ivy league... do i have a chance?

Question

my hs gpa is pretty low.. around 3.0 with 1 AP and several IBs, my sat is arount 1700, but i'm retaking it this december, hopefully it will reach around 2200. i have done a lot of activities during high school, varsity softball, varsity basketball, varsity volleyball manager, president of senior class, treasurer for sport committee, several community services and member of clubs

i'm currently attending 4 years college as a freshmen and hoping to transfer to an ivy league next fall, my first term grade is in high rank between B+ to A with micro class, business class, high calculus math class and chinese class.

also my first cousin was an alumni in u. penn wharton school.

Do i stand a chance in transfering to ivy school?

o and i forgot to mention that my junior in hs messed everything up because i was going to concentrate on science, but it wasn't right for me, so i turned to economics and business in senior year dropping most of those IB classes leaving with 1 AP and 1 IBhl

do i still have a chance?

i'm currently taking 17 credits and will take two more credits for workshop against drugs and abuse in november

Answer 1

I don't want to rain on your parade, but it seems unlikely. For one thing, if you were to transfer after one year, your high school record would still count, and it is nowhere near what an Ivy would be looking for. You would need something around 4.0 or better. As far as the SAT goes, I've never heard of anyone going up 500 points - 10 or 20 is the usual bump up for someone who took a prep class and retook the test. The activities are nice, but they don't substitute for academics. It would be good if you could keep up your current GPA, but unless you were to get straight As, and the school you were currently going to was on a par with an Ivy, you wouldn't catch their attention.

Keep in mind that most of the Ivies take very few transfer students, most after sophomore year, if at all. If they altogether take 300 transfers out of the millions of college students in the country, you would really need to have a near-flawless record to get in.

Answer 2

Well, I don't think cousins count for legacy. Long story short, Ivys are looking for either students with wealthy parents, or superior students. If youre transferring with a 3.5, maybe you have a shot. Unless you've significantly improved from high school though, there is little reason to think that youre college acceptances will change much either. 12 credits isn't overwhelming, so its a good thing you had a good gpa.

Don't worry if you don't get accepted to that Ivy league school though. There are no shortage of success stories from non-Ivy league colleges, and a lot of qualified people choose a less expensive college instead of an Ivy.

Our current president has degrees from Harvard and Yale, yet few would accuse him of being an erudite individual. College, like anything else, is what you make of it.

You certainly would seem to stand a chance, but I wouldn't bet the house on it.