I’m a first semester freshman at a T20 (think Vandy, WashU, Emory, Georgetown), looking to transfer back to my hometown for both personal fit, and medical reasons. This semester I’m looking at a 3.65-3.72 GPA, with essentially all As except for Calculus, which will be likely be a B-/C+. I’m ideally hoping to transfer to a school of similar size/rigor (BC, Tufts etc), but am also looking at some very different options from where I’m at now, like Bentley, Babson, and Northeastern.
My family and I have literally no clue what we’re doing with the transfer admissions process, so I figured I’d look here for help. In terms of GPA, is the 3.6-3.7 range good/bad/average? Does being from a T20 help, given that classes might be deemed as harder? Would college prefer me taking a withdrawal, which would remove the grade from my GPA and leave it as a W on my transcript, or does that look just as bad?
I’m starting to prepare for Spring semester class selection, and also wasn’t sure if I need to me matching my classes to the schools I’m interested in’s curriculum. For example, BC Morrissey says they recommend that classes should fall within “Mathematics (one course), English (two courses), Natural Science (two courses), History (two courses), and Fine Arts (one course).” If my classes don’t match that, am I looking at a pretty certain rejection?
Sorry for all the random questions, family is very new to higher education, let alone transferring, so we’re super lost here. Thanks in advance!