Although I am hoping to be selected for HEOP from cornell, Columbia, and NYU it is highly doubtful. I already have been accepted into Wells and CU Boulder, and I am anticipating my acceptance to Binghamton.
I I choose to double major in Economics and Philosophy which college offers the better academics, the best social life, the best one on one with profs, and has the best profile that will allow time to transfer somewhere even better.
MORE INFO:
CU Boulder is probably the best known out of all the schools, has the best location and social life, plus the academics are highly acclaimed. The fact this school has produced so many notable alumni is also a plus. Likely the most academically rigorous of the three. However, as an out of state applicant I would have to pay a HUGE sum of money to go. I received $5,920 in federal aid leaving over $50,000 in loans which equates to over $200,000 in loans over the course of 4 years.
Wells College is by far the smallest and most intimate environment. The dating scene is incredible (75/25 female/male ration) there are <500 students in the entire school so the ability to be close to your professors is very real. It is a liberal arts college so there are not a lot of research opportunities. The school’s academics are not especially challenging and attracts primarily B/C students. I was offered a $22,000/year scholarship and excellent financial aid that would only leave me with about $10,000/year in expenses overall.
SUNY Binghamton has some challenging academics, deemed the best in the SUNY system, and is considered to be a public ivy. The school attracts students with very good stats. The transfer rate to Cornell is exceptionally high and the in-state tuition makes the education affordable. The biggest drawback is the location absolutely sucks and I hated the campus when I visited. The area is ugly, the sky is always grey, and the place is depressing overall.
given this information, if I was to take my shot trying to transfer to the following institutions;
Stanford University
University of Chicago
Columbia University
Dartmouth College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cornell University
New York University
Harvard College
Yale College
University of California, Berkeley
Oxford University
Claremont McKenna College
Brown University
University of Pennsylvania
University of California, Los Angeles
Which of the colleges should I attend to improve my odds?
(Yes, I know these colleges are all VERY difficult to transfer into for ANYONE)
Thanks!
If your goal is Cornell, and you are in-state, would it make sense to do your first two years at one of the NY community colleges that have strong relationships with Cornell?
If you are eligible for HEOP, doesn’t that mean that you need a lot of financial aid? Run the numbers for your various offers here: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletter.phtml
and look at what the loans could eventually come to here: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml
You might need to just follow the money, and make the best of whichever place turns out to be affordable.
In the past, Wells had course exchange with Cornell. Does that still exist? If so you could be able to pick up some classes there that extend the offerings at Wells.
Very interesting, and maybe appropriate, use of the word ration.
CU-Boulder is out due to cost.
@happymomof1 They do offer cross-listed courses with Cornell. However you are limited to 3.
I agree that community colleges offer good transfer opportunities, I actually have taken courses at one of the community colleges with the strongest relationship to Cornell (TC3) I just cannot see myself enjoying myself at any of the community colleges in NY. I feel like two years is a stretch to be miserable.
OP,
Don’t assume that because women outnumber men 3 to 1 that the dating scene will be incredible. I am assuming that you are male (I doubt a woman would describe the potential dating scene at Wells as incredible), but even for a guy, you might be in for a rude awakening, and I don’t say that to be negative. Sure, maybe you meet someone at Wells, but don’t expect the women there to be thinking, “Oooh, there are so few men on campus, so I better grab one!” Wells women might meet someone in Ithaca, just 35-40 minutes away. Or they might already be involved or not interested in getting involved.
That said, even though I’m a big supporter of LACs, I sort of like your other options. SUNY-Binghamton is a nice option (you’ll get used to its drab look). CU-Boulder would be a lot of fun, but how much will it cost for you to attend? If you love Wells, and the price is right, then by all means, attend Wells.
Transferring is a possibility, though you’ll have to really destroy and kick butt academically, plus have some meaningful accomplishments and ECs as a college student to be competitive. Note, too, that lots of schools earmark their strongest financial aid awards for HS seniors, not transfer students. There are exceptions, but these will be schools lower down the totem pole. Note, too, that Ivy League schools and Ivy equivalents will only meet demonstrated need, not a penny more (but they won’t package loans in the deal); elite colleges typically do not offer merit money. But if your family can foot the bill, great.
In general, though, I think it’s best to choose a school without the mindset of transferring. There are exceptions, students who are determined to attend a certain school and will use another school to get there. For the most part, however, you should be choosing a college where you could be happy for four years. Transfers require extra work, extra money, and extra stress. Why go through all that when you can nip things in the bud and simply attend a school you like from the get-go and stay there?
Just my two cents.
OP: Pretty sure that your assumption is spot-on. It certainly was before 2005 when Wells College went co-ed.
How about a different (prettier) SUNY campus? I doubt if any of them will lower your already low chances of transferring. Why not save those other schools for grad school and get your degree from Wells or a SUNY.
What are your potential majors and goals?
And can you afford any of your dream schools even if you transfer in? Not all schools meet need for transfers.
Publics won’t provide enough fin aid for OOS so Cal, UCLA, and Oxford are out.
BTW, you can’t actually take out anywhere near $200K in loans.
Cornell has 3-2 engineering agreements with Wells and Ithaca.
Some of the Cornell schools also have articulation agreements with some SUNYs.
But Cornell may not provide enough fin aid.
My bad if the dating comment sounded crude. It was simply a statistical factor. Moreover, I chose many of these schools because my EFC is 0. So a private elite school is more about getting in than paying for it. I did know that Wells had a 3-2 Engineering agreement with Cornell (they also have one with Columbia) However, my intended field of study would be Philosophy and Economics.
My overall goals would be economic research/academia although I have thought about politics and public policy
Ultimately, I am still waiting (and hoping on) HEOP admission at either Columbia, Fordham, Cornell, and NYU.
However, since my admission is so unlikely, the question of where I should go remains.
Here is where I have been accepted thus far:
CU Boulder
UAlbany
SUNY Potsdam
Wells
Le Moyne
Broome CC
Corning CC
HIGHLY ANTICIPATED (95%+ chance of admission)
Binghamton
The New School
Hofstra
To be very blunt: if your HEOP admission is that unlikely, your transfer prospects to any of the schools that you list is equally unlikely.
Then you really don’t want a lot of debt, b/c 1) you will need a PhD and 2) those are not areas in which you are going to be earning a big salary any time soon. And, as @PurpleTitan pointed out you can only borrow ~$5k/year- somebody else has to sign for the rest of it.
Being in NY you actually have some really good choices. Binghamton, with it’s good transfer record with Cornell, is objectively your strongest option (and is no greyer than the rest of upstate NY)… I get that the local choice doesn’t seem as glamorous as the transfer list you posted, or even as exciting as moving to Colorado for CU. But part of the college process is taking a longer term view.
CU Boulder isn’t even on your list anymore because you can’t borrow that kind of money on your own. You would need to convince someone with a good credit score that co-signing loans equivalent to the cost of a house is a good idea. That simply is not going to happen. Or at least it shouldn’t happen! You don’t want that kind of debt for a BA and you don’t want to make anyone else responsible for that kind of debt eother.
What is the aid package from Wells like? What would it cost for you to finish a transfer-ready AA at TC3? What aid has Binghampton offered? Until you hear back from the other places on your list, those three look to be your options.
You can only borrow ~$5500/year which, according to your other thread, seems to be about half your family income. You’re a NYS resident so I think your best bet is to focus on schools where your 25 ACT/3.5 GPA is competitive for admission. With a 0 EFC you should get the ~$5900 Pell Grant and a ~$5k state tuition grant, and you can take the $5500/year federal student loan. That gives you $16k, which is still $5-6k less than the SUNY COA. Are there any SUNYs within commuting distance of your home? With TAP and Pell, you could cover tuition and have money left for transportation and books.
TC3 is off the table. However Wells offered a decent financial aid package. 22k in aid and 22k in scholarships.
The only SUNY I have even a vague interest in is Binghamton.
Honestly, with your test score and GPA, not only would transferring be a challenge, but getting in to a funded econ grad program may be as well. You would have to raise your academic level by quite a bit.
Of course, the primary issue was a lack of motivation the first two years of high school. After that my grades were pretty good. Now that I am much more applied I want to use another college to sort of overshadow the bad parts of my high school career to prove I am more qualified than I seem
So, after you got motivated, you got “pretty good” grades…but even so you don’t have top marks (unless the ‘pretty good’ is a modest way of saying ‘straight A’s in honors level classes’).
I’m all for self-confidence, but you have posted a laundry list of famous colleges (about which you pretty clearly don’t know very much- for example UCLA/UCB/NYU? you can’t afford them. Oxford? you can’t afford it- and they don’t take transfers. Harvard? your odds are infinitesimal but would be be very slightly better coming from community college. etc, etc.etc.). If you are going to get into a good, funded, grad program you need to have more than ‘pretty good’ grades- you need really good grades. Also, a list of top colleges is a rather narrow view of how you can “prove” yourself.
Basing your actual, real choice that you will make in the next 8 weeks or so on how much it will help you to get into any of those schools is not a good strategy. Go for the one that is affordable and the closest to where you want to go, that will start you off in the right direction (which sounds like Binghamton). This time next year - once you have actually been a college student- you can decide if you want to apply to transfer to Cornell (which, btw, has weather that is not that different than Binghamton) or any place else.
In response to your first point, yes I was being modest, my average senior year was around a 96.08 in the typical senior year curriculum (with the exception of my english class which was dual enrollment, my school does not offer IB, AP, or even honors classes.)
in reposnse to your second point, I used some of the schools on the list as an example of institutional caliber. Although I’m now realizing I should probably just go to graduate school there anyway.
You have a top heavy list of schools that are not affordable options (Wells, Boulder and Lemoyne)
You definitely do not have a 95% chance of being admitted to Hofstra (even if you were admitted, it would be an admit -deny, because you would not get the aid)
GPA/Grades not high enough for HEOP at the New School. GPA is below the middle 50 for Bing EOP
https://www.suny.edu/attend/academics/eop/eop-freshman-profiles/
Albany, may be a match for EOP (actually they will wink on the scores for students with a higher GPA), but there are not a lot of seats. In addition, they package you approximately 8k in Loans in their EOP financial aid package.
Odds of transferring to most of the schools on your list are slim
If you are not attending a CC that partners with NYU CCTOP
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/cctop/
Your best bet at Cornell if you major in a program that has a articulation agreement with Cornell
You should definitely check out BAP- Broome/binghamton
or the Binghamton express with Corning and Bing
https://www.corning-cc.edu/news/binghamton-express-2016-07-28
As an EOP candidate, you really should have tossed a wider net. I think you turned down to opportunity at some really great schools where you could have been admitted HEOP, but it looks like you were chasing prestige at schools where whether it is as a freshman or as a transfer you have a really small chance of getting admitted. See your GC to see if you could add a few more EOP schools- Owsego, Fredonia, Cortland (your chances are better if you are not applying to the usual EOP suspects)