4-year College vs. Community College

<p>I’m a currently a student at a 4-year university and was wondering to 4-year college students have a higher chance of getting into another 4-year college relative to students who chose to attend community college first. I also want to ask if the prestige of your school have any impact in the application process</p>

<p>Well obviously a 4.0 at say Johns Hopkins or Georgetown is to some extent going to have more of an effect on the admissions commitee than a 4.0 from Belt Parkway Community College...whether this is a fair assessment is certainly debatable because speaking from experience, having attended both a no-name state school and a top 30 Private school, the difference in difficulty and educational value is not that different between the two.</p>

<p>Ultimately prestige does matter to an extent, a small extent that is. Certainly CC students are in no way shape or form excluded from consideration by the elite schools. Whatever edge the candidates from more presitgous schools may have can certainly be countered by being productive at your CC, getting great recomendations, and writing an amazing essay.</p>

<p>But if you have a great average 3.8+ at a community college your certainly in the range that is competitive for the top universities in this country. There are people on this board who have gotten into the Ivie League (Yale, Cornell) through a community college, so certainly it is possible.</p>

<p>If your at a community college, make sure to get into the honors program there, that will help you immensely. Work on picking up a foreign language. Perhaps take part in some meaningful extracuriculars, particularly ones that have relation to your major. i.e. a meaningful EC for a Political Science major would be joining a political organization (young republicans for example) or working in a law office. As opposed to say joining a recreational skiing club...although recreational clubs are fine, they won't hold any weight in the admissions process.</p>

<p>The most important thing to find is your "hook". In other words you need to examine yourself and in your essay describe what it is that interests you about a school, why you want to attend that school, and what the school offers that your community college is incapable of offering. </p>

<p>For instance, if you apply to a school simply for prestige the adcoms will smell it and they won't like it. If your only reason for applying to a school is because the department they have is "better" your not going to get in.</p>

<p>You need a specific reason, most often this reason is that your current school doesn't offer a major that you would like to persue. For example, I am a Middle Eastern Studies major at Tufts. The Middle Eastern Studies program here is great and its focus is very broad (History, Religion, Art, etc)...but there is a noticable lack of emphasis on the Arabic and Hebrew language programs. I wan't to make the study of the Middle East my career, my life, and I feel the best way to do that is to gain a mastery of the languages of that region. Tufts offers Arabic and Hebrew, but the programs are not intensive...thus I want to transfer to Georgetown which has the best Arabic language program in the country.</p>

<p>email me if you have any further inquiries</p>

<p>Thanks for the response.</p>

<p>I posed those two questions because I am thinking about transferring from a relatively prestigious school (University of Michigan). I might apply to a couple of schools which are not normally considered as prestigious as the school I attend. This is where the problem comes into play. I am out of state and I am planning on applying to my state school (University of Texas) and another school (University of Oklahoma) but I am worried that I will end up wasting my time and not get to UT which is really the only other place I would really consider going. I am not doing poorly at all but just have not enjoyed the university as much as I thought but maybe that will change before the end of April. Any feedback would be appreciated.</p>

<p>Well transferring down to a less prestigous, and in the eyes of adcoms, a less rigourous school, is generally frowned on by admissions comittees at grad schools. Thats if you are thinking of applying to a grad school.</p>

<p>Texas is a great school and if you got into Michigan as an out of stater, I'm sure you'd be able to get into your state school as well. It would probally save you some serious money too!</p>

<p>Ultimately though, I think happiness should come before school. If your miserable in Michigan, than I would highly advise you to transfer, even if doing so might technically hurt you somewhat in the grad school admissions game.</p>

<p>Its your choice. Personally I think life is to short to spend 4 years of your life in utter dispair...but hey, thats just me.</p>

<p>in CA in the UC system you have more chances of getting in berkeley from a CC than from say stanford with a 4.0...that's why I love CA!! heh</p>

<p>Why would someone from Stanford want to transfer to Berkeley? What could possibly be the reasoning behind that?</p>

<p>I think he was just giving an example of the way UC and Cal Education system works. CC people need a place to transfer, UC/CSU are are committed to providing that spot, and will give priority to CC students over everyone else. In fact most UC admsision websites state that 90-95% of their transfers are indeed CC students.</p>

<p>Kid's from the honors program at my son's CA CC had no problem getting into the top UCs, but they didn't do very well applying to top privates. UCs don't look at high school grades or SATs whereas the private schools do. In general I'd say the better the school you're applying from, the better your chances.</p>

<p>Alot of private schools don't ask for SAT's...some in the top 30 don't, Tufts for example, John's Hopkins, etc.</p>

<p>Hey whatever top privates don't look at your sat's because I feel reluctant to take them over again. Could you list somemore in the top 30? NYu???</p>

<p>USC does not look at SAT scores if u have 60 units.</p>

<p>"Hey whatever top privates don't look at your sat's because I feel reluctant to take them over again. Could you list somemore in the top 30? NYu???"</p>

<p>I don't know if NYU asks of them from transfers.</p>

<p>Why not visit the websites of the schools your interested in attending to see if they require them, rather than just basing your entire motive for application to these schools on the fact that they are in the top 30.</p>