Research · Transfer admissions · October 2026

Transfer admit rates at 37 colleges outside California, from 3.2% to 90.7%

As of October 2026: At 37 major colleges outside California, the transfer admit rate runs from 3.2% at the University of Pennsylvania, which admitted 145 of 4,521 transfer applicants, to 90.7% at Arizona State University, which admitted 6,865 of 7,572. Thirty-two of the 37 state both counts in their own Common Data Set, and the other five do not.

The table holds 37 colleges outside California, each with its own transfer applicant and admit counts. California campuses sit on a separate page.

Analysis: Test Prep Gurus (High School Reach, highschoolreach.com), October 2026. Figures and the table may be quoted with attribution to Test Prep Gurus.

Transfer applicants, admits and admit rate at 37 colleges outside California

Lowest admit rate first. The five colleges that do not state the counts sit at the end.

Degree-seeking transfer students who applied, were admitted and enrolled at 37 colleges outside California, each count taken from that college's own Common Data Set, Section D. The admit rate in a row is that row's admitted count divided by that row's applicant count. Most rows are fall 2024. Ohio State, Rutgers and UNLV are fall 2023 and Texas A&M is fall 2025, the most recent term each of them has filled in. An admit is an offer, not a seat, and a student admitted at several colleges counts at each one. Five rows are blank because the file the college points to does not state the counts to the public. California colleges are out of scope here.

How to read these rates

Each rate in the table is one college's own admitted count divided by its own applicant count, for the term named in that row. The colleges post the two counts. Most of them do not post the rate.

The terms are not all the same. Most rows are fall 2024. Ohio State, Rutgers and UNLV report fall 2023, and Texas A&M reports fall 2025. A rate from one year is a guide to the next, not a promise.

An admit is an offer, not a seat taken. The last count in each row shows how many students took it. Cornell admitted 670 transfer students and 503 enrolled. Houston admitted 7,580 and 4,584 enrolled.

Where the wide doors are, and where they are not

Seven colleges in the table admitted more than three in four of the students who applied to transfer. Arizona State led at 90.7%, then Houston at 88.0% and Ohio State at 86.3%.

Four colleges admitted fewer than one in five. Penn admitted 145 of 4,521, Columbia admitted 375 of 4,180, Cornell admitted 670 of 7,218 and Northeastern admitted 675 of 3,420. Each of those four is a private college with a small transfer class: 100 students enrolled at Penn, 298 at Columbia, 503 at Cornell and 288 at Northeastern.

The five blanks, and what is behind them

The University of Colorado Boulder keeps its Common Data Set behind a login. Indiana University Bloomington serves its Section D through a tool that does not show those counts on the page. The files for the University of Alabama, the University of Virginia and Georgia State University do not open to the public at the links those colleges give.

So the table prints no rate for the five. Each may still be a fine transfer target, but a family cannot read its odds there the way it can read Michigan's.

What a family should do with this

Look up the two transfer counts for every college on your student's list, and use those rather than the first-year admit rate. They are different numbers, and at some colleges they are very different.

Then check the term in the row. If a college's newest filled-in year is fall 2023, as Ohio State's and Rutgers' are, the rate describes a cycle that is two years old. Plan with its shape, not its decimal.

A blank row is a real finding too. If a college on the list is one of the five, treat its transfer odds as unknown, and keep a college that does state the counts beside it on the list. And read the whole-college rate as a floor: these counts cover the entire college, so a selective program inside it can be far harder to enter.

Related: UC transfer admit rates by campus · CSU transfer admit rates by major · What college programs pay four years out