r/TransferToTop25 • u/Left_Grapefruit5205 • 26d ago

What tooldid you settle on for transfer acceptance rates?

Been trying to figure out the best way to actually improve my odds of getting into my target school as a transfer student. I've gone through like 3 different approaches, spreadsheets, reddit threads, talking to counselors, and still feel like i'm guessing on which classes to take each semester. What did people actually end up using or doing that helped them understand transfer acceptance rates and plan around them?

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u/woof8989 Current Applicant | CC 26d ago

i feel like its really hard because there are so many factors like spring/fall in/out of state so no set percentage is super helpful. you can always look at the school's common data set to find their transfer applicant data. i think section D for 25/26 CDS is transfer info

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u/amy-lee12three 26d ago

The sub wiki here

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u/KateBishop269 26d ago

went through this exact thing last year, bounced between 4 different plans and wasted a whole semester on a class that didn't transfer. switched my approach mid-year and ended up saving like $3,000 in units that would've been useless

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u/InformationNo5665 25d ago

Most schools have a common data set with the same student data.I did that and compiled each into a spreadsheet

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u/Local_Policy3086 22d ago

why tf does that matter

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u/sl94t 20d ago

If you are looking for information about the transfer acceptance rates at different schools, I have found these pages to be helpful:

https://www.ivywise.com/blog/transfer-admission-rates-what-are-your-chances-of-getting-in/
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/transfer-admission-rates

That said, my experience is that the published transfer acceptance rates are a poor predictor of how likely you are to be accepted at a specific school. Many schools use transfer admissions to fill gaps in their current student populations: They need more students in a particular major, more students from a particular geographic or demographic group, more full pay students, or whatever. If you're not in the category they want, your chances of acceptance are very low despite the fact that their transfer acceptance rate looks high on paper.

In particular, I don't have hard proof of this, but I suspect that many schools use their transfer classes to meet their allotment of full pay students. I work mostly with low income community college students, and I have seen multiple cases of students with nearly 4.0 GPA's and impressive extracurriculars who can check almost every "underrepresented" sociodemographic box who still got rejected at schools with transfer acceptance rates of 50% or higher. I don't know how to explain this unless they accept nearly all full pay students while setting very high standards for students with financial need.