Freshmen transfer application

Transfer Students
1

Current HS senior thinking of preparing for freshmen transfer applications. Will most likely end up at UF as a finance major. I have a few questions.

  1. Do I need to retake my SAT to have the highest chance of getting into elite colleges? Currently have a good, but not great score of 1530.
  2. What do I have to do to start making myself the most competitive? Obviously GPA but what else? Should I join competitive business orgs to help myself standout? Should I do volunteering? Music? What is the best for transfer apps? Social justice/activism?
  3. Not a question, but if anybody transferred out their first year to a ~T20, would love to PM and chat more. Thanks!
2

What do you want in a university other than “top 20”?

Generally it is very, very difficult to transfer into a “top 20” ranked university. They take very few undergraduate transfer students. Also, in order to transfer you need a very strong academic reason to transfer. “I want a higher ranked school” is not an academic reason to transfer (particularly when you are already at a VERY good university).

Making the best of the school where you are going is on the other hand a very good goal. Internships or coops or research opportunities for example can be quite important.

UF is a very good university.

If you end up at some point applying to graduate programs, such as for a master’s degree, then it is very common and generally encouraged to change universities. My wife and I both got master’s degrees at “top 20” universities (Columbia and Stanford). Our daughters both got into very good universities for their doctorates (one has her doctorate, one is currently working on a PhD). We have all noticed that the other students in the same graduate programs came from a very, very wide range of undergraduate schools (most of which were by the way probably ranked lower compared to UF).

If you are headed to UF in the fall, then congratulations! There will be a lot of very good opportunities there. Take advantage of them.

3

Well the ranking comes first as I want to recruit for IB and its basically impossible to recruit for top firms in IB at a non T20 schools. Then I consider other factors.

What can I do to transfer tho? If I have to, I will go and stay at UF. But if I could, I would really really really like to transfer out somewhere to a more prestigious undergrad which will help me for IB recruiting.

4

In four years at MIT (undergrad, mathematics) I never met anyone who had gotten there as an undergraduate transfer student.

In one year at Stanford (master’s), everyone I knew had gotten their bachelor’s degree somewhere else. “Somewhere else” included a very, very wide range of universities, many (probably most) of which would generally be ranked a bit lower than U.Florida.

Do you know if IB firms recruit people who get a master’s degree from a highly ranked school? My master’s was in a subfield of applied math, which seems like something that might be interesting to an IB company.

5

Well MIT undergrad doesn’t take that many transfers… was thinking more of a school like UVA/Northwestern/UMICH which are still very good but take more transfers… MIT transfer rate is literally sub 2%…

They do recruit, and I could get an IB straight out of UF through the MSF program and other finance clubs but I am very, very, worried that LATER into my career having UF undergrad on my resume despite relevant job experience + good masters will be a red flag… been on linkedin recently and looking at the people at top PE/HF firms and YC 2025 batch literally everybody is from a T20 undergrad school. Also have heard from a couple friends who went to UF that even after going to a top IB they had trouble recruiting for some PE firms later…

6

Perhaps I just got this wrong, but I just took a quick look and at least I think that Google AI had UVA at #26 and UF as #30. It is hard to imagine that people will care much about the difference. I doubt that Stanford graduate admissions is going to care about the difference.

I by the way loved my time at Stanford, but this was a long time ago and it was way less expensive back then, and it was probably easier to get accepted also. It was a lot of work.

I think that internships are likely to be important. Getting to know your professors can help with internship and research opportunities. Transferring does have a cost, such as having to start all over again in terms of getting to know your professors.

I am not sure that I am being helpful.

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No, you are not wrong and UF is #30, which is why I was initially happy to get in but I was quickly dissapointed because it seems that IB OCR (recruiting for IB) falls a LOT behind the other T30s… even USC with is #28 seems to have miles better OCR than UF which is weird considering its only 2 ranks behind… perhaps its because UF is a “newer” school and its been on the rise lately, but USC has been around for a longer time…

Honestly should I even transfer? Correct me if im wrong but it sounds like you’re against me transferring to a T20 and I think you bring some valid points but I’d like to know more why.

8

The usual sentiment on these forums is that attending a four year school (as opposed to a community college) with intent to transfer makes the student less committed to the academic and other experience there, which can mean a lesser experience for the student.

Additionally, applying as a sophomore transfer during your frosh year will still mainly be based on your high school record plus one semester of college. The high school record that did not get you admitted to the schools you desire makes it more than typically unlikely to get admitted as a sophomore transfer. Those applying as junior transfers during their sophomore year will have more college record, so their high school record will be less important.

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9

i see noted… i think thats valid and honestly maybe im a bit emotional right now…

so basically, only junior transfers are really worth sending out? honestly i thought my profile was decently strong (3.85uw/1530 actually in retrospect it was pretty bad considering i didnt even get into emory/uva) but i guess not…

10

Don’t listen to this, if you’re going for IB you MUST transfer from UF if you want a good chance for recruitment starting sophomore winter. Also this user is totally wrong, there are a handful of T20s that have higher acceptance rates than first year apps like NU and Vandy.

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11

UF is a great school - and places in IB. Many schools place in IB - more than the lists you think and there’s many more firms than they track.

Going in with one foot out the door is not the way to lead to a good transfer.

You will need a good reason. Telling a school (some of which turned you down), I want to work in IB is not a good reason.

Go to UF, excited to be there, take part and love it.

You may even find you don’t want iB.

Good luck.

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12

For this goal, this analysis may be of interest:

If you scroll to the normalized information, you will see 30 schools that may be suitable for you should you decide to transfer from UF.

The site is particularly interesting in its details. You can see that Penn, for example, sends graduates to Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citi.

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13

Probably the case for schools that rejected you as frosh, or where you would not have had a realistic chance of frosh admission based on your high school record. As a junior transfer, your high school record becomes less important than your college record (of course, your college record needs to be good).

Applying as a sophomore transfer may work out if you apply to schools where your high school record would have had a reasonable chance of admission if you applied, or where you were admitted as frosh. Of course, your (limited) college record also needs to meet the school’s standards.

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14

I also got into IU kelley…. not sure if thats any better but seems like for IB it is… if it was kelley would you say to stay or transfer? or should i just go to UF and transfer out?

15

You can get into IB from UF and IU Kelley. It’s not easy at any school.

When you look at Peak, they are only looking at certain banks. They will give the edge to IU - can you afford it.

There is no guarantee - even from an NYU/Wharton that you get IB.

btw - did you apply to Arizona State - which has success with the IBIS program?

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16

I have never worked in investment banking. With a degree in mathematics from MIT I suppose that at some point in my life I could have applied, but it was never what interested me. I may be looking at this from a different perspective.

What I did in my life was to do what I thought was right, and just have faith that it would work out.

So, what is right for me, or what is right for you? If it were me then I would focus largely on learning. Your abilities can stand out. Without this, what do you have? For investment banking, I would expect that they care about math, and quantitative economics, and maybe (probably?) machine learning. Then there are relationships and looking properly professional and coming from the right schools, which was never what I was focused on (although I suppose I did attend well known universities).

I for example was a math major. There is a lot in math that the vast majority of people will just never get. If you can solve the equations and 99% of other people can’t, then you have an advantage that they cannot take away from you. Opinions may change over time. Math doesn’t. If you understand multivariate calculus (the easy stuff) and probability and statistics and linear algebra and linear programming (not the same thing) dynamic programming and stochastic processes and network algorithms well (and perhaps notice the overlap between dynamic programming and some networking algorithms and some decision algorithms), then there are things that you can do that someone else just can’t.

If I were going into this now I might look into machine learning. One issue with machine learning is that it sounds right pretty much all the time, but is not actually always right. Sometimes it is very, very good, and sometimes it is horrid. How do you verify that it is not messing up? I think that understanding how it actually works (I don’t) might be an example of a useful skill, but I also suspect that most people who use machine learning do not really understand what it is doing or how it works.

So if it were me the plan would be to focus on skills and understanding. This leads to the question: Where can you do this?

I doubt that there is any meaningful difference between UVA, U. Michigan, and UF in regard to learning math skills and algorithms and possibly econometrics or machine learning on an undergraduate level. For an undergraduate student, I am not convinced that there is much difference between what you can learn and Harvard versus UF, even if there is a difference on how some people might perceive a degree from these schools. I think that you can gain the skills at any of these schools, or at least get a very good start. These are all very good universities.

Also, there is enough to learn here that four years of undergrad might not be enough time to learn it all. Thinking about this I am beginning to wonder whether a one year master’s was long enough, and whether I actually should have gone ahead with a PhD (which I did seriously consider at one point).

Will everyone at UF pick this up? No, of course not. Not everyone at Stanford will pick this up. But I think that you can pick up a lot of this at the university that you will be attending in September.

Or at least that is my view.

Sometimes focusing on what you can do and the technology, rather than on something else, might take a while to work out. Over time you help other people and work with other people, and over time gradually there are more and more people who are aware what you can do. Some of them change jobs. Some of them get promoted. Some of them might leave the industry and do something completely different. Eventually one of them hires you, or puts in a good word for you. However, early in this process you might be helping some young kid who is still in university. 20 years later that same young kid might now be a hiring manager, and he or she might remember you.

I may be more focused on gaining useful skills, rather than getting into any particular field of work.

And perhaps we all have biases based on whatever we did in our lives, and whether this seemed to work out in the end.

In terms of getting into IB, that is my understanding also.

17

I wouldn’t spend the time, but if you are motivated to do so, take it now, not when you are in college.

Choose things that you like to do. You need to get good grades, and you need to take Calc 1 your first semester in college and get an A. I would not recommend you try to transfer for sophomore year without that Calc 1 A in your first semester (which are the only grades available at the time soph transfer apps are due.)

Here comes the straight talk. I just re-read your other threads. You haven’t had calc (AP AB) since soph year, and I don’t know your grade in that class, but you said you ‘struggled.’ It is highly likely your lack of math progression after 10th grade was a disadvantage in admissions decisions, possibly an automatic no at some schools (of course we will never know.)

I get you are focused on IB for prestige and financial reasons, but I expect you don’t have a good understanding of what your day to day as an IB analyst would look like. It is really competitive getting an IB job, even from the top schools. You have to have top grades in rigorous classes, at some schools you have to be in certain clubs. Many non-finance and non-business majors will also be competing for the limited IB slots at whatever school you go to.

Please set yourself up for success and happiness. Be open to non-finance majors, especially if you struggle with calc 1 your first college semester. Be open to other types of banking jobs…there are so many! Be open to other types of financial jobs…again, so many. Be open to spending four years at whatever college you choose…make friends, join clubs, etc.

I also read on one of your threads that you wanted an LAC. Do you have any LAC admits? UF and IU are polar opposites of an LAC, which I expect you know.

I’ll stop there and wait for your replies on some of these questions.

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18

OP- I would love the top three reasons why you are interested in Investment Banking (to the exclusion of everything else- like getting an actual education) and the top three reasons why you are worried about ending up in PE (which is something 6 or 7 years from now).

I see a lot of HS and college kids who think it’s going to be glamorous and eating sushi every night and the firm sending a black car for you to get home (why take a cab when you can have a driver who knows your name?). They do not actually understand what the work entails. They do not understand the hierarchical nature of these organizations (it’s one thing missing your best friend’s bachelor party because a 45 year old MD has given you an “urgent” work assignment; it’s another thing when you’re missing your grandmother’s 90th birthday party because a 25 year old Associate doesn’t like the way your document is formatted and wants you to go back and revise the entire deck- all 150 pages– urgently.) And they do not understand how capricious the staffing can be. You can be assigned to the greatest mentor in the world, who is smart and kind and ethical and a fantastic teacher, or you can be on the team working for an absolute pig who is nasty and disdainful and gives no feedback other than “this stinks, go fix it”. And if you think HR cares when you go and complain that you aren’t getting helpful feedback and BTW he’s a sexist and racist pig– they already know that, based on the last 10 people who complained about him.

I am happy to jump into the discussion of whether or not you should transfer. But I’d love to hear a coherent discussion about “Why IB” when there are hundreds of satisfying and well paid careers out there which would not involve transferring- when you haven’t even stepped foot on campus!

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19

Exactly. You have to take paid time off in advance for anything you want to make sure you can attend. And forget about having a serious relationship unless it is a very understanding and tolerant person.

Also yes. HSers see money and associate it with prestige. They don’t understand the price people pay in lifestyle once they have these types of jobs.

Also yes. IB VP while looking at a spreadsheet and associated analysis: “we need analysts who don’t waste my time.” Directed to the analyst. If that is going to upset you…IB is NOT for you. Students have to think about what they are good at, what type of environment they will thrive in and go from there.

Fun fact. In my consulting career, I partnered with a fancy private debt firm for years. The team did eat sushi every night for a very long time. They all got mercury poisoning (with associated symptoms) and needed chelation therapy!!

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20

I hadn’t heard about the mercury poisoning, but have heard about scurvy (hard to believe when most people associate it with the 19th century). But apparently living on energy bars, Red Bull, sushi and then cannabis to get to sleep for a few hours before you have to do it all again, isn’t a wise nutritional move!

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