Transfer from STCL with 3.73 Forum

[collinweyand]

Just finished first year at STCL (South Texas College of Law, a T4 in Houston) with a GPA of 3.73. Grades were just posted so I do not have a rank yet but based on past rankings I should be anywhere from top 4%-7%. I was just wondering what my chances were on getting into University of Houston (#1 choice because I want to live in Houston), UT, and SMU.

[BVest]

UH almost certainly.
UT probably.
SMU likely, if they think you want to come up there. There's no need for YP in transfer admissions so the only real reason to deny would be to have firm idea of what their actual yield will be.

[collinweyand]

If you dont mind me asking what does YP mean?

[BVest]

Yield Protect. Since 1L admissions yield (# of matriculants ÷ # of admitted students) is an element of US News rankings, schools will often waitlist a perfectly qualified candidate who they don't think will actually attend and then feel them out before offering admission. E.g. if a Texas student has numbers for UT with a full scholarship, another school might WL the student and only offer admission after the student hasn't withdrawn from the WL or has sent a letter expressing a desire to attend that school.

Since number of admissions and yield for transfers don't go into rankings, schools can admit as many transfers as they want. The only limiting factor is that they want to have a good idea how many of those admitted students will enroll. (BTW, with any experience at all, the latter is easy to do simply by assigning percentage chances of attendance to each admitted student and totaling the percentages.)

[DasEggs]

Barring some odd C&F issue, as close to a lock as possible at UH.
I know less about UT but id say that you have a pretty good shot at them.
Probably good at SMU (I know very little about them) but I can't think of a reason to go there over Houston (or UT) given your goals. Not to mention the sticker price at SMU is just insane.

[collinweyand]

Thanks for the answers! All very helpful!!