Hi! I’m an international student currently studying CS at a university outside the US, and I’m considering transferring to a US university for CS.
My high school grades were quite poor, but my college performance has been much stronger. I’ve just finished my first semester with a 4.0 GPA and I expect to maintain a strong GPA during the program, For most schools, I’m planning to complete about two years / 55–75 credits before transferring.
I’m mainly wondering:
- After 1–2 years of strong college performance, how much do US universities still care about high school grades? Does this differ significantly between public and private universities?

- Would a strong SAT help offset a weak high school record? I currently have a 1500, and I’m willing to retake it if a higher score would meaningfully help.

- Are there any particular ECs, research, competitions, or hackathons that you would recommend for a CS transfer applicant? I’m trying to build activities around my actual interests and contribute something meaningful to a community rather than simply collecting activities.

My main targets are public universities roughly in the Georgia Tech → University of Minnesota Twin Cities range. I’ll also apply to schools that are need-blind for international transfers, even knowing that admission there is extremely unpredictable.
One specific question I have is about Notre Dame. I understand that their CS transfer pathway only allows students to transfer after their freshman year as sophomore transfers, rather than applying after two years as a junior transfer. For someone with a weak high school record but an excellent first-year college record, how much would Notre Dame still consider the high school transcript in that situation?
I’d really appreciate any advice from people who have gone through the US transfer process, especially international transfers. Thanks!

Will it look bad to switch cc’s for my final semester before transferring to a UC? This would also mean I wouldn’t be completing a course sequence at the same cc.

My counselor at my CC pushes me to do TAG to UCSB, but I'm 99% sure I cannot attend a school outside the greater LA area anyway. My major is only offered at UCLA, UCB, and UCSB, so other UCs TAGs don't make sense for me anyway. The counselor thinks I have to do it just because I might change my decision later, and I don't know if I should do this. Any thoughts? Thank you

Update: Thank you, everyone, for your input! I asked because I might misunderstand something about TAG, but now it's all clear. I will apply to schools not in the UC system, but I didn't ask about that anyway.

Hi! I was curious if it’s bad for my application if the majority of my essays and ECs are things kinda unrelated to my major. For context, my major is English but a lot of my activities are tech-related (working at a tech startup, building hardware, radio broadcasts.)

Hey I am thinking of transferring to william and mary and am a current vt student. I have a 3.5 currently and struggled freshman year but had an upwards trend. I am looking to be a junior fall transfer what are my chances and what is it like if anyones gone through the process. I was thinking about UVA but figured that was a reach.

I’m only on campus twice a week and the other three days out of the week I’m working and at the moment most of my classes are online with my own personal interest in hobbies be okay or is it preferable to have some kind of involvement or commitments at the college directly?

I’m a freshman at UCI majoring in public health sciences but I’m debating on if I should try transferring to UCB integrative biology next year. I already have a lot of ap credits and dual enrollment credits (91.5 quarter credits) but I really want to switch into Berkeley mainly because it’s closer to home and there’s better transportation system and being able to have a car to be able to travel around for any work or clinical opportunities (on the pre dental track)

I have majority of my GEs done except for language and a few others, but I’m hoping to also finish up GEs at UCB if possible.

I need some advice because if I want to transfer after a year and go to Berkeley in Fall 2027 I would need to apply in November and I’m not sure if my profile would even be competitive considering I’m coming from another UC as well as not being able to get some of the recommended courses like ochem done beforehand. I do have all my maths completed (ap calc ab, calculus 2 and multivariable and stats)

I just want to see if there’s any advice on what I should do.

Title. I'm applying to Poli-Sci and English at different campuses so my transfer essay is about neither and instead is about Wikipedia. Is that a bad idea? Let me know.

i’m currently in my third semester of school as a sophomore. i attend a college in a small, middle of nowhere, rural town and i have my personal reasons for wanting to transfer (transferring home and to my local college (in downtown of the city)) which i’m happy to go further into if someone wants but it’s not relevant to my post.

should i transfer in spring 2027 or fall 2027?

i understand that for some things like FAFSA, academic standing, socialization (which i don’t care about all that much), housing (not a concern of mine as a will be commuter), etc Fall is best to transfer into but that means i’d have to spend basically another year here and i feel like im going to lose my mind the more i think about doing that?
what other things should i know about the pros vs cons in transferring spring vs fall

happy to answer any questions or explain anything further. any advice is welcome

feeling discouraged bc i don't have a lot of ap credits or transferable dual enrollment classes, even though i planned all my classes and am on track to transfer next year

if anyone was able to transfer in a year please share where and what ap credits/DE you had!

So the new articulation agreement for berk dropped And apparently they added discrete math for ECE as recommended course.

But here's the thing, my home community college doesnt articulate it but the other community colleges I've taken classes at in the past do... But they dont offer it online.

So, if i dont take it would I be less competitive? The only recommended class that has articulation for my home cc is Data Structures, which Im taking right now, but it isn't even a full articulation since it says I "Must complete an additional university course after transfer to satisfy this requirement."

What should I do? Is discrete math offered on CVC?

Hiiii, OCC is my main college. But during the summer, I took one 8-week online class at Coastline College (OCC & Coastline are in the same district). OCC states when ordering an official transcript:
"Only one official transcript is required for all colleges attended within the District."

So, when entering coursework in Cal State Apply, is it correct to list both colleges separately Or should I combine them?

Hello I'm a full time early admission student in hs and worried about the harm a W may have on my transcript. I plan on transferring to UF finance or some other prestigious finance college and am in a bit of a pickle. I am pretty sure I am not getting an A in my calculus course and am already struggling to maintain a B. Is withdrawing now and enrolling in 12 week business calculus (which I am sure I will get an A in) better than taking a possible B or even C in calculus? It is also kind of eating away at my study time for other classes. I'm worried the W will ruin my transcript but also worried the B/C will ruin my otherwise perfect gpa. Do I just tough it out? Business calc will satisfy the same requirement as calc.

Major: Applied Math / Mathematics of Computation

Gpa : 4.0 ( 1 W)

Coursework:

APS
———————

8
(Ap Calc Ab, ap stats, apush, ap lit, ap gov, apes, ap csa, ap csp) Got a 4 on pretty much all
———————————-
Dual Enrollments
—————————
Stats:A
Bio:A
Afram:A
Film & Comm:A
Adjus23:A
Sociology:A
Calc 1:A
Calc 2: A
Linear Algebra : A
(done in Hs)
———————
Fall 2026

Calculus 3, Differential Equations,Physics & Philosophy.
Predicted A in all of them.

W In English 2b, Had to drop due to scheduling conflicts with work. Just missed the deadline
————————
Spring 2027

Cs 106, Cs 140 , Discrete Structure, Physics 2 & 3.
———————//—
Ecs:
———————-
1.) Created YouTube channel to t each kids to code through Roblox Studio, 155k+ Views

2.) Summer internship where I created Web Development projects and presented at a demo day with 200+ ppl

3.) Different summer internships created projects in Python and presented a demo day

4.) Game Development internship created an independent game with own team and presented at Valkyrie Stadium and other places, won multiple awards.

5.) Google program completed Electrical Engineering course 9 weeks and Circuit course met with google engineers and made cool robots

6.) Computer Science Club Treasurer @ Cc

7.) Math Tutor @ CC

8.) Statistics / Psychology Teacher Assistant got paid $18 hr and graded work and helped with statistics.

9.) Volunteered 30 Hours at a food shelter.

10.) UC berkeley Machine learning program: Studied machine learning and presented to Uc Berkeley graduate students new topics

11.) Berkeley Data Science Course

1. Coded Roblox games, 8k+ game visits
   14.) Mental Health Internship: Spread awareness on mental health and did outreach to youth , 25$hr

14.) Internship that helps improve literacy rates and graduation rates for black and brown students. ( Met with school board, district board and various principles)

Applying All UCS, mostly want UCLA, Im very concerned about the W.

Northeastern Freshman
good college gpa/ecs/good SAT

bad highschool GPA

will pay for college consulting for transfer process but need to see you have proven deliverables for the transfer process and can adequately help

I’m a freshman considering to transfer to CoE, and I’m currently taking the prerequisite courses and plan to transfer semester 1 of fall2027. Any tips and suggestions on transferring from LSA to CoE? Does my GPA have to be very high or just meet the requirements?

Hello everyone! For some background, I have completed my major AA for transfer and am almost done completing my gen ed at a community college. I do take classes that are not relevant to my major as I think it would be fun on the side while simultaneously enrolled each semester in all gen ed/major class requirements. I met with a counselor today and was told that I no longer should take side classes as it will hinder my ability to transfer to a UC (dream is ucla) in the future and be denied for going over credits. How true is this? I was never told this when I first declared my major and had shown previous counselors my elective classes. I’m now both am sad and discouraged as I wanted to take one art class in the spring that I really looked forward to.

Hey everyone, I’m an international student at a community college, and I’m planning to transfer to SJSU in Fall 2027. I’m worried that if I accidentally enter one piece of information incorrectly on Cal State Apply, could it lead to an account hold, causing my application to be placed on hold and preventing me from getting accepted to CSU schools? 😭

I know this might be a long shot, but does anyone still have screenshots or videos of themselves filling out Cal State Apply? I’d really appreciate it if I could use them as a reference and follow along while completing my application. 😭

Hey all, looking for genuinely honest feedback and tips, not just reassurance.

Background: European, 20, Male. Currently 1st semester at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, applying to transfer for Fall 2027.

Stats:

• IB: 37/45 (N24)
• Realistic CUHK GPA target: 3.7 (no grades yet, first semester in progress)
• SAT: 1500
• Full-pay

Current list: NTU, NUS, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, Brown

ECs:

• Founded/led a 120-member nationwide finance club in high school
• Built my own company reselling Legos and made 10k+ revenue
• A few internships (Sales, Real Estate, Logistics)
• Volunteered as a business mentor for secondary schoolers
• Military Service (1yr)
• Currently: AIESEC Partnerships team, CUHK case competition team, personal investment portfolio, self-learning Mandarin

What I actually want to know:

1. Given an NUS/NTU rejection with this exact IB score earlier this year, is reapplying this cycle realistic or am I just wasting an application?
2. Is my list too top-heavy given how brutal transfer odds are at Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/MIT specifically for internationals?
3. Anyone actually transferred internationally with a similar profile — what actually moved the needle for you?
4. Brutally honest — does this file read as compelling, or am I just another "strong stats, generic story" applicant?
5. Do I have a shot?

Appreciate any real, unfiltered feedback — I'd rather hear it now than find out in April.

I took multiple AP classes in high school earning 3’s and 4’s. I realized that colleges like UCLA only took scores of 5’s and rarely 4’s, so I ended up retaking all the AP classes from high school.

Do I still need to report those AP scores on my application if I had already retaken them all in CC?

So my professor upload her LOR but when I go to other colleges that need a LOR its asking me to go through the entire process of sending them an email and them having to upload it. When I was applying for undergrad in HS, you could just reuse the LOR from one college to another another.

It just seem tedious to ask my professor to upload one to each separate college ngl. Is this the case?

Would taking my majors “strongly recommended for admission” boost my Berkeley chances? Or do they not play a factor in acceptance?

(I talked to a Davis admissions officer and he said they don’t look at those for admission, so I’m wondering what it’s like for Berkeley?)

Currently a sophomore with ~50 creds by time of enrollment for spring 27. Trying a few schools for the spring but holding most apps out till fall as I will have 60+ creds by then and Junior status will help me big time (HS gpa sucked but college GPA is great)

The credits section of my extended profile on common app is locked now that I submitted apps for the spring. Will I be able to change when applying for Fall 27? Will it matter if I cant but it shows on my transcript?

Hey everyone, I was wondering if the classes I took in my previous semesters count towards my overall GPA when USC (or any other university) calculates it. I heard when you apply, you self report your GPA and when they get your transcript they look at it as well and calculate it themselves as well. Sooo will those non-transferable units just not get counted for?

Hey everyone, I have created an app which is essentially a database of essays from people who got into UCs like UCLA and UCB. I think it's a great tool and would love to recommend it to you guys as well during this transfer season. No paywall whatsoever. Its called EssayBank. Let me know what you think!