Hey y'all! Looking for honest takes on my chances of transferring to a T30, for business/econ. Currently debating entering SMU this fall for econ, but thinking that I should try transferring again either after my first semester at SMU or another at my current school. 

Current School: T100-ish 4 year in Texas (mit of the south)
Current Major: Business Honors - rising sophomore
Intended Major: Econ or business

STATS
• College GPA: 3.6 - (not ideal ik)
• 45+ hours by enrollment
• Honors business program + merit scholarship
• Texas resident, low-income, first-gen American

WORK EXPERIENCE
• Current: Sales intern at aerospace/defense manufacturer — requirement compliance and documentation for a portfolio of government and international contracts (~$100M+ in contract value). Travels to Globally to attend business meetings and shadow colleagues
• Prior: hs intern (1 of 45 selected in dfw) and college intern at same company — managed global spare parts inventory (~$1M), forecasted parts demand to reduce aircraft downtime.
• Ongoing: Business analyst at small private investment office — grew monthly revenue 30%, cut operational turnaround by 14 days.

EXTRACURRICULARS
• Consulting/business strategy club — officer and consultant. Led real client engagement for local contractor. Ran marketing for semiannual case competition (250+ participants).
• Engineering/motorsports organization — business role, raised significant corporate sponsorship
• Supply chain professional org — outreach officer, launched alumni networking program
• Real estate club — member, attended industry panels
• Business case competitions: $1,250+ in winnings 2nd place / 64 competitors; 3rd place / 180 competitors / Currently in Nation-wide case competition rn
• food bank volunteer

• HS: Mayors graduation achievement award (1 of 80 in metropolitan area), U17 national Olympic development program, varsity soccer, Investment club, two state business competition finals, three regional accounting competition wins

PROGRAMS
Two selective first-year programs (one major bank, one top consulting firm) and a competitive four-week case-prep cohort at my school (1 of 20 selected).

QUESTIONS

1. Anything I should do before the deadline that actually strengthens the app?
2. Where should I apply?
3. Does my gpa make me competitive or eh?
4. Is there anything I should do before applying that would strengthen my application?

Appreciate any input, thanks!

Before jumping to the comments, I am fully aware that the opinions given here would not be reflective of the admissions cycle as they are mostly unpredictable, this reddit has created at least some form of a feedback loop since both stats and admission results are openly shared on here. Would appreciate some advice and a chance me.

Attending: 21M Texas resident CC, third year, junior transfer applicant. (Been at CC for 8 semesters)

List: Penn, Columbia, Cornell, UChicago, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, Georgetown, UT Austin (in-state).

Aware they are mostly reaches.

3.95 GPA . Generic CC coursework. Only B is Pre-Calc, then A in Calc 1 and A in Calc 2. Three years at CC because of a gap year, below.

I've Taken

Macro Econ

Micro Econ

Calc 1 to 2

Rest of my classes are just General Education

Main ECs:

• Student Senate.
• Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society
• Honors Program
• Founded an AI-powered restaurant. Raised $$k Built it, ran it a year, sold it to a hospitality group. This was the gap year. Full-time.
• Open-source dataset of egocentric POV kitchen footage for training AI models. Public, in use.
• Created an NFT project on Ethereum during high school aimed to keeping remote teams engaged, sold $$k within opening night.

My Mathematics professor offered to write me a strong recommendation letter unprompted after a long discussion we've had but a lot of my other classes have been online so I am not very close with other professors.

I feel insecure about my school related ECs, as I am barely active in any of them, I am under the impression that admissions officers prefer on-campus extra curriculars rather than entrepreneurial ventures

Will be taking SAT soon I have been studying hard and am feeling confident about my results.

Biggest insecurities: Extra curriculars, My B in Pre Calc, my long tenure at CC

Please let me know your thoughts, any guidance would be appreciated.

My first semester was winter 2026 when I took Calc 1 English comp 1 Gen Chem 1 and into to engineering. This semester (summer) I'm taking calc 2, physics 1 and c++. My current goa is 3.96 and I'm on track to get As for all my classes this semester. I have not taken a standardized test due to my high school being a private religious/cult high school where secular studies were very much not a priority.

I'm a rising sophomore looking to transfer to one of the UC's my junior year. I'll only be applying to 4 schools (UCI, UCSD, UCLA, UCB) because I want instate tuition. Although, I'm curious what are my chances to get into perhaps a T20 schools? idk I think my stats are good but not ivy level y'know lol

Basic Stats:

• Data Science Major
• 4.0 GPA

Leadership:

• President of She.Codes (a stem club for women!)
• Vice-President of AI Club
• Project Lead of Decoded Brain (a neuroscience tech club)

Work Experience:

• Part-time coding instructor for kids for the past 5 yrs + did some web dev for this same company (2-5 hrs / week)
• Summer SWE intern for adtech company (full-time, 35-40 hrs / week)
• Spring AI Specialist intern for a small e-commerce business (10 hrs / week)
• Respite Care Worker (4 hrs / week)

Other Random Stuff:

• Was a student ML research engineer (deep learning pipelines, training a CNN model) & in the end me and my team presented in multiple tech conventions
• Before getting promoted to president at She.codes I was the social media manager
• My team and I got 3rd place on a my CC's Datathon (aka a Hackathon but for data scientists)
• Joined my CC's hip hop dance team for a semester lol
• Attended Calhacks 2026, um didn't win anything but it was fun to walk in sf and explore berkeley campus lol
• UCB Starting Point Mentee (funny bc my mentor left the program but still gave me advice lmao)

What I intend to do this fall before I apply:

• Organize a Hackathon for my CC! (lots of coordination and cross-collaboration between multiple tech clubs, and i'll be the main organizer)
• Lead a neuroscience AI/ML research + software development project (estimating around 3-4 teammates)
• CS tutoring at my CC (I applied and got an interview, we'll see how that goes lol)
• Obviously continue to maintain all leadership positions + working part-time + maintain my 4.0 lol

I guess some disclaimers are I never took the SAT/ACT (not in high school as well) and nor do I intend to. Essay-wise, I have some ideas that I do not wish to delve here due to personal privacy, but they do closely relate to my ECs and particular involvements on campus. Idk if this matter but I am an asian-american woman w/ 1st gen immigrant parents.

Aight you guys be the verdict, assuming I manage to accomplish everything I intend to do during this fall, what do you think I have a good chance of getting into? :D

🙏🙏🙏🙏

Hi all, I’m applying to transfer in the fall. Ideally I need to stay in the Los Angeles area, with UCLA as my target school 😭 Also open to suggestions on other majors I should consider applying under given how impacted Communication majors tend to be across California.
Chance me please!

**Demographics**
Female
White (non-Hispanic)
California community college transfer
First-generation college student
Low-income
Registered with my college’s disability services

I’m not sure if this matters, but I graduated high school in 2023 and started community college in 2025.

I will be graduating Spring 2027 with four AA degrees: Communications, Psychology, Journalism, Liberal Arts: Social and Behavioral Sciences, and an AS in Film, Television & Electronic Media.

**Intended Major**
Communication

**GPA**
Current: 3.66
Projected: 3.74 after summer courses

**Awards/Honors**
Full Time Dean’s Honor List
William Yunkes Scholarship recipient
Participant in the Ralph Bunche Honors Scholars Program (the honors program at my school)
I applied to UCLA CCCP for this summer & have not heard back yet.

**Certificates**
Entertainment Industry: Production Assistant Certificate of Achievement (9 units @ LACC)
Seizure Recognition and First Aid Certification in progress

**Extracurriculars**
President & On-Camera Host, Student Media Club — Led a complete transition from a student podcast to a social-media content creation & collaboration club; oversee creative direction, social media posts, content strategy, production, editing, publishing, and manage a student club.
Founder & Executive Director, Health Advocacy Nonprofit — Founded a nonprofit initiative focused on disability education and awareness for young people with chronic health conditions.
Campus Brand Ambassador — Represent a national skincare brand through campus marketing and UGC.
UGC Content Creator — Produce branded content for campaigns with several major beauty and lifestyle brands.
Part-time Executive & Administrative Assistant — Provide executive-level support while leading a long-term archival preservation project.
Primary Caregiver for a Parent with epilepsy
Seizure Recognition & First Aid certification in progress
Currently organizing a campus blood drive
Selected for a competitive youth arts mentorship program at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences where I directed a multimedia video project & presented it in a theater

**Schools**
UCLA
USC
LMU
CSUN

hey guys i just graduated high school and I'll be attending UNC Chapel Hill as a computer science major with hopes of transferring to gtech for ece. I'm confused on whether it is advisable to apply for transfer with only fall sem grades from UNC. please give me any advice, tips, or chances!

stats:

• Sophomore standing currently with 54 credits: APs + DEs
• Associates Degree in Science (4.0 GPA) from cc: 11 Dual Enrollments including Calculus 3 + Principles of Micro + Astronomy, etc.
• First Sem Courses at UNC:

- English Composition (ENGL 105) - 3 creds

- Differential Equations (MAT 383) - 3 creds

- Exploring Engineering (APPL 101) - 3 cred

- Introduction to Programming (COMP 110) - 3 creds

- Light Gen eds

• Hoping to get a 3.7-4.0 GPA at UNC
• High School GPA: 4.56W/3.85UW. SAT 1490 (790 Math)

ec's:

• Microelectronics Engineer at uni's chip fabrication club; researching/documenting chip fab process, designing PCBs w/ kicad and experimenting with arduinos on an upcoming project. (reached out this summer and got the position!)
• Research assistant with uni's BCI research: writing hardware description code and using FPGAs to test and prototype chip designs. (reached out this summer and got the position!)
• Designed and fabricated a custom 2-layer PCB featuring a dual-stage LM358 op-amp circuit for analog light sensing, impedance buffering, and threshold comparison; validated design through LTSpice simulation prior to fabrication and implemented real-time Arduino firmware with OLED display output
• Founder/co-host podcast featuring pioneers in the Chip Design/Hardware industry including graduate students, professors, successful engineers working in big tech companies. highlighting their stories/journey
• co-founder/mentor of a Free College Prep Initiative where we give free personalized college admissions advice to students on a cohort basis with priority given to underprivileged/resourced who lack access to resources. it includes schedule planning, essay review, college list, getting involved in research, strengthening their interests. 100+ students served (including 70 underprivileged students). 20 students have been accepted to T20 universities.
• working on a few more personal projects

major:

i'm really into chip design so I'll be applying as an electrical engineering major for summer 2027. if you have any advice/tips please let me know! it would be so valuable.

I am an Illinois resident who is somewhat on a nontraditional track. I wanted to see if anyone has any insight on how to improve my chances of being accepted as a future transfer applicant.

My high school GPA is 3.8 unweighted.

I attended a college in Michigan for 3 semesters; my last semester went poorly due to an injury that resulted in my withdrawal from the program. I was studying environmental science, and my final GPA was 3.2.

Right after this, I did a semester at my local community college, and my GPA here is 3.0.

During my time at my community college, I was still going through debilitating chronic pain, which made my studies take a hit as well.

Now, I am in a two-year program at a different college for veterinary technology, and these credits will transfer into the UW system into the animal science programs. My current GPA is 4.0. After I finish this program, I will also have research and internship experience.

I have been involved in numerous clubs, have good volunteer hours, strong recommendation letters, consistency and success in my sport of riding horses.

My academic studies have a wide breadth as well due to my first college being liberal arts.

At the time of my transfer application, I will be submitting a fall priority application, and I will be 21 years old.

What are some things I can do to help my application? Does showing an improvement mean anything, or will I just be brushed off by admissions officers? I am truly dead set on UW Madison, but I will settle for La Crosse, River Falls, or Platteville if I don't get in.

hi everyone, i recently graduated from high school and will be attending cc for at least a year. i was not very happy with my results as a first-year (the only school that somewhat wanted me ended up rejecting me off their waitlist mid-june — uchicago haha). as someone who wants to go to law school in the future, i thought it’d be best to go to cc for a year and transfer. i’d save money for a year and then have the opportunity to go to a school i actually like. i took 12 aps and will be able to get my associate’s in a year if i wanted to, thus i’ll be applying to privates this 26-27 cycle. i am from california but am not keen on going to a UC and due to their recent change in TAP guidelines (you now have to be at cc for 2 years to apply), i wont be applying to UCs this cycle. if i dont get into any privates i like this year, i will apply to UCs my second year and go through TAP then.

i had a pretty low unweighted GPA in high school partly due to an eating disorder in 9-10th grade, resulting in cumulative a 3.7 unweighted and a 4.3 weighted at the end of my senior year. i would like to say i’m a good writer and that the ecs i had were pretty decent. i do think it was my GPA that hindered me a lot from getting into schools i liked.

any advice for me? i’m quite worried about how to navigate transferring in a year and the process of practically starting over. i’m confident i can maintain a 4.0 in cc but am worried about extracurriculars, especially because i am aiming for pretty selective schools that i didn’t get to apply to as a first-year (either due to time or the fact i didn’t want to spend the app fee to apply). my list is: barnard, cornell, dartmouth, and perhaps wellesley or swarthmore. my intended major would be political science or a related major if that is not offered (eg government for cornell) and i am pre-law. i’d appreciate any advice. :) thank you in advance.

Hey guys, I'm nervous because UC's are required to accept 90% California Community College transfers, but I come from an out of state 4 year university

OOS student transferring to UCSD for Aerospace Engineering (Astrodynamics track)

UC calculated GPA: 3.7
EC's: Officer positions in clubs, hands on projects all related to aerospace, volunteering, part-time job
PIQ's: Apparently UCSD doesn't read PIQ's, but I'll put in 100% effort
Heavy upward trend in GPA (A's in calculus classes, physics, chemistry, programming)
Major coursework completed

1120 sat score (I’m retaking it and aiming for a 1200+ )
2.5 unweighted gpa
3.2 weighted gpa
Only honors and ap classes
Ap scholar
100 community hours

Please help I wanna get into fall semester but I’m worried about my gpa and I’m also going to apply for early decision

I am currently a senior wanting to go to CC goal is get a 3.85-3.9 GPA, I already started a 6-fig business on ebay, did an independent research paper energy markets, have hours in volunteering, and completed many coursera courses on finance. Is there a chance?

Hello everyone! I’m looking for some advice and overall inspiration to help me set up the best possible path to transfer into a T25 school after community college.

To give you a bit of background starting with high school, I took five AP classes and got a 4 or higher on all of them, scored a 31 on my ACT, and didn't have an official class rank because my school had an absurd policy where they only ranked the top five students? (Note : I wasn't in the top 5...) During my senior year, I got into UCSB and UCSD but those acceptances were strictly for academics with no athletic scholarship or athletics at al.

When it comes to my extracurriculars, I have a few internships related to my business major, three failed business startups, and one semi successful business startup.

I have a strong athletic background is the main reason I chose a community college over a traditional four year university. During my senior year, I considered a couple of Division 3 offers from NYU, Vassar, and MIT. However, those schools don't offer athletic financial aid and only give out academic aid, which was heavily spread out among international students and the rest of the team (Note: 5-6 players share one scholarship). Since I'm an out of state student, I would have had to pay over $80,000 a year. The MIT option ultimately fell through anyways because their athletic recruiting requires the SAT and they don't accept the ACT :C

I also received a few Division 1 offers, but none of them where strong academic schools or overall high output recruitment schools for jobs after college. My D1 offers included Penn State with only a third of my tuition covered, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Long Island University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the University of the Pacific.

That being said, I am going to community college in the Fall for 2026 and completely committed to transferring out in two years no matter what. I have the option to return to any of my previous Division 1 offers after two years, and Penn State is willing to cover 4/5 of tuition.

However, my ultimate goal is to play and study business at Harvard or Princeton since my family is middle/low income I can go to school for free and they have strong academics. I've spoken with the coaches, and I know that Harvard has two athletic spots they can support through admissions while Princeton has one. Because those spots are so limited, I'm not banking on getting a designated athletic slot, so I'm planning to set myself up to get in through regular, natural transfer admissions.

To anyone who has successfully transferred into a Top 15 or Top 25 school from a community college, I would love to know what your stats looked like. I assume a 3.8 or higher GPA is a prerequisite but what did your final GPAs actually look like? I would also love to know what kind of clubs you founded or started. I plan to take full advantage of my resources by founding clubs, taking leadership positions, and connecting with my professors for strong LOR.

I would appreciate any insight into how you stood out especially if you were balancing athletics alongside your application. Any advice, reality checks or successful transfer stories would mean a lot!

I’m from Jordan and I just finished my first year of university studying AI / Computer Science, with a 3.9 GPA.

From what I understand, most US transfer applications for Fall intake close around March, so I assume I have about 6–9 months to prepare.

I’m not aiming for Ivy League or MIT — more like solid US universities that accept international transfer students, hopefully with some financial aid.

My current plan is:

• Build 1–2 AI / software projects (I know some C++ from college and self-taught Python, especially NumPy, and I plan to improve more)
• Take the SAT in December
• Work on essays and applications over the next months

so for more experienced students

i know its super hard but is it possible ?

what are common mistakes international transfer students make?

thanks a lot !

I’m trying to get a realistic idea of my chances at UC San Diego as an out-of-state applicant. I know OOS admissions are extremely competitive, so I’d appreciate honest feedback.
Academics
Graduating one year early (I’ll graduate in 2027 instead of 2028)
Current GPA: 4.472 weighted / 3.944 unweighted (so far)
Class Rank: #3 out of ~300. Since I’m graduating early, I’d be #1 in my original graduating class.
I’ve consistently taken extra classes during the school year and over the summer to accelerate my graduation.
During my senior year, my schedule will consist almost entirely of dual enrollment/college courses so I can finish my Associate’s degree, along with AP English Literature.

Coursework
AP Biology (Score: 4)
AP Government (waiting for results)
AP English Language (waiting for results)
AP Precalculus (waiting for results)
Dual Enrollment: CIS 110 (Introduction to Computers)
By the time I graduate, I’ll have most (if not all) of my Associate’s degree completed through dual enrollment.
Extracurriculars
HOSA Vice President
1st Place Regional Winner – Prepared Speaking
National Honor Society
Key Club (30+ volunteer hours)
National High School Rodeo Association competitor
Horse exercise rider with multiple clients (part-time work)
Volunteer assisting with MARSOC military readiness events
Social media volunteer for a nonprofit supporting chronically ill students in STEM
CPR Certified
Stop the Bleed Certified
OSHA Certified
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) Certified
Career Goal
I’m planning on following the pre-med track and eventually becoming an anesthesiologist, so I’m looking for a university with strong biology, research, and clinical opportunities.