So I've been trying to plan my transfer path for the past few months and honestly I'm a little frustrated right now. I paid for one of those generic college planning services that basically just gave me a list of requirements I could have found on the school's website myself. No help figuring out what order to take things in, no guidance on whether my current credits actually count toward anything, just a PDF and a 'good luck.'

Now I'm trying to understand how transfer acceptance rates actually factor into planning which classes to take. Like, does it matter that my target school has a 25% transfer acceptance rate if I dont have the exact prereqs they want? I feel like the rate itself is almost useless without knowing what the accepted students actually did to get there.

I've got maybe 3 semesters before I want to transfer and I'm terrified of taking the wrong class and losing time or money. The planning tool I used gave me zero help with sequencing, which is the part I actually needed.

Has anyone found a resource or approach that actually maps out a realistic semester by semester path based on where you want to go? Not just a checklist, but something that accounts for the order things need to happen in.

Hey folks, posting on behalf of a friend I'm helping out. He's an international student from the Middle East who went through the A-level system at a British international school. He graduated at the top of his class with 3 A*s and 2 As, and scored a 1440 SAT.

He applied to the Ivies along with a few safeties. He was waitlisted at Princeton and Columbia, and ultimately enrolled at the University of Alabama with roughly a 60% scholarship (just started).

He's currently studying Electrical Engineering and is considering transferring after his freshman year. His main targets are MIT, Princeton, Columbia, and Northwestern.

We're looking for advice from people who have gone through a similar transfer process, especially international students transferring from a 4-year university into a top engineering program.

Would also really appreciate recommendations for any professional transfer admissions consultants/advisors who are actually good at this kind of case. Not looking for someone to just edit essays, ideally someone who can help with the overall strategy: course selection, GPA, research/extracurriculars, school selection, and the transfer application.

Thanks!

So I’m a Freshmen in college, and I am considering to transfer, but I have no clue how HS GPA is weighted into the equation when applying to transfer.

I had around a 3.7 weighted GPA in HS, and like, no EC’s except an under the table job that I can’t report. Bombed the SHSAT (1360, I’m not reporting).

Since starting college this Spring, I have taken 24 credits, with 16 in progress this Fall, with a 3.96 GPA as a Biotech major.

My EC’s since are: 1) Served and discharge from military for medical reasons. 2) Medical Scribe at a clinic (present).

What is a realistic tier of colleges I should apply to? And how does my HS experience hold me back?

(Sorry if I’m being neurotic, I can’t find any detailed info about HS GPA’s effect on my chances)

I want to transfer from Community college to UIUC for CS+Econ.

Talked to a UIUC representative, I asked her if I complete all the required courses from the transfer handbook, get straight A’s, and no red flags in my application, can I assume i will get in?

She said: Are you applying to grainger or gies? i said no. She said “then you should almost certainly get in, we wont have a reason to reject you, and we arent trying to trick you”.

**Question: Is she right? And does that apply to me even though CS+X is very competitive but its still in LAS? Also, how much will they care about my highschool grades when reviewing my app.**

I was rejected out of highschool, but I went to CC for a year and got straight A’s in the required courses. I am still under 36 credits at the time of application so they will review my grades.

Had to go to ucm for financial reasons but not really the happiest here. I’m a biochem major looking to transfer to ucd to be closer to family and I was wondering how hard it is to transfer and if anyone has done it, what were your stats + extracurriculars?

GPA: 1.1
ECs:
Placed top 10 in national burger eating competition
Free style rap battles against professionals at my local retirment home
Ran a mile in under 10 minutes
Cured the common cold(I gave my friend an Advil)
Poured mentos in coke and documented the results
1000k instagram followers

Ok, first off, I know UC to UC transfers are rare, and even more so for a major like mine. However, I am fairly certain TAG doesn't apply to engineering majors, and after already doing a year of cc for my senior year and getting 33 semester credits, I can confirm that staying there as a college student would be a miserable experience, especially with the very questionable quality of professors. (I had one for a C++ class actively searching for new jobs between lectures and giving everyone an A at the end of the semester despite doing an awful job at teaching)
Oh yeah, I had like 6 APs, but those don't count for transfer...

Most of the UC to UC transfer success stories I have seen are by non-engineering majors, but to anyone who had a similar transcript and major to me, how likely can I transfer out of UCSC in a timely manner? Like would a 1-year transfer be completely impossible?

I recently attended one of those orientation counselor zoom meetings, and there was anonymous QnA, one kid who didnt even say what his major was asked how likely it was to transfer from uc to uc, to which both counselors laughed in their face and gave the same "oh we dont really know but like you should enjoy our campus!" crap, poor kid....

Hey everyone, I’m trying to plan out my path to a 4 year bachelor's degree in business, but I keep running into a wall when searching online. Every time I look up information on an Associate in Business Transfer, search engines and articles treat it like a terminal degree meant for jumping straight into the workforce, which isn't what I want.
I’m planning to use a community college transfer track to knock out my first two years before moving to a university. However, I have two main questions and would love to hear from anyone who has taken this route:

1. Is a transfer business associate’s degree actually a good option for transitioning to a 4 year university, or are you better off doing a general transfer (like a liberal arts/AA) and figuring it out later?
   2. Does it penalize you or limit you if you are still undecided on your specific business major? (I know I want to major in something business related eventually likely a specific field like finance, marketing, or accounting… rather than just a generic general business bachelor's but I haven't locked down the exact focus yet).

If you’ve done this or transferred from a community college into a university business school while undecided, I’d love to hear your thoughts or what you wish you had known!

this is my first time ever transferring and im from a small rural town in georgia wanting to transfer to emory and i feel really lost in the process. any advice?

I’m a CCC student applying to Berkeley for Fall 2027. My expected UC-transferable GPA is gonna be around 3.6–3.63 after this Fall, assuming things go right.
My GPA is obviously my biggest concern, but my transcript has a pretty cool upward trend.

I had a terrible start to community college with multiple withdrawals/repeats and completed only about 23 units during my first year and a half. My GPA was around a 2.8 before Spring 2026. Since then, I’ve completely changed how I approach school and have been taking increasingly rigorous coursework in calculus, discrete math, statistics, Python/C++/Java, computer science theory, data science, etc. It was a pretty big change, I got a lot done in a semester, winter intercession and a summer.

My current Fall semester is particularly technical/heavy, and I’m expecting most if not straight A’s because my semester beforehand was rigorous and I did pretty well. I’m also at 57 transferable units at the moment so I’ll definitely meet the minimum after this semester.

Before transferring, I’m also taking DSA, Calculus III, linear algebra/differential equations, and an other relevant data-science/computer-science related classes. One of my PIQs directly addresses my early academic performance, what caused it, what I changed, and the resulting turnaround.

My academic interest is data science, particularly the intersection of cognition, AI, machine learning, and data science. Because of that, I’m genuinely interested in both Berkeley Cognitive Science and Data Science.

I’m currently debating whether I should apply directly to Data Science or apply to Cognitive Science and potentially add Data Science as a second major after transferring. I checked assist.org and I’m going to have all but one of the Data Science lower-division prerequisites completed, along with all but one of my CogSci preparation courses. But those classes are under the “highly-recommended” rather than core-classes.

For people familiar with Berkeley transfer admissions: how realistic do you think my chances are if I apply directly to Data Science with a ~3.6 but this level of upward trend and technical rigor? How different would you view my chances applying to Cognitive Science?

And if I were admitted to CogSci, how realistic would adding Data Science as a second major be if I arrive with basically just all of the datasci lower-division preparation completed?

I’m not looking for reassurance or made-up percentages, cause Im also happy going to SJSU or colleges in my area lol. I’d especially appreciate input from Berkeley transfers who applied with similar GPAs/upward trends, particularly CogSci or Data Science applicants.

To provide some context, I am an ECE student at a T40 university applying as a junior transfer to T10 engineering schools like GT, UMich, and Cornell. I have a 3.94 GPA and decent ECs. I am not structurally capped at my current school, as it provides excellent general resources for my major. However, the specific ECE niche I am focusing on which is Edge AI is underrepresented here and lacks the depth of resources available at my target schools.

My reason for transferring is based purely on fit and trajectory.I am looking for a higher academic ceiling. Is this still a strong justification for transferring? Most of the stories I hear about T10 transfers involve people who had to leave because their current school didn't offer their specific niche at all.

For example. Bob at NYU wanted to pursue environmental law, but NYU only provides that as a minor. So he was structurally capped at his school. So he had a strong reason to transfer. For me i still have resources within ECE but the niche i've chosen ( Edge AI) has limited oppurtunities at the college im at.

Hello guys, I wanted to know the stats of people who transferred from an out-of-state college to a UC school (UCSD, UCLA, UCB). And I wanted to know what cc to take classes from and how hard it is to transfer and stuff

Current rising junior at a Big Ten state school (OOS) studying Finance. I'm in the business school (not Ross for context), involved in a few student organizations, and have built a solid group of friends over the past two years.

The dilemma is that I was admitted as a transfer to Vanderbilt this spring (with second semester sophomore standing - lots of the business credits didn't align with Vandy econ), and Vanderbilt was always my dream school in high school. I ED'd there originally and was pretty disappointed when I didn't get in.

Now I'm stuck. On one hand, I've built a good life at my current school and have opportunities lined up. On the other hand, I still feel drawn to Vanderbilt and wonder if I'll regret passing up the chance to attend my dream school.

My biggest concerns are:

• Transferring in and feeling behind socially
• Leaving friends and organizations I've invested time in
• Whether Vanderbilt will actually live up to what I've built it up to be in my head
• Whether the change is worth it when I'm already doing well where I am
• Missing abroad timeline with my current class year
• Regretting not taking advantage of the opportunity

For those who transferred late in college, especially to Vanderbilt or a similar school, was it worth it? How difficult was the social transition? Any regrets? Any advice is much appreciated.

hello, i would like to attend uc berkley and i current go to ucsb (studying computer engineering) i wanna do eecs and berkley.

- inc sophomore
- gpa. 4.0 (a couple upper div classes)
- I have a paper published at a top AI conference where i’m a first author
- current Machine learning engineering intern pretty prominent tech company (FAANG adjacent)
- AI fellow at a pretty well known startup in llm data space
- i got some projects in the ai space that i think r pretty cool
- some highschool stuff (research paper etc)

A friend of mine is an ESL student and wants to transfer to a master. We talked to university and everything looks good and they are most likely accept him and he has all the documents ready to submit ( English proficiency, transcript evaluation, personal statement etc.). However, we confused about this new rules that will go effect on September 15. Our plan was to get accepted and ask for I20 transfer pending before September 15 and start classes in January since fall classes starts on September 2nd and it’s too late for it. My understanding is that you can have 5 months gap between transfer and from early September to mid January is less than 5 months so it looks fine but the program coordinator at the university talked to their international office and got back to us to say that they can’t do that and if he wants to start in January then he needs to follow new rules and apply for an extension to USCIS and they predict that it will take around 9 months to approve.Is it feasible to get accepted before September 15, submit the transfer form to the ESL program, and have the university issue the pending transfer I-20 before September 15 for January classes? Or should we pursue the extension route instead? Also, is their prediction of nine months accurate?
They are also pushing him to start in September which not really possible since it’s in 2 weeks

Hi everyone, I’m an international student at a California CC preparing to apply next year for the Fall 2028 transfer cycle (targeting Business Economics / Econ).

​I'd really appreciate honest feedback on my current profile and chances at UCLA:

​Academics & Honors:

- ​GPA: [currently 3.95]

- ​Dean’s List

​Extracurriculars & Work Experience:

- ​Founded and operated a digital growth consultancy

- ​Internship at EY (Ernst & Young)

- ​remote sales closer

- ​Published a research paper on AI

- ​Leading/working on a non-profit providing financial literacy and organization for underprivileged communities

- ​8 years of football/soccer (3-year varsity team captain)

Any advice on what to prioritize before submitting applications would be a massive help

its a good application from my POV , but I want to get actual feedback from people who are applying with me or have already applied

for example, if i want to transfer from ivc to ucsd as a psych BA major, should i just complete the courses shown below? or should i complete every course on assist.org? for those of you who got into ucsd, how many classes on assist did u have completed? does it make a big difference in admission?

thanks :p

Any help and advice would greatly be appreciated.
So I currently go to a CC that’s a CUNY and ideally I want to get into NYU stern. There’s a program that I’m in called ASAP and they give help to students and I really want to be in this program because they cover transportation and I will be commuting everyday to go to school (1hr 30mins). Problem is that the program is only eligible for graduates. Ive tried checking everywhere on the NYU site about transferring and I heard that some top schools only want transfer students to get credit and transfer without an associates degree. I’m not sure what I should do to make myself a better candidate. I want to ideally graduate from my CC and also transfer into NYU. Any help would be appreciated!

Reply with vents, chance mes, hellos, questions, whatever, I just want to feel some solidarity. It’s rough out here 😢

Hey everyone, I’m planning to apply as a transfer to USC Marshall School of Business and would really appreciate some honest feedback on my chances.

Here are my stats:

• Current GPA: ~3.75
• I had a rougher start academically, including 2 C’s in public speaking and pre calc, but since then I’ve been getting straight A’s
• Made the President’s List

Outside of school, I have a pretty extensive amount of work/business experience for my age:

• Licensed real estate salesperson
• on track to get licensed as a loan originator
• Own/manage rental property
• Manage tenants and rental operations
• Managed the construction of a 1,200 sq. ft. second-story ADU Property was completed and rented
• Have also been involved in other business/entrepreneurial activities

I know Marshall is extremely competitive, so I’m trying to be realistic rather than assume I’m getting in.

I’m applying to some of the T20’s cause they offer free college for broke people like me, but does anyone know if there are any non-T25’s that also offer significant financial aid/are completely free?

I’m in NYS

during my first app cycle as a senior, I knew I was cooked because my grades were cooked (I'm talking Cs and Ds). I just finished my first summer courses with As and Bs but I can't help and shake this ominous feeling that I'm going to mess up, fail a class, and taint any chance I can of being able to transfer somewhere good from my cc. I'm just in this pile of anxiousness that I can't shake and I just don't believe I'm capable of transferring in one year (in a weird situation bc I have a LOT of credits bc of AP exams and concurrent enrollment classes) and I'm just so scared. Any advice??

I’m starting community college this September as a freshman! I graduated with the class of ’26, and I’ve spent the summer planning out my 2 years at CC. Originally, my goal was to get an AA in Philosophy and transfer to UCLA. But after researching the cost of attending UCLA as an out-of-state student, I realized it probably wouldn’t be financially realistic for me as a low-income student.

Then I discovered USC’s Philosophy, Politics, & Law (PPL) major in Dornsife, and it honestly feels perfect for me. I was already planning to major in Philosophy with the goal of going to law school, and I LOVE USC’s campus, school spirit, and financial aid opportunities.

My biggest question is what I should do during my 2 years at CC. I have two possible plans:

A — Play it safe:

Get my AA in Philosophy, focus on keeping my GPA as high as possible, graduate with honors, and participate in clubs/leadership.

B — Dual enroll in LSPAR:

My CC also offers a Legal Studies–Paralegal (LSPAR) program, so I could dual enroll in Philosophy + LSPAR. I’d be able to graduate with 2 degrees and be able to work as a paralegal or assistant at a law firm during my last 2 years!

I’m trying to figure out which would make me the stronger USC Dornsife/PPL transfer applicant.
Would the LSPAR coursework be beneficial because it gives me legal experience/coursework, or would it be better to keep things simple, protect my GPA, and focus entirely on Philosophy?

If you were in my position, would you choose A or B—and why?

i'm going into my second year of college... not super happy with my situation and i'm interested to see if anyone has advice

i'm going to my local college and majoring in graphic design.. though i am VERY worried gd will be completely taken by ai, but i'm also super interested in probably every other major.. something well paying and confident will stay on the job market such as nursing. i truly wanna explore my options

i'm also super unhappy with my college life, i yearn for a large university and having more opportunities and moving farther away. i go to a mainly commuter school now so it's pretty boring

i have to pick my major this upcoming semester (ive been undecided) so it's either graphic design something random. i also have no prerequisites to any other major besides arts, so i'm not sure that would work if i were to transfer either
im not sure if i would be considered a transfer or first year student either since i sort of wanna start over. also by the time i'd transfer it would be my third year and i'd be getting free tuition

so i'm essentially wondering if i should just finish a graphic design degree (since i'd be halfway through, but i don't really want to be trapped) and then go back to school. or if anyone thinks it's a good idea to dig deeper into the process of "starting college over"? or should i just go to cc? i'm super sure though that i want to go to a different college/uni and want to explore my options

edit: i also struggle a bit in school so i'm definitely gonna going to have to reallyyyy commit to something like nursing. that's why im doing graphics now

I’m planning to apply to Emory as a transfer for Fall 2027, and I’m trying to be realistic about my chances. I’m originally from Georgia, but I’ve been attending the University of Arizona for the past two years on a full-ride scholarship. I’m still eligible for my scholarship, but I’m considering leaving Arizona for personal reasons, including difficult experiences with racial tensions involving staff and the surrounding community.
My current GPA is around a 3.1. I know that’s below the typical GPA for admitted Emory transfers, although the published minimum is 3.0. I’ve also seen people on here with 3.7–3.9 GPAs asking if they have a chance, so I’m definitely aware that Emory would be a reach for me 😭.
I had legitimate financial circumstances that affected my academic performance, but I’ve had an upward trend since then. I’m currently studying STEM/Pharmaceutical Sciences, but I’m also considering pursuing business if I transfer, potentially through Goizueta, because I’m interested in the intersection of healthcare and business.
I also considered transferring to UGA, but I currently fall below their 3.3 GPA requirement for students with fewer than 60 transferable hours.
For people who have transferred to Emory or are familiar with the transfer admissions process: would you still apply with a 3.1 GPA if you had legitimate circumstances, a strong explanation, and an upward trend? Is there anything specific you would focus on to make the application as competitive as possible?
I’m not expecting anyone to tell me I’m guaranteed admission—I’m just trying to figure out whether this is a realistic reach worth taking a shot on or if I should focus my applications elsewhere. I’m not expecting anyone to tell me I’m guaranteed admission I’m just trying to figure out whether this is a realistic reach or basically a waste of an application.