Hey all, I’m a first-year at UVA and expect to finish my first semester with a 3.94 GPA (A- in STAT where the average is 3.1, A in EGMT, A+ in Microeconomics, A+ in Foundations of Commerce, and A+ in Spanish 2010). I’m involved in about 10 clubs on campus, with at least five focused on business, finance, or consulting. I’m also working in an off-cycle private equity internship and volunteering consistently.
Next semester, I’m taking Calc I, Spanish 2020, my required EGMT course, ENWR, and Macroeconomics. I scored a 1520 on the SAT. For letters of recommendation, I plan to ask my COMM professor and my Spanish professor, as I’ve earned A+ grades and built strong relationships in both classes.
I’m currently exploring transfer options, primarily UChicago, Northwestern, Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and similar schools, mainly due to the large class sizes at UVA, the small-town environment, and the fact that the student population is around 66% in-state while I’m out-of-state.
Would appreciate any strategic advice or perspective on where I stand.
Solid shot at U Chicago & at Northwestern. NU is transfer friendly.
Decent reasons for transferring in my view. Would emphasize your desire to engage with students who share different perspectives.
Harvard, Stanford, and Duke are not as transfer friendly as are U Chicago, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. Harvard admits/accepts less than 1% of transfer applicants; Stanford admits 2%; Duke admits about 3%.
I do not see any harm in applying. I would not expect you to be accepted. Harvard and Stanford in particular seem unlikely.
One issue is that I do not see any compelling academic reason for you to transfer. You are already attending a very good university. My understanding is that top ranked universities are skeptical of students who are chasing prestige, and instead are more receptive to transfer students who have a good academic reason to make the transfer.
However, completing your bachelor’s degree where you are, and then applying to graduate programs at any of these other universities, does seem entirely realistic. I got my master’s degree at Stanford, and the other students in the same program came from a huge range of other universities. A lot of the other students in the same program, probably a large majority, came from schools ranked about the same or lower compared to UVA.
Northwestern is pretty transfer friendly so you have a good chance there. I would also add Vanderbilt as a good transfer friendly school. UChicago maybe.
Stanford and Harvard are highly unlikely. They are not transfer friendly and are even harder to transfer into than to apply to as a freshman. Duke probably pretty unlikely also.
I am pretty amazed you have a PE internship as a first year and haven’t taken Calc 1 yet. The fact you talked yourself into that w/o highly advanced classes in HS (at least that I can tell based on your college coursework) is impressive, assuming it isn’t your parents’ firm or something. I suspect you will do fine in life:)
I think a successful transfer to an Ivy is extremely unlikely. Northwestern is a possibility because they are transfer friendly but a lot will rest on how you did in HS vs. your one semester of college grades. Your lack of calculus might hinder you assuming you didn’t take it in HS (and if you did you should be taking Calc 2 or 3). Your chances will be even less if you applied to these schools last year and were rejected - a single semester’s worth of grades is unlikely to change the original decision. Still, you have done well (assuming you actually get the grades you think you will) so it is worth a shot.
By the way, I think it might be worth calibrating a bit what counts as relatively good for transferring.
Per their latest CDS, Harvard got 2256 transfer applicants, and admitted 16, a rate of 0.7%. So that’s not promising.
Northwestern got 4045 applicants, and admitted 484. That’s right about 12%, so that is definitely better.
Still, though, 3561 applicants, about 88%, were rejected. And these are not just random college students, these are mostly going to be students who have done very well so far at good colleges, and thought they had a shot.
So I don’t mean to be discouraging, but generally speaking these types of transfers are all long shots.
And of course if you really want to transfer to a smaller private college in a larger city, presumably with good business-type stuff, there are other options. Villanova, for example, admitted 239/552, about 43%. Fordham admitted 895/1122 transfer applicants, about 80%. And so on. These are general rates, not specific to their business schools (if that is what you would be looking at), but my point is they are options to try if you want them.