Some universities want transfer students. Some take a few dozen a year and call it a transfer program. We put 24 big names on one chart, and then pulled every school's real admit rate so you can see which side of the line your list is on. If you already know where you're aiming, on our platform you put in your community college and your transfer university, and you get the exact classes you need to get there.
The best universities for transfer students
These are the schools on the accepts-transfers side of the chart. Every one of them admitted at least one in five transfer applicants last cycle.
| School | Transfer admit rate | Admitted / applied |
|---|---|---|
| San Diego State | 54.9% | 9,093 / 16,556 |
| Cal State Long Beach | 50.2% | 13,204 / 26,319 |
| UC Irvine | 39.5% | 10,033 / 25,377 |
| NYU | 38.6% | 4,128 / 10,681 |
| UNC Chapel Hill | ≈37% | 1,962 / 5,310 |
| USC | 27.1% | 2,929 / 10,827 |
| Virginia | ≈27% | approximate |
| UC Berkeley | 24.2% | 5,658 / 23,401 |
| UCLA | 23% | 6,466 / 28,288 |
| Emory | 22.7% | 544 / 2,399 |
| Cal Poly SLO | ≈21% | 2,308 / 10,899 |
The top-left corner is the sweet spot the chart is pointing at: big career networks, and a real door for transfers. USC admits transfers at nearly three times its freshman rate, NYU at four times. UC Irvine and Cal State Long Beach each admitted more than 10,000 transfers last cycle. Cornell sits just below this list at 11.7 percent, still the most transfer-friendly Ivy by a mile.
The good-luck side
| School | Transfer admit rate | Admitted / applied |
|---|---|---|
| Harvard | 0.6% | 13 / 2,042 |
| Princeton | 1.9% | 42 / 2,274 |
| MIT | 2.0% | 35 / 1,713 |
| Stanford | 2.3% | 102 / 4,532 |
| Yale | 2.6% | 45 / 1,747 |
| Penn | 3.2% | 162 / 5,144 |
| Brown | 4.7% | 154 / 3,306 |
| Caltech | 6.2% | 10 / 162 |
| Carnegie Mellon | 8.4% | 136 / 1,610 |
| Columbia College + Engineering | 9.0% | 375 / 4,180 |
| UChicago | 9.3% | 268 / 2,884 |
| Georgia Tech | 20% | 789 / 3,939 |
Most of these schools take a few dozen to a few hundred transfers a year, mostly from other four-year universities. Georgia Tech is the one outlier in this corner: 20 percent is hard, but it's a real program with pathways built for Georgia students.
“The chart is a meme. The admit rates are not, and they should decide where most of your applications go.”
How to use the chart
Put one or two good-luck schools on your list if you want to. Put most of your list on the accepts-transfers side. Then do the part that actually decides your file: finish each school's required major classes with strong grades. Every school wants a different list, and a website like Transfermatic builds that list from your community college's catalog, so you're not finding out what you missed in your last semester.
Picked your side of the chart? Get the classes that get you in.
Put in your community college and your transfer university. That's it.
Get My Transfer PlanBottom line
The best universities for transfer students are the big names that admit 20 to 55 percent of transfers: NYU, USC, UC Irvine, UNC, Berkeley, UCLA, Emory, and the big CSUs. The good-luck side is real, but it's a small part of a smart list. For the full breakdown at the top, see the hardest universities to transfer into, and for the widest doors, the easiest universities to transfer into.
Related: see the transfer plan for your college and major · the underrated universities for transfer students · how to transfer to the Ivy League from community college · what your dream school says about you
