<p>Only kids I knew who pursued this route from my private LAC were those who had to leave for financial reasons. Keep in mind this was in the mid-late 1990’s. </p>
<p>It was also perceived as a serious academic stepdown depending on major with the exception of Berkeley. </p>
<p>As for lower division LAC courses not being good matches for the UC/public flagship upper-division courses, that cannot be further from the truth. Nearly everyone I knew who transferred to a UC or a flagship like UT-Austin found their GPAs skyrocketed while simultaneously finding themselves with much more free time despite taking upper-division courses and greater courseloads.</p>