I’m interested in transferring to Georgetown for my junior year and wanted to get feedback if this is realistic.
Currently neuroscience UMD and will be starting my sophomore year this fall.
Stats:
-3.97 GPA
-In the honors program
Volunteeed in multiple departments at a hospital over the year and past two summers
-Worked as a medical assistant over the past two summers
-violinist in university orchestra
-club tennis
high school stats:
gpa: uw 4.0 w 4.91
sat 1450
Reason: Very brief and undeveloped but pre med student highly interested in neuro research going on at gtown. I don’t really feel like i belong at umd (too big of a school). I’m looking for more of an academic challenge and motivated student body
So what I have seen highly selective colleges say about transfers usually amounts to something like if you are already at a very good four-year college and are doing well, they want to see some really unusually good and specific reason why you are interested in transferring. CC transfers do not have this question to answer, but “laterals” do.
I am not sure the reasons you gave will fall into that category, but in part that is because I think you will find if you continue on at Maryland, it will start feeling like less and less of a “big” school in your upper level courses, research if you do that, and so on. And I think Georgetown might basically feel the same way, and therefore I suspect they may not see you as someone who really needs to transfer to Georgetown to succeed in college.
Of course you can give it a shot if you like. But I am saying all this because I really do feel like your primary focus should probably be on making your Maryland experience as good for you as possible.
You might be competitive…but it’s still a huge reach.
And as a junior transfer, your college record will be considered, not your HS GPA or your SAT score (which is sort of low for Georgetown).
I would give UMD a fair chance this year. Look for research opportunities there, and understand that as you move to higher level courses, your classes will likely be smaller.
@sarahj909, UMD is a well reputed university with a very good neuroscience program. In fact, probably better than Georgetown’s (which no doubt is an excellent school and known for many things, but I don’t believe neuro is one of them).
Moreover, you are in an honors program there which is selective and has very strong students. Therefore the reasons you’ve stated for transfer will be viewed skeptically by Georgetown, IMO.
By the way, I think it also makes sense to reflect on whether your issues with Maryland are sufficiently compelling that you would be willing to transfer to a college not as highly ranked as Georgetown.
Like just an example, but Rhodes College is a fairly popular LAC with premed kids, and they have a pretty popular Neuroscience major, and apparently they admitted 34/129 transfer applicants. That is still only 26.4%, but that is twice the 13.2% rate at Georgetown.
Muhlenberg would be another options along those lines. 34/126, 27.0%. And so on.
I don’t know, but it is possible you would have a better chance convincing at least one of these sorts of colleges.
Often transfer students do not get the same level of need based or merit aid as incoming freshmen.
So…is Georgetown affordable? And definitely compared to UMD? As a premed, you might want to consider costs because medical school will likely be $100,000 a year by the time you get there….if you actually do.
Specifically what? Is there a Gtown prof who teaches undergrad that’s doing research that speaks to you? And no one at UMD doing something similar?
Generally I agree with dadofjerseygirl that UMD neuro > Gtown’s. I would not assume (nor would I bet it’s true) that Gtown students are more academically inclined than the UMD honors cohort.
Gtown will still have your HS app and will know you were waitlisted at that point in time.
Gtown is a reach, but no reason to not submit an app, just make sure your reasons are grounded in fact, not emotion. If you are certain you want to transfer you would have to add some more likely admits to the list.
Georgetown requires a HS transcript and ALL standardized test scores (official not self-reported) from transfer applicants, even for junior transfers. This info remains a part of their holistic review. They do this because, well, they can.
I agree about understanding the funding/budget situation. If OP is applying for fin aid, Gtown may not be as generous as other meets full need schools, especially for transfers. OP might contact Gtown fin aid staff and ask if the NPC is accurate for transfers.
One thing to note is that I expect Gtown will (like all Jesuit colleges) have a very large core curriculum to include coursework such as theology, philosophy, and other liberal arts classes. This may make graduating on time as a junior year transfer a tall order – especially if you wish to pursue research work at the same time. Please take the time to look at the core curriculum as well as the classes you expect will be needed to finish your major and see if you could graduate in four years.
And agree with others that a transfer to Gtown is a reach for any student. I’d try to make UMD work – often as you take upper level classes, the class sizes get smaller and you can work to develop relationships with professors.
I have a question that relates to what my prediction would be regarding your chances.
Are you generally of the impression that more neuroscience research is going on at Georgetown? Alternately, is there one or more very specific research projects going on at Georgetown that you would like to participate in?
Let me make an analogy. I know someone who very recently started a PhD program, implying that a few months ago they were applying to PhD programs. They had a list of schools they were interested in. They looked at which professors were in their field at each university. They looked at what research projects each individual professor was working on. They read the recent publications by every professor that was working on a project that they found interesting. They specifically applied to schools where research they found interesting was going on. They mentioned these specific research projects in the essays in their applications. When invited to interview, before each interview they re-read the recent publications by each professor that they were going to talk to. This meant that they were able to intelligently discuss each professor’s work during the interviews.
If there is very specific research that is going on at Georgetown, and if you are able to similarly intelligently discuss this research, then this might improve your chances. If you are familiar with their research in this much detail, then your chances might come down to whether there is a specific professor who wants you to work with them on their current research project. Of course there probably are already graduate students helping with this same research.
If you are looking to transfer to a higher ranked university, then I would be surprised if admissions at Georgetown would consider this to be a valid reason to want to transfer.
This does bring up the “elephant in the room” that @thumper1 mentioned above. Medical school is expensive. Can you afford two years at Georgetown, plus four years of medical school, without taking on an excessive amount of debt? Usually a premed student is better off saving some $$ in the college fund for medical school.
Given that you currently have a 3.97, and assuming that you have already started taking premed classes, this suggests that a dream of medical school is probably still realistic. It looks like you are doing very well at UMD and are likely on track to keep this dream alive. The fact that you have already done volunteering in a hospital is also of course a good thing.
I do think that you will get more of this at UMD as you get into upper year classes.
I will also note that graduates from UMD and even significantly lower ranked schools do frequently get into very good graduate programs, including MD programs and PhD programs. What you do as an undergraduate student is way more important than where you do it, and it sounds like what you have done so far at UMD is a very good start.
Who else is balancing this list ? Loyola MD as an example right up the road ? American ?
Some kids just don’t fit at a school and if that’s you and UMD - it’s ok.
But then you need a complete plan. If it’s for prestige or bragging rights, sure it happens but you might face similar issues in regards to your UMD complaints.
Gtown doesn’t publicize test score ranges for transfers. CDS shows Class of 2027 mid 50% range of 1390-1530 for first year matriculants. Gtown is not test optional, so OP doesn’t have a choice whether or not to send their score. Gtown is a reach, no way of knowing how important test scores are for transfers, or where that score will fall in the transfer cohort (assuming OP applies.)
This wasn’t asked but just want to mention that there would be no benefit to the OP re-taking the SAT as a college student. The SAT is an exam meant for HS students and admission officers will not be impressed by a higher score obtained as a college student.
Before you get tangled up in the logistics of trying to transfer- have you invested time in speaking with professors at UMD about joining one of their research projects? And do you have enough information to even know what type of Neuro they are working in?
It is an inter-disciplinary field. So the topics you are interested in may actually be housed in the Psych department. Or in Applied Math. Or biochemistry. Or Public Health. Or Nutritional Science. Or Comp Sci. Depending on who is the lead researcher and where the funding is coming from, it may actually be very close to what you are interested in without having the name “Neuro” in it at all…
So start there. A lot easier to pivot where you are then to go through the uncertainty and hassles of transferring, no? You may discover that you want to major in Psych (for example) and that the type of research going on there is incredibly exciting and provides insane academic challenges and motivated colleagues!
If you have a near 4.0 and you’re trying to get into medical school, you’re already in the best place possible. It ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it…because you might actually “break” it for real. Don’t worry, if you’re looking for an academic challenge, you’ll get plenty of that in medical school. By the way, an honors program is a tangible accomplishment you can put on a medical school application. That’s worth its weight in gold.