As the title says I am a 23 year old father looking to transfer for the fall semester of 2016. I am currently attending a small community college in southern Illinois and I have some concerns about my previous performance.
In the fall of 2010 i had enrolled in community college (the same one I currently attend) to start working towards a computer engineering degree. In my first semester I found out that my girlfriend was pregnant and I kind of freaked out and shut down mentally. I ended up failing a ton of classes my first two semesters and dropping out. For the next few years I spent most of my time working to support my son. I took one part time semester in the fall of 2012, but could not really afford to continue after that.
Last semester i finally decided that I was sick of making ten dollars an hour so I reenrolled, and it’s gone very well. This semester I’m carrying 18 credit hours in with physics 1, chemistry 1, biology for science majors, and Spanish 1 (never took a lanugage in high school) with an A in every class on top of working and caring for my son.
So now I’m starting to look into transferring to a four year university after I finish up all that I can at my community college, and although I have been doing really well since I have came back I’m worried that my GPA will hold me back. I currently have a 2.4, but by the time I finish here I’ll have about a 3.67, which while it isn’t terrible it isn’t good enough to get me into the schools I would like to attend.
Since I live in Illinois I think the most obvious choice for a school would be UIUC; however, I cannot stand the Midwest, and despite how impractical it is I would love to attend UCB or UCLA.
So I guess my question is how much emphasis will be out in the grades I have achieved since I have returned to school? Will the fact that I work and have a child make up for my lower than average GPA? This whole process has been driving me crazy.
