Thank you for your reply, philbegas. All of the websites for the Ivy League schools have such a statement except Princeton (which does not accept transfers) and Cornell (although I may have just overlooked it on Cornell’s website). My son emailed admissions at each school, and so far has received emails from Yale and University of Pennsylvania saying they do not consider transfer applicants with more than 2 years of college.
I would understand if they only accepted 2 years worth of credits, as they want students to complete the full final 2 years at their school, but it sounds like they won’t even consider someone with more than 2 years worth of units, even if the person does not plan to transfer all of them.
Which schools did you apply to, if you don’t mind my asking? And how may credits did you have before transferring?
I’m currently applying to business schools, none of them quite the caliber of Ivy Leagues. Right now I have 41 transferable units, I’ll have 52 at the end of spring semester, and hopefully around 60 when I finally enroll.
Thanks to all of you for your replies. I guess I am a bit confused about how all of this would work because I do know if students who have applied to transfer to both the UCs and Ivy League schools who did not seem to run into this issue.
Basically, in order to apply to transfer to both, it sounds like a student would have to have exactly 60 units of credit – no more, no less – in order to have the minimum number the UCs would require without going over the maximum amount for some of the Ivy League schools. It seems that it would be unlikely a student would be able to work it out to have exactly 60 units.
How many credits does he have?
Actually, he would have been better served transferring once he finished an associates degree. Did he complete an associates?
Magda, before your son ties himself in a box, how about reaching out to the person in admissions at each college he’s interested in and emailing them a copy of his current transcript and saying “I’d love to discuss a transfer application”. You can’t tell from a website if the 60 credit rule is a “rule of thumb”, an actual rule which 1 applicant in 30 years managed to get around, or is code for something else (like- you will need to pay for at least four semesters of college at our institution before we grant you a Bachelor’s degree so if you have more than 60 credits you probably will not find transferring here cost effective).
Email and then set up time to talk. Pointless to speculate.
Also, your son may find that these adcom’s are a wealth of information- like “we accepted 10 transfer students last year. We aren’t very transfer-friendly. But Brandeis (or Haverford, or JHU, or Conn College, or Wesleyan- I have no clue which colleges might be looking for kids just like your son) has a much stronger track record, particularly with kids from California so please call my colleague whose phone number is XXX and tell her I suggested that you reach out”.