0
a year ago
Admissions Advice

Does high school GPA and high school grades matter if you want to transfer to a different college after 2 years?

Hi, I was wondering if you need to provide your high school transcript and extracurricular if you want to transfer to a college after finishing two years of college because I had really poor grades in high school and not so strong extracurricular. What can I do to increase my chances of getting into a ivy league college as a transfer student?

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3 answers

2
a year ago[edited]

It's not a very practical solution to think you can transfer to Ivy League schools.

TRANSFER RATES:

Yale 0.75%, Harvard 0.80%, Princeton, 1.3%, Brown 4.2%, UPenn 4.5%, Dartmouth 10%,Columbia 14.7%, Cornell 15.7%.

Class of 2026 IVY acceptance rates:

Yale 4.47%, Harvard 3.19%, Princeton, 4.69%, Brown 5.03%, UPenn 6.33%, Dartmouth 6.24%, Columbia 3.73%, Cornell 7.26%.

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, and UPenn are all harder to get into as transfer admits versus right out of HS, some 4 to 5 times harder. The only 3 that are less difficult are Dartmouth, Cornell, and Columbia. Although Columbia is very reasonable at 14.7% vs. 3.73%, keep in mind that all CC/SEAS undergrads have to do a 32 Credit Core Curriculum which is the equivalent of 2 semesters of core classes like English, History, Science, Art, and Philosophy unrelated to your major. So if you successfully transfer into Columbia, you have to add 32 credits to your graduation requirements regardless of where you attend your 1st/2nd year of undergraduate college. Why? None of these Core classes are transferable since the Core is a unique curriculum to Columbia and has been a staple requirement for over 100 years. So be prepared to do an extra year if you apply to Columbia.

The admissions criteria are definitely different for transfer students to Ivy schools but the one important consideration is that you have to have a very convincing and compelling reason to defend your application for wanting to be part of the campus. It's not interesting for the admissions office to want another CS major or Pre-Med. major on campus because all the Ivys are filled up on all the typical admits that have shaped their class. So they are looking for someone that "ADDS" to the diversity or will create an "ADDITIONAL" impact on the quality of the campus. This is why you still have to have a compelling narrative if you are to be considered.

For example, let's say you are at the US Air Force Academy but realize that you do not want to be an officer in the USAF as a career but you are very interested in politics and have successfully run for Class President and have spent your free time off base campaigning for political candidates. You want to apply as a Poly Sci major with future hopes to either attend graduate school for Int'l relations or Government studies. A future Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the UK seems very appealing to you. You have a 3.8 GPA at the USAF academy and 2 great recommenders. I think someone like this is an interesting admission for an Ivy.

Good grades and test scores are not enough to fit the narrative these schools are looking for. You have to have a compelling story and argument that 1 of the 8 Ivy colleges would be better off having you than not. And that's not an easy task.

2
1
a year ago

Yes, you will need to supply your high school transcript, even if you are transferring colleges. There are a lot of factors to get into an Ivy League school, good SAT/ACT score, a good Essay, a multitude of ECs. You will need an excellent GPA to get into Ivy League schools though, meaning 4.0+.

1
-1
a year ago

As @JustinNaicker said high school transcript do matter while you transfer colleges.

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And to increase your chances to get into Ivy league college you should try participating in international level enriching opportunities like JCamp etc.

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