I know that GPA is the main factor that is considered during transfer admissions, but some schools are notorious for grade deflation due to exceptional academic rigor. How heavily do colleges factor in the academic rigor of your current school and how that might affect GPA?
Well, the amount of leeway given to a student based on academic rigor is difficult to measure, since that information is not published.
Though, I do believe that grade deflation is taken into account.
CC students / students from a low-mid tier universities who apply to top-tier institutions NEED to have a very high GPA, because these institutions need to know that you can thrive in a more rigorous academic curriculum.
However, if you’re transferring from an institution of similar / perhaps even higher academic rigor, leeway is given, though, how much is not known.
I imagine that schools would give a bit more leeway to grades obtained at 4-year institutions vs community colleges?
In some states, state universities may have transfer admission preference for specific types of feeder schools, often community colleges. They may have pre-evaluated the feeder schools’ courses for transfer credit as well.
@ucbalumnus yeah, you are totally correct. Since academic rigor (and in some cases, entire curricula) is designed to be the same in feeder schools, admissions chances are greatly altered. We can see an obvious example of this in the UC / California Community College system.
@philbegas who knows? Based on anecdotal evidence (which you should take with a grain of salt), I have seen no discernible difference in CC admission stats vs. 4-year institution admission stats.
Private schools can vary all over the place in their preferences. Even then, some take substantial numbers of transfers from community colleges, like USC: http://admission.usc.edu/transfer/prospective/transferprofile.html
However, that may be more common in California, where the community colleges are relatively well developed for transfer preparation. In some other states, the community colleges may be less suitable for transfer preparation.
I think it definitely depends on the school. The school I’m transferring to has around a 32% or less acceptance rate and I’m transferring from community college. I also have a 4.0 GPA from there though. My CC is in the same state as my new school, so they were familiar with all the classes there as well as other in-state universities.