What should I do to increase my chance to transfer into the top elite colleges?

Transfer Students
1

I am currently a freshman at a top flagship state college known for engineering (not UC). I want to double electrical engineering and PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) at a school with relatively fewer students. Any advice on my school list? What should I do in order to increase my chance?

Basic info:
Gender: Male

College Grades: 4.0. 7 courses this semester. 7 A+. One intro to CS, one intro to EE, one intro Philo, one sopho physics, and multi-variable Calc. Beginning to take junior level math/science next semester.

SAT: 1550 (R370+W380+M800), two SAT Subj 800

Activities: Student Gov (running my own Charity programme), EWB, non-profit cram school for children in my hometown, Wikipedian for 7 years, independent politics comments published on magazine, four published short stories

Awards/honours: Mathematical Olympiad Second Prize, Tech Innovation First Prize (both Province/State level. Both in my HS)

Student Type: International (that may be the biggest problem for me…)

2

If you’re at a top public flagship with a solid engineering program why do you want to leave? Humanities are available at all top flagships. If it is a name brand concern. I am simply advising you that it’s waste of time and effort for you.

3

You want to study engineering and PPE together? Thats quite a heavy load. What do you ultimately want to do? It sounds as if you don’t have a clear career goal in mind?

If you are an international student, know that many schools have limit on financial aid for internationals. Even less so for transfers. So if you transfer, you may have to fund 100% on your own. Transferring simply for prestige sake is not worth it. For engineering, it matters more that the college is ABET accredited. As long as you graduate from an ABET program, getting a job is no easier simply because you went to a higher prestige school.

The only careers where prestige of the school matters is in finance. For most other fields, it really doesn’t matter a lot where you get your degree from (with some variation of course).

4

A quick question. How does someone take 7 classes in a single semester as a freshman? Your academic advisor would say no way to a classload like that.

You actually mention 5 classes only. Unless you didn’t count 2 lab classes.

Most schools on the semester system recommend that freshmen take 15 units only the first semester.

5

Elite colleges will require a (realistic) academic reason for transferring. They can smell prestige hounds a mile away.

6

I have two other courses for which the final grade depends on homework/attendance instead of exams. So I did not list them.

7

I simply found that I cannot accommodate myself to the big classes (usually more than 100 students in the classroom, the professor keeps talking and we keep listening). I think a smaller seminar class may be better. And also, I really cannot find the classes I want at my current institute…

8

You will be out of luck at any top notch Engineering school for freshman/sophomore classes. Most classes will be around 300 students.

You will not get any individual attention until junior year.

It sounds like you are better suited to a European style of college education than an American one.

9

Maybe… I did not have any opportunities to do school visits last year so I learned mostly from the school website, alumni I know and social media. I expected a large student group when I made my decision earlier this year, but it is still beyond my imagination.

10

Lower level courses can be large even at elite colleges. Upper level courses tend to be smaller generally.

11

“I think a smaller seminar class may be better.”
“I really cannot find the classes I want at my current institute”

Smaller schools will have a smaller variety of classes. Larger schools will have large classes particularly for freshmen and sophomores. Also, strong engineering is usually at large universities (although Harvey Mudd might be an exception).

You can get required classes with well over 100 students at MIT which is not really all that large a university with about 4,500 undergraduate students. I think that my largest classes there had closer to 400 or 500 students.

Other than try to transfer to Harvey Mudd and take PPE classes at the other Claremont colleges, I don’t think that you are going to get what you want. I think that you probably already have what you need where you are.