Bryn Mawr College is a women’s liberal arts school located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It’s a small school, with only around 1400 undergrads and 350 postgrads. They’re a part of the Seven Sisters, and they share a school paper with Haverford! They’re known for being politically super progressive and hella feminist – they were the first college in the US to offer a PhD in social work (and doctorates to women in general), they were one of the first women’s colleges to accept trans and non-binary applicants, and they renamed May Day as “May Hole” because maypole was too phallic. If this sounds like your jam, you might be considering applying as a transfer.
Bryn Mawr had a 31% acceptance rate for first-year students last cycle, but their transfer acceptance rate was 25%. Because Bryn Mawr has so few students, that means not that many students are leaving, which in turn means fewer spots for hopeful transfers. In 2022-2023, 117 students applied to Bryn Mawr as transfers, and 30 were accepted. We’re gonna talk about everything you need to successfully prepare to transfer to Bryn Mawr.
Bryn Mawr’s Requirements
Bryn Mawr does not require a lot of weird stuff from their transfer applicants, and they actually have slightly less stringent requirements than most schools. If you’ve taken even a single semester of college as a full-time student, you’re eligible as a transfer student. They only let you bring in 16 credits, but if you’re looking to transfer, you know the credit game is kind of a racket anyway for you.
Other things they want from you include:
Transfer Common Application
Bryn Mawr Essays (more on this later)
Official high school and college transcripts
Transfer college report (a Dean or advisor has to fill this out)
Transfer mid-term report for your in-progress grades
Two recommendations from professors
Your optional requirements:
Standardized tests
Interview (optional – but you should take it. These are rarely offered to transfers)
Arts supplements for music, theater, dance, or creative writing
This is pretty bare-bones for a transfer app, and if you’re already applying to a few schools, it will be easy to get together.
Pick the Right Classes
If you're eyeing Bryn Mawr for English, think about your classes as building blocks for your major. Taking all comp sci or history classes won’t help you much. Your course load should match the story you’re telling them.
But hold up, don't totally forget your current school's core classes. Transferring can be a bit dicey, so keep a safety net. Most schools want you to sprinkle in some science or math, so throw one of those into the mix. Just to be on the safe side.
Now, when you're getting cozy in your niche (we'll chat about that later), make sure your classes vibe with it. If you're all about English because you love 19th century British Lit don't go loading up on English classes about the Great American Novel of the 20th century.
Get Really Good Grades
This is a no-brainer, folks. You need to have great grades in college to be a competitive transfer applicant. When you’re applying as a first-year student, they’re trying to see if you could handle a college course load. When you’re applying as a transfer student, they can see your transcript and whether or not you *can* handle a college course load.
Pro-tip: don’t take classes you won’t do well in. If you’re not a woman in STEM, you don’t need to load up on the classes you struggled through in high school. Keep the big picture and your academic goals in mind.
And btw, go to all the office hours you can. That one-on-one time can help boost grades and will come in handy when you need to ask for rec letters.
Develop Your Niche
If you’re applying as an English major, you should probably get involved in everything literary. You need more than classes and HS yearbook editor on your application to look good. Get plugged into your current school’s offerings – join the literary mag, write for the school paper, start an Anglophile club!
Look for internships, fellowships, whatever you can find. It helps your application to get plugged in, but it also helps in case you don’t get admitted – you’ll have a community at your current school no matter what.
Write Good Essays
Bryn Mawr has 4 essays – one of which is just the Common App prompts. While you’re not going to write these for a hot second, it’s good to start thinking about them now and preparing some research for them too.
The first question is short: Please briefly describe a significant activity or experience outside of the classroom that has impacted you. (100 words). Brevity is key here – a very short story about an activity will work great here.
The second question is very Bryn Mawr: The desire to make a positive impact in the world is among the qualities that unite Bryn Mawr students. If you were granted a superpower that allowed you to eradicate one social inequity overnight, what would your cause be and why? The goal for this one is to connect to something you’ve already been working on – if your cause celeb is homelessness, don’t write about ending climate change. Connect!
The third is literally just the first-year Common App essay prompts. More on how to write a good Common App essay here.
And the fourth essay is the one where some research is going to come in handy: Why are you interested in transferring to Bryn Mawr College, and how can your previous academic/personal experiences enhance your transition to our community? For this question, you want to tackle it like a standard why essay. You should tell an origin story, find some upper-level classes to take and professors you’d work with, and talk about how Bryn Mawr helps you meet your goals. They’ll also want to hear about what you’ve done to build your niche and how that will translate to your time at Byrn Mawr
Best of luck with your Bryn Mawr application. Keep up the good grades, figure out your passion, and do everything you can to make it happen.
If you need help with your transfer applications, reach out to us today.