Hello, I am a physics major attending a community college in Washington State. As of right now I am still in my first year beginning my first quarter. My main goal is to transfer out of state and get my bachelors degree in physics or a subfield of physics. Along with being a hopeful premed. Any advice on transferring? I ask because I know that with physics, chemistry, and engineering, they seem to be majors that are not really ideal for transfers and pre med considering they have lower average gpa’s overall.
This will cover several categories of questions.
SAT test scores:
As for my SAT score, I have a 1200 since my last test, 570 ERW, 630 Math.
Is there any way I am able to increase this score to be in the 1500+ range? Any prep materials that can help me? If so, would I need a tutor? I am not in a time crunch as of right now because I have two more years to go before I graduate and actually transfer.
As for EC’s, I only have one, and that is being a full time working student. I used to play instruments, I am looking into rowing and potentially looking into being an athletic recuit. I also looked into Math competitions for community college students.
Note:These EC’s are all just plans to be able to transfer to a college that I can still do all of these. I mean, if it helps, my ethnicity is pacific islander, along with being a first generation college student.
Classes:
My classes as of right now would be
Calculus 2
and college success class that all incoming freshman have to take to graduate.
I am only enrolled part time because my advisor suggested it to me, but the workload is fairly manageable, so I might be able to enroll full time over the summer. I will continue writing for this forum as peple reply, hope to hear useful advice!
If you plan to transfer after getting an Associates degree, then you probably have a couple of years at the CC going part time but the good news is that your ACT or SAT scores will be irrelevant if you have an Associates degree and good grades. For physics there is a possibility that it will take you longer than 2 years to graduate after transfer unless you plan really well.
The fact that you are intending to be a premed means that you might have to take some extra courses outside the physics curriculum to be able to take all the courses you need for a medical school application.
My suggestion is that you take some physics classes at the CC and see if that is the path for you. Once you have decided, you can talk to the transfer coordinator at the CC to get a better idea of what courses you need to take to get into the school you want…
If you are in a Washington community college, you may find that Washington public universities are better set up to accept transfer credit from your community college.
https://admit.washington.edu/apply/transfer/equivalency-guide/
https://transfercredit.wsu.edu/
For a physics major, you want to take single variable calculus, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations along with the calculus-based physics sequence for physics majors. In addition, take English composition and whatever other general education courses your target universities require for transfer.
If you want to do pre-med alongside, you probably should take a year of general chemistry, and choose psychology and sociology for your social studies general education courses. You will additionally need to take a year of general biology, a year of organic chemistry, and upper level biochemistry some time during college for pre-med purposes. This can make a crowded schedule either before or after transfer. Note that medical schools prefer that you take as many science courses as you can at four year schools.
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@xraymancs I do understand that being a pre med and physics major will take more than four years total overall from CC and a normal 4-year university. I was wondering if medical school will not look at my application since physics majors have on average a lower gpa than other majors. I did pick a major that I am genuinely interested in, I just wondered in case this situation occurs. I understand that the whole thing with the SAT/ACT works with some institutions, but some of them still require those scores even if I have the associates. Some even require additonal test scores to that extreme(like subject tests)
@ucbalumnus I do not mean to say anything bad about the universities in washington, but I just try to steer away from the public instutions. I look into the private institutions more so because they give aid to students according to their fincancial level, not their residency of in state or out of state. So of course the colleges I look in to out of state will all mostly be private. Most of the universities I will be applying to in state will be private.
Medical schools first screen applicants by college GPA and MCAT score. Those who pass the thresholds then get read by human readers. Those who pass the human readers get invited for interviews. So you need your college GPA and MCAT score to be high enough to pass the medical school’s thresholds, regardless of major.
If you are a Washington resident, its public universities may give you good financial aid. There is no guarantee that a private university will have good financial aid, or better financial aid than your in-state public universities. The stories of good financial aid from private universities are mostly from those which are the most difficult to get into; many others give much worse financial aid.
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@Fourierfrancais - Yes, the physics curriculum is challenging but if that is the subject you really like, it is certainly possible to maintain a GPA that gets you through the first cut in medical school admission. The MCAT is also very important and while physics majors tend to do pretty well on the physical science parts, you need to make sure you do equally well on the other parts too.
Frankly, if a university wants to see your SAT/ACT scores after they can see your 4-5 quarters of community college grades, I would look for other universities to apply to. There is nothing that test score can tell me more than if you are able to get good grades in college Calculus and physics courses. As a long-time physics professor who has been involved in advising undergraduates, I have found that students who come in with a solid community college background do very well in their physics classes.
I understand that this seems kind of random, but would doing a research project at a certain university help when it comes to applying there? I understand that the subjective point of research is if the outcome of your analysis is impactful, and it does not need to be at a certain university to help with admissions there, but would research help? I have been taking an interest in neuroscience along with me being a physics major. Being a double major is out of the question due to credit policies for transfer students, and neuroscience seems a little specific when it comes to finding ideas when physics is thrown in, so I looked into research opportunities in biophysics with a concentration in the nervous system.
I guess I don’t understand, do you mean for undergraduate admission? If so, then the admission office is genearlly completely independent from the research faculty. Whether you are able to get a reserach position there in the summer or something else is probably not going to affect your admission too much.
If you are asking about graduate programs, then some universities prefer not to admit their own graduates to their Ph.D. programs. The idea is that it is better to see another department than stay in the same place. A strong research background is good for admission to any program though.
It has been a while since I have posted on this thread, but I have thoroughly thought about how to go about this predicament. Ultimately, applying to a selective university such as an Ivy is still a reach, and I have thought to myself, while talking to my calculus professor about my stance while applying as a transfer, it will be detrimental if rejected in the smallest way possible, so what do I have to lose other than the application fee? So I thought, what colleges have an education as good as these institutions but do not require test scores?
Such schools would be Swarthmore, Amherst, USC, Grinnell, Carleton College, etc. As for those Ivy's I was talking about earlier, it is either a hit or miss just because of how rigid the requirements are for transfers. As for Harvard, I have found an academically motivated reason to be applying as a transfer. I am applying to safeties in my state, including University of Washington, but I am really looking to be out of state.
Btw I am really opened minded to anyone’s input 
Hey man, let us know how you’re doing in your transfer process. I’m also a physics major attending a community college in New York City. I was academically inactive throughout high school because of some personal issues which is why I had a low gpa coming out of it and now am attending a community college. Cool to know someone is also in community college with similar short term goals haha.