I’m looking at a first year transfer out.
ACT: 34
GPA (UW): 3.3
GPA (W): 3.9
It’s not a huge deal for me to transfer but I feel that I could do it and that I have some potential if I got a 4.0 in college, but I might just be hyping myself up.
I’m looking at Duke, Vandy, USC, or the Ivies.
All of those places will look at your HS record. If you weren’t admitted this time around, it’s not at all likely that you would be admitted after your first year of college. You would be applying with your HS record and only one semester of college grades.
I think that your chances to transfer to a top 20 university with a 3.3 unweighted high school GPA are not very good. Your high school grades will matter for transferring as an undergraduate student, and will be particularly important if you want to transfer after only one year (implying that your application will be looked at when you have only one semester of university grades).
Also, you are going to need to step up quite a bit when you get to university. In most cases university is more difficult than high school.
Why do you even want to transfer to a top 20 university? They are on the most part academically very difficult. What do you think that you will get out of them? I am concerned that you say “the Ivies” without mentioning one or more that you actually have a reason to attend. The 8 Ivy League universities are not all the same.
My suggestion is that you take this one semester at a time. Try to get A’s this upcoming semester. Then see where you are.
Are you still in high school? What year are you going into in September?