<p>At the end of Fall 2014 I will have completed 65 units. This is my third year at a CCC. (Got & took bad advice and am 1 8 units behind) I plan to TAG & transfer to UCR next fall. Should I take an extra semester of classes to avoid an education gap? Or should I not continue adding units to my transcript?</p>
<p>I'm a psych major so the next semester would consist of all psych classes that are not required for transfer but my CCC offers them. </p>
<p>It’s up to you, really. I doubt UCR will care either way.</p>
<p>@kristyalene</p>
<p>There is no unit cap, meaning you will at least get subject credit for classes over the 60 units.</p>
<p>Here is what I suggest:
Put the extra semester to good use and consider a minor. A minor means adding about 7 classes to your UC requirements once you get accepted. </p>
<p>Search minors at the UCs you are interested in and find one you like that has some lower division requirements you can take at your CCC. You won’t be doing anything with those until after you’re accepted, but then you can petition into the minor with hopefully a couple classes already completed at your CCC.</p>
<p>An added benefit: If you find a minor that has a couple course options that also can be used for your major, you can shave off two more courses, meaning you would only need about 3 extra courses to obtain your minor.</p>
<p>To make sure you understand, you are allowed to cross-use two classes for minor and major, meaning those two classes can be applied to both major and minor. For instance, Comm Studies at UCLA has two upper division course electives in linguistics that will fulfill the CS major. Those two courses also fulfill a linguistics minor. </p>
<p>Do you get what I am saying?</p>
<p>@cayton
Don’t UC’s want you to explain educational gaps? Is it just something they ask to make sure you didn’t take classes and you’re omitting them or do they actually want a good reason? </p>
<p>@lapseintime </p>
<p>They’ll typically want you to explain educational gaps if they occur in the middle of one’s academic career at a community college, and you’re right, it’s so that they know you weren’t going to some other community college and ended up getting bad grades. </p>
<p>You can explain in the additional comments section of the UC application that you won’t be taking any classes in the spring semester because you feel you won’t need to(Because you’ve satisfied major pre-reqs, units requirements, and GE requirements), if you want.</p>
<p>I think you’ll be fine if you don’t take any classes in the last semester since you don’t need to for any specific reason.</p>
<p>ah, so that is a reason for wanting explanation of gaps @cayton. I never thought of that. </p>
<p>In fact, this is a related question I’ve wondered about that you might be able to answer:</p>
<p>How does the UC know if you took courses three years earlier at some CCC, flunked out, but just didn’t list it in the app? I’m certainly not saying do that, because you never should and it would be grounds for immediate disqualification, but I guess I’m wondering is there a state databank they could access that lists someone’s name and colleges attended, that sort of thing?</p>
<p>The National Student Clearing House has a record of everything.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/”>http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/</a></p>
<p>This organization hold records for almost any college in the country. Dates of attendance, transcripts, financial aid info, etc. if a school wants to know more about you, they can get it here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.studentclearinghouse.org”>http://www.studentclearinghouse.org</a></p>
<p>@lindyk8 </p>
<p>You’re right, there’s a national database of all college classes taken by all students in the United States maintained by The National Student Clearing House if I’m not mistaken. This is the same organization whose database employers use to verify that you’ve earned the academic degree(s) that you claim to have earned(As you may know, a lot of people lie about having college degrees on their resumes). UCs and other universities can also access this database to make sure you’re not lying on your UC application about that stuff. To be honest, they don’t even need to ask about educational gaps in your academic history, but I suspect that they do to see who’s truthful and who’s not.</p>
<p>Here’s the website of The National Student Clearing House: <a href=“http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/”>http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/</a></p>
<p>Unless things seem off they typically don’t check. I got that straight from a former Ad-com committee member at UCLA. Family friend who has no reason to lie to me.</p>
<p>So - let this be a lesson to you kids! :))</p>
<p>@Cayton maybe they want info regarding recent gaps because there might be a lag getting it into the database.</p>
<p>@2016Candles </p>
<p>I’ll take your word for it then. Still, it’s immoral to lie and everyone should know that. Even if one doesn’t care about the ethics of lying on a college application, one should be concerned about the risk of the lie being discovered during the application process. The risks outweighs the rewards in my opinion.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you remember this, but the University of California stated in the UC application that if you lie on the application and it’s discovered during the application/admission season, they’ll reject you, which isn’t surprising. But if the lie is discovered later, say, while you’re in school at the UC to which you transferred, you’ll be kicked out. And here’s the kicker: if they discover that you lied after you’ve been awarded the degree, they can revoke it!</p>
<p>Lying isn’t worth it for so many reasons.</p>
<p>For the record I’m not advocating dishonesty. I’m just saying that I don’t the UCs are really out to be Big Brother per se. </p>
<p>It seems to me since everything is automated at the UCs, there would be a way to plug-in applicants’ names and run a database check in the background. OR, better - they run it after they have chosen the winners. In theory, it could be done really fast. </p>
<p>But probably not cheaply :-)</p>
<p>@2016Candles </p>
<p>You’re too good to advocate dishonesty. :P</p>
<p>@Cayton
Are you living in a dorm this year? Have you moved in yet?</p>
<p>@music1990 </p>
<p>I’ll be dorming this year. It’ll be a plaza, which is just a little larger than a classic residence hall. New students are scheduled to move in on the last weekend in September.</p>
<p>How about you? Dorming? Or off-campus apartment? When does school start at Berkeley? Are you excited? :)</p>
<p>The last weekend in September?! You don’t start until then?! Wow we start on August 28th and I’m moving in this weekend. I’m living in an apartment a block from school and yes I am so, so, so excited. And a little nervous. Are you excited? The one thing I’m a little bit jealous of is I bet UCLA has a better social scene an stuff. You will probably be partying a lot huh?</p>