possible transfer student
I'm looking into transferring to Stanford for fall 2007. I'm currently at a top tier, though not ivy league, school and even though my grades are on the whole excellent, I really hate it and desperately want out, and I've fallen in love with Stanford. Are there any students, transfer or otherwise, out there with any advice for the transfer application process?
One of my big problems is that by the time I will apply, I will have 3.5 years of work behind me. I spoke to someone in the admissions office who said that there isn't a cap on the number of semesters a transfer can have behind them, as long as they haven't graduated yet, but there is a residency requirement of 2 years and a max number of credits that can be transferred. Are my chances of getting in really so much smaller with the extra semester behind me? Another issue that ties into that is that the majority of my school background is in film-related class, including production and writing. They're definitely not "fake" classes and I worked my ass off, but I really doubt that any of them would fulfill any degree requirements. Is this a really big problem? Also, I've decided to take the spring 2007 semester off, because of college burnout and in order to see the world and do something useful (volunteer work in Israel or Southeast Asia). Is this a wise choice in terms of my attractiveness as a candidate? My impression of Stanford is that it's really a school that embraces uniqueness in its students, rather than looking just at numbers. Is that an accurate assessment? Sorry for all the questions, but Stanford looks like exactly what I wanted my college experience to have been, only coming out of a public high school in Canada, where only 3 other kids ended up at American universities out of 400, I didn't have much information about my other options!
Thaaaaaanks everyone!
One of my big problems is that by the time I will apply, I will have 3.5 years of work behind me. I spoke to someone in the admissions office who said that there isn't a cap on the number of semesters a transfer can have behind them, as long as they haven't graduated yet, but there is a residency requirement of 2 years and a max number of credits that can be transferred. Are my chances of getting in really so much smaller with the extra semester behind me? Another issue that ties into that is that the majority of my school background is in film-related class, including production and writing. They're definitely not "fake" classes and I worked my ass off, but I really doubt that any of them would fulfill any degree requirements. Is this a really big problem? Also, I've decided to take the spring 2007 semester off, because of college burnout and in order to see the world and do something useful (volunteer work in Israel or Southeast Asia). Is this a wise choice in terms of my attractiveness as a candidate? My impression of Stanford is that it's really a school that embraces uniqueness in its students, rather than looking just at numbers. Is that an accurate assessment? Sorry for all the questions, but Stanford looks like exactly what I wanted my college experience to have been, only coming out of a public high school in Canada, where only 3 other kids ended up at American universities out of 400, I didn't have much information about my other options!
Thaaaaaanks everyone!