I am a dual-citizen, who grew up in Germany and is now going to a CC in California.
I will be applying to UVA, UMich, NYU, Berkeley and USC for business.
I have a 4.0, however, I have “only” finished 31 credits. Would it be better for me to wait until the end of Fall, in order to have more credits (looking at ~45)? Is it possible to send my application now and send my transcript only after fall? Basically my strong points are my GPA, Recommendations and Life-story/Essay. My weakness is that I do not have standardized testing and I have a pretty small amount of EC. I grew up in a village (literally) in Germany and we do not have any “volunteering”, or high-school athletic teams.
The transfer admissions process and timelines are explicitly spelled out on the website of every major university.
Example Berkeley: The application deadline for transfer applicants is Nov 30 to enroll in fall 2018. In January, they are expecting an update with your fall semester grades and your course selections for the spring semester.
If I apply now with 30 credits wouldn’t they look at my high-school experience a lot more vs. when I apply with 45 credits? I understand that they will see all my classes either way, but wouldn’t it make a better “first-impression”, if I only apply later on with more credits?
Are you saying that you’d be willing to miss Berkeley’s application deadline of Nov 30, and apply a full year later, for the sake of having 15 more credits on your transcript at the time you submit your application? Why not try this year and see how it goes? What do you have to lose?
If you apply for fall admission, odds are your application won’t get read before your fall semester grades become available anyway. You’ll add them to your application in January and hope for the best.
Or maybe you’re undecided between applying for a spring transfer vs a fall transfer? Your question may make more sense in that context. However, not every university accepts spring transfers.
The 60 units must be completed by the end of the spring semester prior to transfer, and cannot include coursework the summer prior to transferring.
@Vincent1997, Berkeley received 100,000 applications for admission (freshman and transfers); they are not going to read an application where the applicant does not follow instructions.
aunt bea, I am not sure what you’re trying to get at. If OP has 31 credits now and expects to complete 45 credits by the end of the fall semester, he’d be in a good position to accumulate 60 credits by the end of the spring. I don’t see the problem?
Maybe I’m misreading the post. I thought the OP meant to say that he would try to apply with 30 units only then add 15 more and apply with only 45 total. He should have 60 by end of Spring.
@Vincent1997, the application period is not open for the UC’s until November. Also, if you are at a CCC now, you should be doing EC’s at your college now.
@“aunt bea” Yes, I will have 60 by spring. Also, I maybe shouldn’t have brought up Berkeley. Let’s use any other school that has a deadline after winter. Basically, I was just trying to figure out, if applying with 45 credits makes a better “first impression”.
If the deadline is after the winter, odds are it won’t make a difference when you apply. Most universities would wait for your fall semester grades before they consider your application complete.
With 60 credits no one looks at your HS record (which is too bad because I’d you had an Abitur you’d likely get advanced credit, u less tour cc already did that… But is great if you don’t have an Abitur.)
EC S and leadership at your CC would be expected.
Also, you’d need to have completed IGETC and entrance to major pre-reqs.
Are you a resident of California? In that case you’d need to apply to more UCs and CSU’s - take into account selectivity and have a couple Universities where acceptance rates are 40-50% or you may end up like many transfers who overshoot and are admitted nowhere.
Do your parents have the full cost of the other Universities you’re considering (you cannot count on financial aid as an OOS transfer applicant).
You may want to look into private universities - USC and Stanford both take quite a few transfers from California community colleges.
Last year Stanford accepted a total of 39 transfer applicants, and only a subset of them would be transfers from a California Community College. Not sure if I’d call that “quite a few,” when the UCs enrolled about 18,000 new transfer students from California Community Colleges.
Lol, when you put it like that… Transferring into Stanford is done mostly from a CA cc or “laterally” though, so it’s worth a try if OP feels like it, and may yield some financial aid (if S/he isn’t considered a CA resident, Stanford may turn out cheaper than a UC).
If op is a CA resident, S/he should apply to more UCs than UCB though.
@MYOS1634 I actually have a GED. The only school in California that I am interested in is Berkeley. I am focusing on any good business school in the US; location doesn’t matter to me. I am applying to 12 Universities, 5 of which are my first choice. To be honest I find it hard to imagine to not be able to get into any single one of those with a 4.0 GPA and 45+credits? I will be paying for University purely with the profits that I have made off of investing, which is also my main EC. Essay and Rec are also strong.
Edit: I have 4 worst case scenario Universities that I am applying to.
Transferring into Stanford is done mostly from a CA cc or “laterally” though, so it’s worth a try if OP feels like it, and may yield some financial aid (if S/he isn’t considered a CA resident, Stanford may turn out cheaper than a UC).