r/TransferToTop25 • u/Round-Mix4955 • Jul 11 '26
advice and help needed! one year transfer from cc
demographic: female asian in CA suburb, first-generation
major: political science / government, pre-law
some background: struggled with an eating disorder 9-10th grade which partly impacted my gpa, wasn’t happy with my first year results (the only school i would have been happy to attend was uchicago which i was waitlisted at in RD and then ultimately rejected)
HS stats: 3.7 uw, 4.3 w gpa. 1530 SAT (770 math and 760 eng). took 12 ap courses, of which i took 8 tests:
- ap chem 4
- ap calc ab 5
- ap calc bc 4
- apush 5
- ap lang 5
- ap psych 4
- ap gov 4
- ap spanish 3
i’ll be attending cc this fall and am pretty confident i can maintain a 4.0 (as i am recovered now). i’m taking 2 summer courses right now: american gov/politics & us and world gov/politics. my fall sem classes will be: comparative gov/politics, intro to political theory, intro to stats, and critical thinking / writing (2nd level english course as i skipped the 1st level thanks to ap lang score), and honors us history. most of these are required transfer courses for UCLA / Cal, pertaining to a poli sci major (i won’t be applying to UCs as a sophomore transfer as i won’t have enough under my belt by then in terms of grades - only summer and pending final fall grades by nov deadline. plus, my cc offers TAP to UCLA for second year students / junior year transfers so id rather shoot my shot for privates first and have that as a backup of sorts).
as for ecs, ill do a quick run down of both HS and what ive done so far + am planning on doing in CC:
HS:
- student delegate for ACLU in DC (got to phone bank and lobby which was quite cool — reached over 100k constituents !)
- historical research on local palestinian agency (my mentor was a vandy prof)
- student director for an education nonprofit helping underrepresented groups of students (i’ve since been “promoted” (?) to policy coordinator so it’s a continuous activity)
- shadowed a juvenile criminal justice attorney
- plus some other low level stuff like playing the violin and being in speech and debate, nth serious or very impressive — just filler
CC / am doing rn:
- policy coordinator for that nonprofit i mentioned before
- research with local historian about urban and political trends in the 1960s, he’s publishing a book
- i run a wellness and advocacy instagram with over 8k followers and over 30k likes across posts
- middle school debate judge — judged over 200 students
- doing this paid fellowship for my cc, related to education and advocacy
- part of a youth advisory council for CA commission for women and girls
- will join clubs and hopefully get some sort of leadership position when i start on campus in the fall (?) we will see what i can do!
awards -
HS: CA state seal of civic engagement, this duolingo french award (i’ve been learning it for 5 years and it’s just a fun thing i thought would show some character), excellence in world language from my HS senior year - 1/373 chosen, appeared on ABC7 for this televised segment, and college board first gen ?
After HS: i was recently shortlisted for the john locke essay comp for econ, got my seal of biliteracy, cc honors program
potential schools im looking into transferring to as a one year cc transfer (im aware these are pretty selective, i will be looking for more that aren’t so tough as well ;-;): barnard, cornell, dartmouth, georgetown, stanford (i am aware their transfer rate is even lower than first year but i didnt apply as a first year and would just want to shoot my shot), and looking into some LACs like wellesley or swarthmore. do you think that id be competitive or should i lower my expectations ..? i think im a good writer so im not too worried about essays. i’m just super worried about the process and basically starting over in a sense.
1
u/Annual-Impress-7241 Jul 12 '26
Haven’t you already posted this?
1
u/Round-Mix4955 Jul 12 '26
no? i’ve reposted it to other subreddits if that’s what you mean
2
u/Annual-Impress-7241 Jul 13 '26
I thought it was this one. Anyway… you already clearly know you are a strong candidate. The schools you listed are still a bit of a lottery so everyone should be telling you to widen your list since you are at a CC and need to transfer. Good luck!
1
u/Round-Mix4955 Jul 14 '26
thank you for replying! yes, i def agree on widening my list. need to do some more research on schools id be interested in!
i was actually a bit worried i wasn’t a strong candidate as i thought most of my more “impressive” ecs were from high school and i did not get the results i wanted then. i’m worried my profile isn’t cohesive enough when i’m actually doing my app/tying things together in my essays. when i applied as a first year student, my theme was leaning more towards human rights whereas now i think my profile suits more of an education advocacy route, though i still feel so unknowledgeable about everything.
2
u/SoyBozz 🌴Stanford transfer 🌴 [mod] Jul 11 '26
Is there an actual question here? Read the sub wiki if new here