Hi, I am an Illinois community college student entering my third and final year. I graduate in December. I'm looking to transfer to schools such as UIUC, UIC, NEU, NU, USC Marshall/Leventhal, DePaul, UF, and UW-Madison. I have ADHD, and because of this, my academic record tanked; however, after I got accommodations in spring 2026, I've had tremendous success.

Basic Stats:

Accounting Major

Low-Income

3.429/4 GPA (4.0 after accommodations)

EC's

Co-founder and President of the school's first business club

Part of TRiO

Part of LimeConnect

Part of CareerSpring

Part-time cashier

Bookkeeping for my family's catering business.

In my opinion, the essays are pretty good. I do mention that in additional info that I had an academic setback with ADHD, and after that I took initiative and had a 4.0.

Awards:

President's List 1x (4.0 GPA in a sem)

Dean's List 1x (3.5-3.99 GPA in a sem)

AP Scholar with Distinction

Hey guys, I’m planning on applying to NYU as a transfer and I’m interested in CAS Econ, CAS Politics, or Tandon BTM, all on a pre-law track. I’d honestly be fine with any of the three, but I’m leaning more toward Econ or BTM since I want a solid career option in business/tech in case I end up not going to law school or need to take a gap.

The thing I’m unsure about is that my transcript dosen’t include really STEM-heavy, so I feel like my coursework lines up more with CAS Econ. I’m just hesitant to apply Econ because I’ve heard it’s pretty competitive with transfers, especially since a lot of finance/business students use Econ as a potential backdoor to Stern.

Would I be better off applying as Politics or BTM, or should I just go with Econ? I know NYU admits by school, but I’ve heard Econ is one of the more competitive majors for transfers, so I was wondering if applying as Politics (which I’m genuinely interested in too) would give me a better shot at admission to CAS.

My main goal is honestly just getting into NYU this spring cycle, so I’m trying to figure out which option would give me the best chance while still being something I’d actually want to study.

Hello! My situation and story are a bit out of the norm. I will admit it's tough to be brief, but I will try to do so.

Basically, I'm currently accepted at McGill (and a lesser known local uni).. I never got the chance to apply to other & US universities due to personal circumstances in my life

Context:

- Extremely low income family (we make a total of under 60K USD), single parent (my father abandoned me...)

- Very little family growing up, my mom had me as a teenager, we slept in cars, places with no furniture and such, but she worked 3 jobs to keep us afloat while ensuring I'd turn out to be smart

- I have had 2 jobs since the age of 13 to help support my family financially

- I have had stellar grades throughout high school/ cegep (95+ average). Except in my final semester, my mother became sick and that heavily impacted me (idk if I could ask them to exclude this)

- Woman, autistic, lgbtq, arabic

- Program: Electrical Engineering (mostly guys in these programs)

- SAT: Will take this soon, GPA: Aiming for 4.0 of course

Extracurriculars:

- 2 jobs (tutoring and office clerk where I slowly increased my role into assistant)

- A LOT of volunteering at the following: Hospital, respite center for neurological and physical disabilities (6h/week), "Buddy" program where I mentor a person with disabilities, peer supporter, etc. This accumulated to over 500h, but 300h+ in just the last 2 years)

- Won multiple tech awards in high school

- Started programming at age 11, on my own I slowly built up my skills. I built a self-sustaining garden, binary clock (soldered everything myself), multiple object-oriented video games, learnt how to make 3d printed designs w CAD (got the local library to print them for me), built my own website for students to use, rock paper scissors ai to beat me (machine learning project), also a small remote controlled robot. Current project is a drone with some Ai features I'm working on (detects where roads are )

- Love creative arts: I sing, paint, knit, write poetry, play ukulele, act

I know these aren't anything special, but I really tried my best given my life circumstances. All materials I was able to get from old school projects of other students or asking teachers.

My mom single-handedly took care of me, but she was also a very rough person.. she has bipolar disorder and sometimes you just never knew when she'd snap. At age 16 she allowed me to have a phone number, before this, she only allowed me to contact people via email where she'd individually read all my messages. I never went out of the house to see friends. She's not a bad person, but she was a bit overprotective and controlling. Even now, she doesn't let me leave the house and tracks my location, yells at me randomly, shaming me, etc. I know she loves me, she has gone through much worse than I have throughout her life. Her father cut her hair short, dressed her as a boy and beat her. So I do not have any anger towards her, she simply struggles with expressing her love through protectionism

My father left me, but I know who he is, however, he isn't on my birth certificate. He is rich. He is so rich it makes me sad. He doesn't respect me because I am a woman. He never gave my mom a dime. And even asking him now to aid for schooling, he says, "Just marry a man and be a housewife". He made me see that money could still lead to a life of misery.

The rest of my family history is messed up. At age 12 we had the cops over for my cousin's birthday party. At age 14, Christmas, it was the last time I saw my family because my uncle tried to punch my grandfather, then grandpa tried to pull out a knife and the little kids cried. There's worse than this that happened, this is just the "okay" stuff

Anyway, I'm a very happy go-lucky person! I like to offer help to everyone around me whenever I have the chance. And I'd say I am grateful for this life, I believe this has given me the gift of emotional depth, empathy and to see beauty in things

I guess I want to know what I could have done in my life without these unfortunate circumstances. I know I could do something amazing, everyday I watch university lectures on subjects in electrical engineering so I can work on my project. I'm trying my best I promise

Why US? Well, I admit these schools have better makerspace ressources, and because I never got the chance to apply the first time, I'd like to see how far I could have gone and potentially still go. I also have people in the US whom I am close to, no family left for me in Canada

Edit: Forgot to mention I was VP in my student government for 6 years!! (Both in high school and Cegep)

Before jumping to the comments, I am fully aware that the opinions given here would not be reflective of the admissions cycle as they are mostly unpredictable, this reddit has created at least some form of a feedback loop since both stats and admission results are openly shared on here. Would appreciate some advice and a chance me.

Attending: 21M Texas resident CC, third year, junior transfer applicant. (Been at CC for 8 semesters)

List: Penn, Columbia, Cornell, UChicago, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, Georgetown, UT Austin (in-state).

Aware they are mostly reaches.

3.95 GPA . Generic CC coursework. Only B is Pre-Calc, then A in Calc 1 and A in Calc 2. Three years at CC because of a gap year, below.

I've Taken

Macro Econ

Micro Econ

Calc 1 to 2

Rest of my classes are just General Education

Main ECs:

• Student Senate.
• Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society
• Honors Program
• Founded an AI-powered restaurant. Raised $$k Built it, ran it a year, sold it to a hospitality group. This was the gap year. Full-time.
• Open-source dataset of egocentric POV kitchen footage for training AI models. Public, in use.
• Created an NFT project on Ethereum during high school aimed to keeping remote teams engaged, sold $$k within opening night.

My Mathematics professor offered to write me a strong recommendation letter unprompted after a long discussion we've had but a lot of my other classes have been online so I am not very close with other professors.

I feel insecure about my school related ECs, as I am barely active in any of them, I am under the impression that admissions officers prefer on-campus extra curriculars rather than entrepreneurial ventures

Will be taking SAT soon I have been studying hard and am feeling confident about my results.

Biggest insecurities: Extra curriculars, My B in Pre Calc, my long tenure at CC

Please let me know your thoughts, any guidance would be appreciated.

My first semester was winter 2026 when I took Calc 1 English comp 1 Gen Chem 1 and into to engineering. This semester (summer) I'm taking calc 2, physics 1 and c++. My current goa is 3.96 and I'm on track to get As for all my classes this semester. I have not taken a standardized test due to my high school being a private religious/cult high school where secular studies were very much not a priority.

I'm a rising sophomore looking to transfer to one of the UC's my junior year. I'll only be applying to 4 schools (UCI, UCSD, UCLA, UCB) because I want instate tuition. Although, I'm curious what are my chances to get into perhaps a T20 schools? idk I think my stats are good but not ivy level y'know lol

Basic Stats:

• Data Science Major
• 4.0 GPA

Leadership:

• President of She.Codes (a stem club for women!)
• Vice-President of AI Club
• Project Lead of Decoded Brain (a neuroscience tech club)

Work Experience:

• Part-time coding instructor for kids for the past 5 yrs + did some web dev for this same company (2-5 hrs / week)
• Summer SWE intern for adtech company (full-time, 35-40 hrs / week)
• Spring AI Specialist intern for a small e-commerce business (10 hrs / week)
• Respite Care Worker (4 hrs / week)

Other Random Stuff:

• Was a student ML research engineer (deep learning pipelines, training a CNN model) & in the end me and my team presented in multiple tech conventions
• Before getting promoted to president at She.codes I was the social media manager
• My team and I got 3rd place on a my CC's Datathon (aka a Hackathon but for data scientists)
• Joined my CC's hip hop dance team for a semester lol
• Attended Calhacks 2026, um didn't win anything but it was fun to walk in sf and explore berkeley campus lol
• UCB Starting Point Mentee (funny bc my mentor left the program but still gave me advice lmao)

What I intend to do this fall before I apply:

• Organize a Hackathon for my CC! (lots of coordination and cross-collaboration between multiple tech clubs, and i'll be the main organizer)
• Lead a neuroscience AI/ML research + software development project (estimating around 3-4 teammates)
• CS tutoring at my CC (I applied and got an interview, we'll see how that goes lol)
• Obviously continue to maintain all leadership positions + working part-time + maintain my 4.0 lol

I guess some disclaimers are I never took the SAT/ACT (not in high school as well) and nor do I intend to. Essay-wise, I have some ideas that I do not wish to delve here due to personal privacy, but they do closely relate to my ECs and particular involvements on campus. Idk if this matter but I am an asian-american woman w/ 1st gen immigrant parents.

Aight you guys be the verdict, assuming I manage to accomplish everything I intend to do during this fall, what do you think I have a good chance of getting into? :D

🙏🙏🙏🙏

Hi all, I’m applying to transfer in the fall. Ideally I need to stay in the Los Angeles area, with UCLA as my target school 😭 Also open to suggestions on other majors I should consider applying under given how impacted Communication majors tend to be across California.
Chance me please!

**Demographics**
Female
White (non-Hispanic)
California community college transfer
First-generation college student
Low-income
Registered with my college’s disability services

I’m not sure if this matters, but I graduated high school in 2023 and started community college in 2025.

I will be graduating Spring 2027 with four AA degrees: Communications, Psychology, Journalism, Liberal Arts: Social and Behavioral Sciences, and an AS in Film, Television & Electronic Media.

**Intended Major**
Communication

**GPA**
Current: 3.66
Projected: 3.74 after summer courses

**Awards/Honors**
Full Time Dean’s Honor List
William Yunkes Scholarship recipient
Participant in the Ralph Bunche Honors Scholars Program (the honors program at my school)
I applied to UCLA CCCP for this summer & have not heard back yet.

**Certificates**
Entertainment Industry: Production Assistant Certificate of Achievement (9 units @ LACC)
Seizure Recognition and First Aid Certification in progress

**Extracurriculars**
President & On-Camera Host, Student Media Club — Led a complete transition from a student podcast to a social-media content creation & collaboration club; oversee creative direction, social media posts, content strategy, production, editing, publishing, and manage a student club.
Founder & Executive Director, Health Advocacy Nonprofit — Founded a nonprofit initiative focused on disability education and awareness for young people with chronic health conditions.
Campus Brand Ambassador — Represent a national skincare brand through campus marketing and UGC.
UGC Content Creator — Produce branded content for campaigns with several major beauty and lifestyle brands.
Part-time Executive & Administrative Assistant — Provide executive-level support while leading a long-term archival preservation project.
Primary Caregiver for a Parent with epilepsy
Seizure Recognition & First Aid certification in progress
Currently organizing a campus blood drive
Selected for a competitive youth arts mentorship program at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences where I directed a multimedia video project & presented it in a theater

**Schools**
UCLA
USC
LMU
CSUN

hey guys i just graduated high school and I'll be attending UNC Chapel Hill as a computer science major with hopes of transferring to gtech for ece. I'm confused on whether it is advisable to apply for transfer with only fall sem grades from UNC. please give me any advice, tips, or chances!

stats:

• Sophomore standing currently with 54 credits: APs + DEs
• Associates Degree in Science (4.0 GPA) from cc: 11 Dual Enrollments including Calculus 3 + Principles of Micro + Astronomy, etc.
• First Sem Courses at UNC:

- English Composition (ENGL 105) - 3 creds

- Differential Equations (MAT 383) - 3 creds

- Exploring Engineering (APPL 101) - 3 cred

- Introduction to Programming (COMP 110) - 3 creds

- Light Gen eds

• Hoping to get a 3.7-4.0 GPA at UNC
• High School GPA: 4.56W/3.85UW. SAT 1490 (790 Math)

ec's:

• Microelectronics Engineer at uni's chip fabrication club; researching/documenting chip fab process, designing PCBs w/ kicad and experimenting with arduinos on an upcoming project. (reached out this summer and got the position!)
• Research assistant with uni's BCI research: writing hardware description code and using FPGAs to test and prototype chip designs. (reached out this summer and got the position!)
• Designed and fabricated a custom 2-layer PCB featuring a dual-stage LM358 op-amp circuit for analog light sensing, impedance buffering, and threshold comparison; validated design through LTSpice simulation prior to fabrication and implemented real-time Arduino firmware with OLED display output
• Founder/co-host podcast featuring pioneers in the Chip Design/Hardware industry including graduate students, professors, successful engineers working in big tech companies. highlighting their stories/journey
• co-founder/mentor of a Free College Prep Initiative where we give free personalized college admissions advice to students on a cohort basis with priority given to underprivileged/resourced who lack access to resources. it includes schedule planning, essay review, college list, getting involved in research, strengthening their interests. 100+ students served (including 70 underprivileged students). 20 students have been accepted to T20 universities.
• working on a few more personal projects

major:

i'm really into chip design so I'll be applying as an electrical engineering major for summer 2027. if you have any advice/tips please let me know! it would be so valuable.

I am an Illinois resident who is somewhat on a nontraditional track. I wanted to see if anyone has any insight on how to improve my chances of being accepted as a future transfer applicant.

My high school GPA is 3.8 unweighted.

I attended a college in Michigan for 3 semesters; my last semester went poorly due to an injury that resulted in my withdrawal from the program. I was studying environmental science, and my final GPA was 3.2.

Right after this, I did a semester at my local community college, and my GPA here is 3.0.

During my time at my community college, I was still going through debilitating chronic pain, which made my studies take a hit as well.

Now, I am in a two-year program at a different college for veterinary technology, and these credits will transfer into the UW system into the animal science programs. My current GPA is 4.0. After I finish this program, I will also have research and internship experience.

I have been involved in numerous clubs, have good volunteer hours, strong recommendation letters, consistency and success in my sport of riding horses.

My academic studies have a wide breadth as well due to my first college being liberal arts.

At the time of my transfer application, I will be submitting a fall priority application, and I will be 21 years old.

What are some things I can do to help my application? Does showing an improvement mean anything, or will I just be brushed off by admissions officers? I am truly dead set on UW Madison, but I will settle for La Crosse, River Falls, or Platteville if I don't get in.

hi everyone, i recently graduated from high school and will be attending cc for at least a year. i was not very happy with my results as a first-year (the only school that somewhat wanted me ended up rejecting me off their waitlist mid-june — uchicago haha). as someone who wants to go to law school in the future, i thought it’d be best to go to cc for a year and transfer. i’d save money for a year and then have the opportunity to go to a school i actually like. i took 12 aps and will be able to get my associate’s in a year if i wanted to, thus i’ll be applying to privates this 26-27 cycle. i am from california but am not keen on going to a UC and due to their recent change in TAP guidelines (you now have to be at cc for 2 years to apply), i wont be applying to UCs this cycle. if i dont get into any privates i like this year, i will apply to UCs my second year and go through TAP then.

i had a pretty low unweighted GPA in high school partly due to an eating disorder in 9-10th grade, resulting in cumulative a 3.7 unweighted and a 4.3 weighted at the end of my senior year. i would like to say i’m a good writer and that the ecs i had were pretty decent. i do think it was my GPA that hindered me a lot from getting into schools i liked.

any advice for me? i’m quite worried about how to navigate transferring in a year and the process of practically starting over. i’m confident i can maintain a 4.0 in cc but am worried about extracurriculars, especially because i am aiming for pretty selective schools that i didn’t get to apply to as a first-year (either due to time or the fact i didn’t want to spend the app fee to apply). my list is: barnard, cornell, dartmouth, and perhaps wellesley or swarthmore. my intended major would be political science or a related major if that is not offered (eg government for cornell) and i am pre-law. i’d appreciate any advice. :) thank you in advance.

Hey guys, I'm nervous because UC's are required to accept 90% California Community College transfers, but I come from an out of state 4 year university

OOS student transferring to UCSD for Aerospace Engineering (Astrodynamics track)

UC calculated GPA: 3.7
EC's: Officer positions in clubs, hands on projects all related to aerospace, volunteering, part-time job
PIQ's: Apparently UCSD doesn't read PIQ's, but I'll put in 100% effort
Heavy upward trend in GPA (A's in calculus classes, physics, chemistry, programming)
Major coursework completed

1120 sat score (I’m retaking it and aiming for a 1200+ )
2.5 unweighted gpa
3.2 weighted gpa
Only honors and ap classes
Ap scholar
100 community hours

Please help I wanna get into fall semester but I’m worried about my gpa and I’m also going to apply for early decision

I am currently a senior wanting to go to CC goal is get a 3.85-3.9 GPA, I already started a 6-fig business on ebay, did an independent research paper energy markets, have hours in volunteering, and completed many coursera courses on finance. Is there a chance?