When Transferring Colleges?

[hnbui]

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I'm not in college yet but really want to attend harvard or columbia. However i do not believe that i will get accepted. Therefore i am planning to transfer after my freshman or sphomore year. When transferring to schools like harvard, how much does your SAT and SAT II's count for and can you only submit sat and sat II test scores that you took in highschool and not college.

 

[Salamandrina]

Ivy league colleges don't usually accept many transfer students at all.

 

[hnbui]

yes i know the chances are very slim, but how much weight does your SAT/ACT and SAT II test scores carry, and do they only mean SAT/ACT test which you took in highschool or can it be ones you take in college too?

 

[Salamandrina]

It wouldn't make any sense to me if they considered your SAT/ACT scores that you took while you were/are in college. Those tests were standardized to assess what a high school student should know. Of course the score would be higher after you had take two years of college, but it is not a high score under any circumstances that they are looking for, it is a high score for a high school student. And as far as importance goes, to be one of the very few transfer applicants accepted, you would have to have exceptional test scores as well as grades, and probably some traumatic experience in your life which would explain why you couldn't go to these schools immediately following high school.

I am not trying to rain on your parade, but I do think that you should consider saving your application fees from these schools and investing them into getting into one of the myriad of great schools in this country that have higher acceptance rates for transfers.

But good luck, what ever you do.

 

[hnbui]

anyone else?

 

[Amy B]

I think if you transfer as a sophomore a school would only look at your performance during college. Maybe that would be different if you went to a community college. I am not sure, but I know when I started as a transfer student, the university only looked at my transcript from my previous school.

Now that said, if you can't get into an Ivy school as a freshman, why would your odds improve as a transfer student?

 

[musiclink213]

a friend of mine tried to transfer to an IVY league school after his fresh. year. if, by the time you apply, you have less than i think 30 college credits, they look at your high school records as well. that means SAT/ACT scores. now, my friend who applied didn't have the SAT score to get in as a transfer, so he retook them and did better, but still couldn't get into an IVY. the furthest he got was NYU, which is where he is now.

 

[hnbui]

my ACT/SAT score just isn't up to par with the ivies.

 

[bongsen]

it's really about who you are - not just numbers, but your essay, experiences, and letters of recs. Some things - you can change - your experiences. Some things, you can't, so don't bother or worry too much about it. What I can say is that the number of spots open at Ivy Schools for transfer is very limited - you have to have a good reason for wanting to transfer, and even then it's a big hassle to transfer credits --- you might just end up losing a good number of them through the transfer. Apply to a good number of schools, high, medium, and low rankings - and go where you will be happy (you should only apply to schools where you will be happy). then, the sky's the limit for you!!!

 

[LoneCoyote]

They will look at your SAT score when you transfer. I transferred after 1st year of college and they took everything into account, high school grades, college grades, tests, activities, letters, etc. They want you to have a good reason why you are transferring, not just "I want to go to a 'better school.'" I agree with the previous posters that for the most part it is not going to be easy to get into an ivy or a top tier liberal arts college unless you had the grades, scores, ECs, etc to get to one the first time around. Just apply to a wide range of schools because you never know where you might get in.

 

[speter33]

i'm really curious what's your reason for really wanting to attend harvard or columbia. I know in highschool we all had irrational dreams to go to some ivy league school, mostly to show off and please our parents. I personally never really saw a reason for a pre-med to go into these institutions. My advice for most is get out of undergrad debt free. That's why I'm in a city college. In our school we have many who transfered out of schools like NYU because while taking a summer course here or something they decided their highly reputable school just wasn't worth the money.

 

[DrJ2B]

Hey hnbui!

You might as well try not and see what happens. You can even request an interview from those schools. However, there are so many great schools out there that offer a great education like UPenn (ummmm I am not being biased but I love their medical school and wish I had applied to their undergrad ), Duke, Stanford, Yale, and many cool liberal arts colleges like Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. They are all very comparable education-wise. Harvard and Columbia are awesome schools but are not all that. You can also apply to awesome public schools like UCB, UCLA, UMich, UVA, and UNC-CH. You should not limit yourself by schools with great prestige. So many schools are awesome too! I am sure the rest of SDN can name many, many more. Good luck with everything! Apply to some reach schools, you never know what can happen until you try! 😀

 

[hnbui]

is UC Berkeley hard to get into?