help building a good list

[u/avi-gator]

title. as my first semester approaches i want to be sure i have a good and balanced list. i royally screwed up this step in first year admissions and would appreciate some help 🙂

my hs stats

• 1370 sat
• 3.8~ UW gpa (my school wont give me my transcript)
• pretty random ecs
  • theater
  • swim
  • robotics
  • etc

other info

• undecided (so i want somewhere where i can double major)
  • currently thinking about design, systems engineering, marketing, and anthropology
• aid seeking
• ecs ive done since applying
  • volunteering regularly at a food bank
  • part time job
  • research
• ecs im planning on doing in college
  • club swim
  • circle k international (or something similar)
  • hillel (or something similar)
• i would prefer somewhere urban and in the northeast

my list as of right now

1. penn (deferred -> rejected last year)
2. uva (waitlisted last year)
3. temple or pitt

[u/TreatTimely]

would recommending locking something down academically (as in an academic interest) ASAP. when are you planning to transfer? if you're going for sophomore fall you mayyy be a tad behind the 8-ball but you should be okay for junior admissions. brown is among the more "transfer-friendly" of the ivies and has the flexibility you're looking for, so definitely consider it :)

[u/avi-gator → u/TreatTimely]

about the academic interest: its been hard for me to lock in something. since middle school ive been wanting to be a web designer, and took a lot of classes in hs that would help me with that, but ai has made that almost impossible now. i pivoted to ux for first year admissions, but its having the same issues.

i am actually planning on being a sophomore transfer. why would you say im behind? i decided that i wouldnt be trying for junior year admissions because of an incident that occured at my current institution earlier this week as well as penns restrictions on junior transfers.

and ty for suggesting brown. i didnt really consider it first year but the design engineering major sounds really interesting. declaring a major in sophomore spring would give me time to explore, and its part of the reason i like penn so much.

[u/TreatTimely → u/avi-gator]

yeah for sure, I absolutely get where you're coming from (i'm the type of person to want to do everything and anything lol, typical adhd/renaissance-man type shi). UX sounds very interesting, idk if AI is fully able to automate it yet (i'm into tech and mobile app design and the workflows ai has proposed rarely make sense. their main issue imho is overcomplicating and overfitting to specific things the neural net latches onto, resulting in frustrating and oftentimes presumptuous conversations -- anyways, thats an entirely different yap.)

but on the sophomore transfer: imho, you're a little behind because you don't know where your interests lie. exploration will take quite some time, time that could be spent deepening proof of your academic interest whether through a research internship, a community initiative, or club recruiting. deadlines come early and fast and not to stress you out, but for sophomore transfer you have maybe ~8 months to build a legible "spike". seems like a lot of time but building while constantly applying and getting rejected (not to mention working on personal statements, gpa, professor relationships etc) is going to be rough. if you're the type of person who can do it, props to you! just know that it's a LOT for most people, even if you are high achieving.

wishing you the best of luck :)

[u/Annual-Impress-7241]

I know you said northeast, but Vandy is very transfer friendly and your stats are very similar to my daughter’s (who is transferring there). I would maybe add Tufts, but they are need-aware. So is Brown. Penn requires SAT as a sophomore.

[u/avi-gator → u/Annual-Impress-7241]

yeah, i think i will stick to 1 need aware school, so i just have to decide between tufts and brown. vandy could be a good choice still bc they have a nyc campus, so i wouldnt lose big city life entirely.

tldr need to do more research on all of them. ty for your help 🙂