<p>Thanks.
I want to transfer to Columbia (#1) or UChicago (#2). That’s also assuming that anything higher is unreachable or unlikely with my stats. I would also like UC-Berkeley, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Tufts, Georgetown, Cornell or Michigan. And I would consider some LACs for sure, but I’m still looking into those right now.</p>
<p>So from high school I have a 31 ACT, and a 3.2 GPA (unweighted), 3.4 (weighted). I’m planning on transfering to enter as a junior, with my major being economics and international relations. Is Columbia possible?</p>
<p>my brother had a 1.4 in high school. 3.8 GPA at a CC, Transferred to Pepperdine. ill prob. be going to CC as well to transfer to the same school. Maybe I’ll post a success story someday. (yes my high school career was bad)</p>
<p>he got into the Seaver school of Liberal Arts. I don’t talk to him much so it is kind of hard to find anything out. I don’t even know his major. My other brother had a bad h/s record but got into Temple after a CC. Many things are possible in college, it all depends really on how bad you want it and what sacrifices you are willing to give up to get to that school.</p>
<p>F***** around in HS ended up with a 2.5 gpa. Did what I had to do to get by and no more. I rarely did homework, i was in a nihilistic phase I suppose. Anyway, went to college, made a 3.5 cumm gpa as a bio major, and applied for transfer to UNC and got in.</p>
<p>This is quite the inspiring thread, for me, anyway. Thank you all for sharing! I am currently working on this.</p>
<p>My story is quite long, and a little complicated, but I’ll try to keep it from being tl;dr. I suffered a subdural hematoma during my preteen years and had been out of school for about half a year. Despite my parents having hired tutors (who did no such thing) and the like, I had academically neglected since. I became heavily involved in music, but ended up going to the nearby vocational school to study theatre. While I did well there, the academics were laughable. They were practically nonexistent, if that.</p>
<p>I did okay, I was in the top of my class, but since I didn’t get much of an education, I got a 1010 on my SATs. I’d like to think I am more competent than that. Actually, it’s pretty clear I am more competent than that, but colleges don’t care about that.</p>
<p>I went to my local community college after not having been accepted anywhere and didn’t do so well my first semester (my grandfather also died then). 3.0. I took some time off because I didn’t want to screw myself up any more and then became sick with diabetes (which runs in the family.)</p>
<p>It’s only recently that I have started to care for myself in any sense – emotionally, physically, mentally, and academically. I will be taking my first full semester since Fall 05 this September, and I will be taking my SATs over along with two Subject Tests. I did get a 4.0 last semester, which I plan on maintaining.</p>
<p>WashU is my dream school, but I am pretty apprehensive about applying as a transfer. I’d love to study theatre in Saint Louis and immerse myself in their respective theatrical community. I hope to get in. I doubt it. I’ll keep you posted, I guess!</p>
<p>“WashU is my dream school, but I am pretty apprehensive about applying as a transfer. I’d love to study theatre in Saint Louis and immerse myself in their respective theatrical community. I hope to get in.”</p>
<p>Haha, you sound like you cut and pasted this from one of your essays. </p>
<p>No offense meant of course.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you and to everyone else =).</p>
<p>I started off high school great, but got disillusioned with some things here and there, and ended up pretty much giving up half-way through and ended up with a sub 2.9? GPA (I can’t even remember, but I do know my junior and senior years were littered with D’s and F’s) </p>
<p>Decided that I learned some real valuable stuff in the process and simply learned from a mistake and got my act together. I worked hard my first year in a CCC (2 weeks from finishing Spring semester) and most likely, hopefully, getting a 4.0. Thought I’d apply to one of my dream schools, USC, and they’ve requested my Spring grades, so hoping for the best there!</p>
<p>Really a believer of second chances now. Anyways, that’s my story!</p>
<p>Decent high school stats:
middle of the pack at a top prep school but didn’t apply myself nearly as much as I should have. So when college application time came around, I went 1/9 and ended up going to a top 20 LAC that I never dreamed I would end up at.</p>
<p>Out of high school, I applied early to Amherst and was deferred and then rejected. Regular Decision I was rejected at Williams, Brown, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Tufts, Cornell and waitlisted at Colby. I was accepted at Hamilton.</p>
<p>That summer I decided I would haul ass in the fall, get to know professors, hopefully run a 4.0, get in touch with track coaches, and apply to schools that would challenge me more. </p>
<p>I ended up having a good time at Hamilton but still applied after running a 4.0 that fall.</p>
<p>I applied to: Williams, Amherst, Tufts, Brown, Penn, Yale, Dartmouth, and Cornell</p>
<p>I was accepted at: Tufts, Brown, Cornell, and Penn</p>
<p>alright, I posted earlier but I have a real success story now!
Through out high school, I lacked any inspiration. I took 0 AP classes, my grades were bad enough to where I found myself getting Ds and even failing gym (of all classes) twice! I was suspended more than once and had about 40 absences and 50 “lates” my senior year. it was bad.</p>
<p>From there, I took a six month break and applied to a local university. My SAT scores (which were taken after I had graduated from high school) were good (by normal curve distribution standards, not CC standards) and I attended for about a semester and a 1/4th. yes, 1/4th of a semester, where I found myself at the wrong end of the pointed finger. I was suspended for drug (read: weed) possession and 2 under-age drinking charges. I was still a screw up.</p>
<p>anyway, the suspension really changed my motivation and I went on to get a 3.7 or 3.8 or something at my local community college for some tough classes, joined some EC activities, and worked close to full time for 49 credits in a year and a half.</p>
<p>now, at the ripe old age of 21, I have been accepted into Boston University. Although many here on CC may not have even considered BU to be up to their standards, it is an amazing accomplishment for me and has given me a smile for at least the past hour (I just found out around 2 am pittsburgh time…yeah we have our own time). besides, the saying is to each his own and for now, boston is mine!</p>
<p>the moral is, if I can (stupidly) make all of these mistakes and turn it around, then no one has any excuse to not try for their best. keep it up guys, this is a great place that has helped be quite a bit.</p>
<p>My disseration was a national study of college transfer admission policies. Unfortunately quite a few colleges still place heavy emphasis on high school record, even after you’ve completed a lot of great college credits. Fortunately that tide seems to be tunring in the face of overwhelming data. Every study so far conducted on transfer students has shown them to perform as well as they did at their home institution following the semester after transfer. In other words, transfer students tend to see a small dip (some call it transfer shock) right after transferring, and then do as well or better than they did previously. In fact, most transfer students do as well or better than native students. Schools like Arizona State and my own (George Mason University) see thousands of transfer applicants and rarely look at all at high school record unless the student has very few college credits.</p>
<p>I posted in this thread previously, I think, but I now have a success story. Yay!
I applied to Barnard, Mt. Holyoke, UNC, Smith, and Temple University (my back up) to transfer from Kutztown University. Kutztown recently dropped even below the third tier this year, which was exciting. </p>
<p>Anyhoo, statwise I had a 3.0 in HS, no APs, no nothing. I was a pro at slacking off while managing to secure a couple of Cs and Bs on my report card. I had a 1660 on the new SATs. In college I now have a 3.79 with a small smattering of ECs. I took the ACTs this time around and got a 27. Math owned me. I got a 15 and it brought my score way down. </p>
<p>So, I got rejected at Barnard, waitlisted at Mt. Holyoke, and UNC, but I was accepted at Smith College. I’m pretty psyched. </p>
<p>So it is possible to transfer into a top college with craptastic high school records (and by craptastic I mean significantly lower than the “bad” grades some of the people here are listing lol).</p>
<p>I had good APs and test scores, but really, really lousy grades. The only time I didn’t get a D or F was when they’d go back and change your grade to an A if you did well on the AP, and frankly the Ds were charity. </p>
<p>I came back to it later in life when I’d done some growing up and got good grades, and accepted to the program I really wanted. High school doesn’t have to hurt you if you fix whatever the problem was that caused your bad grades. If it was bad study habits, show you’ve gained discipline. If it was just needing to work out non-school things in your life, show you’ve grown.</p>
<p>"My situation was a bit less extreme than some posts I see here. I was a B+ student in high school (along with some C’s) and somehow I made it into NYU (College of Arts and Science). Sometime during my senior year, I finally found a motivation to do better, because I felt I had disappointed everyone around me. My parents, sibling, relatives…I guess they had all expected something more from me.</p>
<p>Well when freshman year came, I focused on my schoolwork and tried to find my social niche. I made a lot more close friends than I did in high school and I found a way to balance my social life with academics. At the same time, I applied for a transfer to Columbia University because I wanted to go to school where there were more like-minded individuals. My year came to an end and I had a 3.85 College GPA as a biology major. When May came around, I got my acceptance letter from Columbia and I had this incredible feeling of accomplishment. It had always been my dream to go there, and at times, it seemed as impossible as trying to pick a star from the sky. But gosh darn it, I did it."</p>
<p>That’s inspiration right there! how do you like Columbia so far, and how did you like NYU? Those are my two dream schools due to the fact that I simply love NYC. How’s the city? Student life? Due enlighten us! All the best for your future!</p>
<p>Hello, great thread and looking for some advice:</p>
<p>I have a complicated history and up until I read this thread thought it was something to never bring up in my transfer process. I was raised in a bad home environment, drug addict single mother, abusive alcoholic stepfather, no structure, etc. I dropped out of school, received GED, and later night school for a diploma, left for navy boot camp the next day. </p>
<p>Served 6 years in a technical and high stress field and excelled. I qualified and performed watches and duties well above what my peers were doing. Decided I was capable of a lot more and wanted to attend college. I left when my contract was up and attended community college. </p>
<p>I am married now and finished my first year with a 4.0. I did this while my wife left for a deployment and she had some deaths in the family. She was on the other side of the world and a settlement dispute was going on in her family that needed resolution over some property that was left in a will. I also choose to live a fews hours away from my wife in order to be close to home in order to reconcile with my Mother and seek help for her. It has been very challenging and draining on my emotions and energy. I believe that I can focus and achieve great grades regardless of what is going on around me. </p>
<p>Going back to school has rekindled my love of learning and I realize what I could of done with my life if I made different decisions and focused on my school work. Learning has always been easy and enjoyable for me and I want to utilize the next year to really groom myself to be competitive for a transfer spot in a top school. I am married and my wife is active duty navy. If I attend school geographically far it will put a stress on a marriage. The ideal school I would like to attend is Cal Tech. I would study applied mathematics if accepted and understand their unique lower division requirements. </p>
<p>If you read this far thanks a lot, let me reign all this into a few specific questions. What, if any of this, should I mention in my transfer package? How should I spin it? What can I do to really stand out among their applicants? I plan on doing a pretty big load of physics/math and other science classes to bring myself up to speed with juniors at Cal Tech. I plan on getting a 4.0 or die trying. Also, I want to pursue activities that show I am interested in math and the sciences outside of school. There is a possibility that I will move to San Diego before the next semester starts to be with my wife. So I will have attended two community colleges, while the second one will probably be much bigger. Is this a good, bad, or neutral thing for my application? Anything I missed or general feedback? Thanks again and good luck to all of you in your studies and life.</p>
</p>
I’m pretty psyched. </p>