Transferring to Ivy+ from top 5 LAC

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hi! I’m a rising sophomore from a Top 5 LAC looking to transfer to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Georgetown and Tufts for my junior year. Here are my stats:

High School:
GPA: school doesn’t use GPA system but was a C+/B- average in a highly competitive school until final exams where I got almost all As
Rank: School doesn’t rank but around top 40%
Subjects: A-Levels Physics, Mathematics, Economics and Literature (all As); General Paper (B) and Project Work (A)
SATs: 2340 superscored; 760 CR, 780 WR, 800 Math; 800 Math II, 780 Physics, 760 Bio E, 720 Lit
School type: A top school in Asia

College:
Current GPA: 3.85
Honors: College Scholar (for two semesters)
Courses taken: 1 year of Arabic (A), Politics of the Middle East (A-), Writing seminar on Italy (A), other electives
Major: International Studies with Middle East focus (major), Political Science (possible minor)
Extracurriculars: Acapella, Muslim Students Association, Model UN, Badminton, employee at a student-run food business, planning to volunteer with Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the area.

Reasons for transferring: The Middle East studies dept here is very small and there isn’t a lot of resources for my research interests. Planned to stay for sophomore year to take advantage of the excellent Arabic program here. Also I prefer to be in a city environment rather than a rural one.

I would really appreciate your honest feedback!

2

Bump

3

Would anyone chance me please?

4

The acceptance rate for transfers to the these institutions is even lower than the freshman acceptance rate. I think Georgetown and Tufts are more likely, but HYSC are all going to be super reaches since their acceptance rates are ~2% for transfers. They accept maybe just 20 transfers each every year. As long as you realize how high you’re reaching there’s no problem applying.

5

I don’t mind staying in Middlebury. It’s just that I prefer to be in a bigger university with more resources and opportunities for Middle East studies.

6

I agree that transfers to Ivies are quite competitive, but I don’t think that it’s impossible. I just graduated from one of the schools that you listed, and 2 of my friends at school were transfers from other schools (one from UCLA, one from Emory). They had great GPAs at their previous schools (close to 4.0) and were heavily involved in ECs. Your ECs look good, and if you could just bring up your GPA a little by the time you apply, I think you’d have a chance.

7

Tufts and Georgetown are absolutely possible.