<p>They definitely have a finite amount of spots – it’s pretty ridiculous to think that they only accepted 21 transfers last year because ONLY 21 were qualified and/or the rest were from regional colleges (deeming them garbage-worthy, you seem to think? I also disagree with this). I’m not sure why you asked if the forum thought you’d have a better shot of transferring from a “high tier” school if you THOUGHT you already knew the answer. (You also seem unfamiliar with the fact that UChicago looks down on Northwestern for being overly preprofessional as well for inflating grades. So to answer your question about adcom’s willingness to consider the rigor of your college, this would be more curriculum/class-based than institutional. It isn’t actually difficult to perform well in intro classes/freshman requirements no matter where you go (even at Harvard, that stuff is a joke), but if you’re taking advanced math, pre-med science, or 300-levels, then yes, they will consider this.</p>
<p>I also wasn’t implying that your grades were bad, just that Chicago must have some rationale (wether right or wrong) for rejecting you, and that if you just turn around and submit the same things, plus one SINGLE piece of new information (in the form of one semester of new grades), I don’t see how this could be successful. Transfer admissions are competitive – it is four times more difficult to get in this way than when you apply for the first time – so you should attempt to be that much of a better candidate. While some of the transfer applications won’t be considered too seriously, I’m sure some undergrad applications weren’t either - the rates were still quite low, and these types of inferior applications are in no way the majority of the 30,000/900.</p>