Stanford's Chinese program

Colleges & Universities Stanford University
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I am a former Chinese language analyst from the Air Force. I graduated from the Defense Language Institute with 3.7 GPA, and since I’ve been studying Chinese for about 4 1/2 years now, I’ve achieved a fairly high level of proficiency. I have 88 college credits from DLI, so, I want to transfer to a university with a good foreign language program and double major in Chinese and Japanese with a minor in linguistics. My goal is to one day be an expert in Chinese (to include Mandarin and the other dialects)and Japanese language and culture. My question is since Stanford requires an SAT record for transfer students and since I’ve never done the SAT , if I score well on all the subjects except for math will I still have a chance of being accepted into Stanford? I’ve never been good at math and I’m not sure how I could bring my score up enough to make a difference. My specialty is in languages, so, I don’t know why I should be disqualified for not being good at math. Thank you and have a good day.</p>

2

<p>You certainly won’t be “disqualified for not being good at math.” They will give your application the fullest consideration. </p>

<p>But since you are a transfer applicant, your odds are SIGNIFICANTLY less than those of a freshman applicant. This year, Stanford accepted 1.9% of its transfer applicants, and many of the transfer admits were former members of the armed forces or other people who brought extremely unique perspectives to the class. </p>

<p>Your best bet is to finish up at the DLI and apply to Stanford as a graduate student. Your odds of admission will be significantly higher. </p>

<p>But it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot as a transfer.</p>

3

<p>Thank you for the good advice. Take care.</p>

4

<p>If you are determined to try the transfer route, I’d suggest taking the ATC instead, as it is accepted as an alternate test. The math section isn’t nearly as scary, and it’s fairly easy to get a passable score. The math score itself doesn’t affect your composite score much either.</p>