Art History

- Freshman GPA: 3.89

- Invited to apply for Rutgers Honors College

- No SAT/ACT planned

- Currently doing a faculty-supervised independent research project related to global history and material culture; hoping to submit conference abstracts in the future

- Part-time student translator at Rutgers Global

- Summer internship in art market research at an auction house

- VP of a culture/language club

- Long-term museum volunteer experience during high school

Future plans: a digital exhibition with friend who study computer science; another internship, perhaps at a museum.

My academic interests are comparative art history, cultural history, religious history, and material culture between Europe (especially France) and China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I’m a native Mandarin speaker and currently learning French.

For my future career development, I am interested in academia, the art market, and museums. I am also interested in digital humanities.

My high school background was not that good, with a GPA of around 3.5 and a score of 3 on one AP U.S. Government and Politics. I transferred from China to a catholic school in MA in my junior year of high school, and I must say that adapting to a new culture, language, and educational environment was a challenge.

Thank you for reading!

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Transfer spots at top schools are typically pretty limited. Can you afford it?

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Yes, I will not apply for financial aid.

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Rutgers is a very good university. I have known many graduates from Rutgers and they have all made the university look very good.

If at some point you are thinking of applying to graduate schools, then it is perfectly reasonable with a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers to apply to highly ranked schools including Cornell, Brown, Columbia, UCLA, Chicago, and other highly ranked universities in the US. The various graduate students at these universities typically come from a huge range of undergraduate schools, including Rutgers (and many schools ranked lower than Rutgers).

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Thank you for your advice. Rutgers is indeed a good school with a strong reputation in the humanities; however, I think I have found enough reasons to justify my transfer, so I want to give it a try. If the final result is not as expected, I would certainly be happy and pleased to complete my studies at Rutgers and apply to graduate school.

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Can you share some of those reasons? Otherwise it reads like you’re just looking to trade name brand.

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OP- you sound terrific.

I don’t think you need to double major. An Art History major is going to allow (and in some cases, require) enough history, foreign language, cultural studies that the pressure of the double major is not warranted. You can double down on the era or part of the world that intrigues you without having to deal with the checkbox of a second major’s requirements.

Chancing a transfer student is like playing roulette with someone else’s money. None of us have any idea how many transfers your desired schools are going to be able to take. You are strong student, and if the transfers don’t work out, you’re in a terrific place to finish your BA.

Good luck!

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Congratulations on a great academic record. I am only addressing UCLA on this post but the UC’s give priority to California community colleges. 92% of admitted Transfers attended a California community college in 2025. Out of State 4 year University transfers have very low priority.

UCLA admits by major so which major are you planning to apply?

Here is the 2025 Transfer profile by major which shows the admit rate and admitted transfer GPA range of all majors in the College of Letters and Sciences: Transfer Profile by Major — Fall 2025 | UCLA Undergraduate Admission
Best of luck to you.

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I must admit that the extremely strong international reputations of these schools (especially Cornell, Brown, and Columbia as Ivys) were a factor in my considerations. As an international student, I must say that if I were to return to any Asian country to look for a job, any one of these schools would sound very prestigious. Rutgers is certainly a good school, but internationally, schools such as Columbia, Brown, and Cornell tend to carry broader name recognition, especially in Asia I believe. Another reason is that while Rutgers’ history department is really good, with a comprehensive curriculum and excellent, engaging professors, its art history department has relatively limited course selection, and the school has been cutting on and reducing investment in the humanities in recent years. All the schools on my list offer the best humanities education, which I believe will benefit my academic and career development. At the same time, there are also some personal reasons why I want to leave my current environment and try something different.

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Thank you so much for your encouragement and advice! Currently, I can complete both majors with no schedule pressure, and I still want to retain the possibility of applying directly to history PhD programs in the future, so I’m still pursuing a double major. If I eventually transfer to a new school, depending on how many credits I need to make up, I might choose to focus solely on completing my art history degree.

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Thank you so much for your information! I remember you also provided information and help in my college application post over a year ago, thank you! Yes, I know UCLA mainly admits transfer students from CA community colleges and some other UC schools, but because I really like this school and the city of LA, I wanted to submit an application and give it a try. I might apply for Art History.

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There are other colleges in LA that are more transfer-friendly. Have you considered USC?

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I will consider it, thank you for your suggestion!