How do odds look for t25

Transfer Students
1

First time on here and kinda just copy and pasted from reddit so apologies if it’s long.

chance mid transfer kid

College Stats:

  • Private Uni in PA
  • 3.63-3.85 Fall 2025 GPA depending on finals (currently 3.68) (Biggest concern)
  • Electrical Engineering major

College Clubs/ECs:

  • University Leadership Program (Graduated)
  • ACL PT (2x Week; Not an EC but smth I do)
  • Awaiting First Year Research Program Results (:crossed_fingers:)

LORs (College):

  • Diff EQ/Lin Alg Professor (7/10): Very active participant in class, decent grades (Current B+; Average in class is A-)
  • Gen Chem Professor (7.5/10): Office hours, decent grades (Current B+; Average in class is B-)

High School Academic Stats/Testing/Course Rigor:

  • 4.65 W GPA at Public NJ HS
  • 1480 Superscored SAT (680 R, 800 M); 1470 Composite (790 M)
  • 12 APs+10 Honors Classes+MV Calc

Honors/Awards:

  • Presidential Gold Medal
  • St. Timothy Award from Diocese of Trenton
  • National Merit Commended Scholar
  • AP Scholar With Distinction (2024, 2025)
  • High School Men’s Soccer 2024 Scholar Athlete
  • Seal of Biliteracy for Spanish
  • HS 2025 STEM Department Award
  • Honor Societies (National, Math, English, SS, Spanish, Science)

AP Exams:

  • APUSH 2023 = 3
  • CSP 2023 = 4
  • Lit 2024 = 3
  • World 2024 = 3
  • APES 2024 = 4
  • Calc BC 2024 = 5 (AB Sub = 5)
  • Physics 1 2025 = 5
  • Physics 2 2025 = 5
  • Physics C: Mech 2025 = 4
  • Stats 2025 = 3
  • Lang 2025 = 5
  • CSA 2025 = 3

ECs/Activities on Common App:

  • Villaj App Worker (Compensated Babysitting and Driving) for 6 Months
  • Altar Server for 10 Years
  • Care to Give Team Leader for 3 Years
  • RAINE Foundation Team Leader for 6 Years
  • Assistant CCD Teacher for 4 Years
  • Club Lax for 3 Years
  • HS Lax for 4 Years
  • Local Soccer Club for 2 Years
  • HS Soccer for 4 Years
  • Recreation Summer Playground Camp Counselor for 2 Summers
  • Summer Coding Camp/School Teaching Assistant for 1 Summer

Main reason for transferring: I feel my perspective on engineering needs a place with more hands-on, experimental opportunity without much focus on rigid theory and hypothetical work, which I talk about in my supplements.

List:

  • Lottery Reaches: MIT, Stanford
  • Mid-High Reaches: CMU, Penn, Cornell, Columbia, UChicago (MolecularE), Duke, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice, Dartmouth
  • High Targets/Low Reaches: Vanderbilt, GTech, UMich, Harvey Mudd (Engineering), USC, WashU St. Louis
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Which of these schools did you apply to last year as a senior? What were the decisions? It’s difficult, but not impossible to transfer to a school that denied you last year as there’s just one semester of new information. Waiting another year (with good grades and ECs) increases the chance of successful transfer.

Will you be applying for financial aid?

Your list is reachy, I’m sure you know. If you are certain you want to transfer, you should add some more likely schools. Perhaps your state flagship (assuming that’s not Michigan.)

I’ll leave this for posters with engineering backgrounds to address.

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I’ll be blunt that this is a very reachy list of schools with only one semester of college under your belt. But more importantly I would say the majority of these schools are not going to meet your stated goal for more hands on engineering, with the exception of UM and GT. Schools that I think of when I hear “hands on engineering” - Purdue, Cal Poly SLO, WPI, RPI, RIT, Pitt, and then the co-op schools - Northeastern, Drexel, Cincinnati, etc…

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4

There’s a ton of schools that offer EE.

Why a school that doesn’t? Chicago.

Why a school that will take an extra year? Dartmouth.

If you’re one year out, your SAT will matter and it is unlikely to work. If two years out, it won’t.

Apply and see - but this is where you’re wrong:

I feel my perspective on engineering needs a place with more hands-on, experimental opportunity without much focus on rigid theory and hypothetical work, which I talk about in my supplements.

That’s highly likely to be at all these. Perhaps you should look at WPI - which has tons of projects and others like it. I can’t say for sure but Cal Poly SLO, Louisville, Kettering might be worth investigating.

I think you should change your statement above to - I’m rank focused - even though it doesn’t matter in most engineering majors. Because this is a list for a kid who thinks he should be at a school that’s ranked high.

All ABET accredited schools are going to have lots of theory.

How is your budget situation? What can you afford?

Edit - sorry, just read @momofboiler1 note. Similar thought.

btw - those are top 25 in US News (title) - they are not top 25 in electrical engineering….if there even is such a thing. Rank is for selling magazines and website clicks.

Think about what you really want and really want to be.

As for can you get in, apply and find out….but your SAT score will hinder at most. Schools like Cornell and BU seems to be transfer friendly - BU loves full pay. U Miami too.

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5

This is obvious and sticks out like a sore thumb.

So you weren’t happy with your rejections from these schools?

My husband is a UC (BSEE all theory) and MSEE Stanford grad. When he’s training newly-hired engineers, he always refers back to the theoretical basis’ for what is being practically done. He explains where issues can arise and have arisen because you have to explain that to the client.

You have to understand the theory before you can really apply it. Your hands-on experience will be in your junior internship. They’ll expect you to explain why projects goals will work, based on theoretical principles.

Per my husband: “If you don’t know the theory, you won’t know how to analyze a problem; why not just go to trade school, do practical work, and become a tech?”

When he is on an interview team, he will ask about course material and course grades. He has a library of course texts in his office.

For engineering, it doesn’t matter where you go to school. You also can’t cut corners.

Our California daughter got into top 20 reach universities, but she chose the University of Buffalo, originally with bio/medical school intent, but she discovered a bio-engineering course and fell in love with the engineering component and became a dual major in EE and CS.

She also reverts back to theory, when she’s training her newly employed engineers, here in California. Her stats were a lot stronger than yours, but she found that Buffalo’s engineering department was really strong. My husband says that school is very underrated.

I’d be cautious if you use your statement, to try to transfer to another university , because avoiding engineering theory-based coursework is going to burn a lot of bridges within those engineering departments.

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6

I think that it is good that you talk about this in your supplements for one really big reason: I am concerned that you are applying to a long list of reach schools most of which are not actually going to correct this perceived problem.

I will assume for the purpose of my response that the university that you are currently attending is ABET accredited for your engineering major.

At any university there will be some tradeoff between applied pragmatic engineering versus academic engineering. One daughter talked about a similar tradeoff in veterinary medicine (she is a veterinarian now, and is able to focus on the applied medicine which she loves). I think that this is just part of life. However, I think that you will see this at other schools also. I also think that @aunt_bea is entirely correct that you need to understand much of the theory both to get through the licensing exam and to avoid mistakes when on the job.

And your GPA is fine where you are, but is not going to impress your reach schools. Also, math and engineering classes at any of your “lottery reaches” and “mid-high reaches” are going to be just as tough or more likely tougher than at your current school.

You might end up with one or two acceptances, or you might not end up with any acceptances. It sounds like your currently university is quite good and is supplying you with an appropriate challenge. Thus I think that having no acceptances would be a perfectly okay result. My biggest concern is that you will get one or two acceptances somewhere, transfer, and then discover that you do not like it any better at your new school.

To me your list looks like it is full of schools that are considered to be “prestigious”. However, prestige really does not matter in engineering. Whether your designs work matters. Getting practical experience matters.

I think that you would be better served by looking for internship opportunities at your current school, and staying way ahead in your work with the goal of pulling in as many A’s as possible.

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And join techy clubs - like robotics, formulaSaE/ecoCAR or any of interest where you do ‘apply’ real world.

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