Regardless of being a small neighborhood — simply 57 had been accepted final 12 months, with an acceptance charge of below two % — switch college students have pushed campus-wide adjustments and led myriad initiatives to enhance the switch expertise.
Christian Sanchez ’24, former Related College students of Stanford College (ASSU) president, spearheaded the implementation of a tiered enrollment plan that prioritzed switch college students in school registration.
Sanchez hopes that different student-led advocacy efforts could make the trail from neighborhood faculty to prestigious establishments extra navigable.
“Switch college students are in a position to apply for extra internships, scholarships and different alternatives as a result of the factors are extra particular and inclusive,” Sanchez stated.
Sanchez stated that switch college students typically keep linked with the neighborhood schools they arrive from, constructing “a community of neighborhood faculty college students, school and employees that helps demystify the admissions course of and monetary support for Stanford.”
Different switch college students participated in initiatives to help transfers within the transition to Stanford.
Sarah McCarthy ’23 co-led the Switch 101 program, a one-unit, student-led and discussion-style course for switch college students that’s designed to construct neighborhood and foster a way of belonging.
In keeping with the College’s “What’s Switch 101?” web site, this system was designed to “reply to the wants and experiences of the switch pupil inhabitants which is uniquely numerous.”
McCarthy graduated this spring with a level in laptop science. She attended Laney Group School for her frosh 12 months, the place she explored her ardour for chemistry, earlier than transferring to Stanford.
“I labored in two analysis labs [at Stanford and U.C. Berkeley],” McCarthy stated. She additionally labored as a tutorial tutor and a chemistry instructing assistant.
As an alternative of ready till her sophomore 12 months to use as a switch pupil, McCarthy utilized throughout her frosh 12 months “as a follow spherical through the present software cycle — figuring I’d be taught lots concerning the course of and have a greater probability subsequent 12 months once I was significantly making use of to switch.”
She was shocked when she was accepted: “I couldn’t cease saying ‘Oh my god, I bought into Stanford,’” McCarthy stated.
Sebastian Pintea ’25, an incoming junior, shared McCarthy’s shock. Pintea stated receiving his acceptance letter “felt so unreal,” as a result of Stanford was his dream college.
For Pintea, the switch pupil software course of was made extra unsure and tough by the lack of awareness out there.
“The toughest half goes into the method type of blind,” Pintea stated, since sources for switch college students might be scarce and the method might be daunting.
Pintea had first utilized to Stanford as an incoming frosh and was denied admission. He selected to attend Santiago Canyon Group School (SCCC) and used that point to additional discover his passions, earlier than giving Stanford one other shot within the final admissions cycle.
Throughout his time at SCCC, Pintea developed an curiosity in interdisciplinary psychology and environmentalism. Final summer season, he carried out analysis at Columbia College, the place he studied the intersection of local weather change and psychological well being. At Stanford, Pintea plans to main in psychology with a deal with environmental science via the earth techniques program.
Pintea stated receiving his acceptance letter “felt so unreal,” as a result of Stanford was his dream college. Drawing from his private experiences, he pressured how being resourceful and making the most of all alternatives helped him craft his switch software.
McCarthy emphasised that being herself was extraordinarily necessary all through her software course of.
Whereas the switch journey to prestigious universities like Stanford is marked by challenges, transfers charted their very own success at Stanford and sought to create a extra welcoming atmosphere for different transfers.
Sanchez inspired potential and incoming switch college students to consider “you might be sufficient and you might be worthy.”