Hi,
I’m currently attending Community college to transfer to a four year University (UCLA) as a CS Major. Now let me explain my situation a bit. I have made some very bad decisions in the last 6 years, which resulted me graduating from high school late and wasting 3 years of community college. But some recent events in forced me to take a grip of my life. And for the first time in my life, my goals are clear to me. It would take me maybe year and a half more to complete my transferable classes for UC. Which would bring me to 5 years in a CC. Does UCLA consider students in my situation as a candidate? Any advice would be appreciated.
Yes, you are still a very viable candidate as they like seeing an upward trend and overcoming bad starts. It shows grit.
UCLA has holistic admissions so they’ll look more at what you’ve done towards the end of your time at a community college. But you’ll be competing against kids who have done well their entire time, and there are just so many spaces available. Admission is by no means a sure thing.
My point, though, is that your goal shouldn’t be to get into UCLA. It should be to land a good job in this CS field. Interviewers will be able to assess skill when they talk with you so your school pedigree isn’t as important as in some other fields where companies hiring new college grads are betting on your potential but don’t have a good way to measure it.
If UCLA ends up accepting you, great. If not the other UC and CSU schools can prepare you just fine. What you need to do is focus on good grades, taking part in student groups, and independent coding activities. I hope you’ve started doing projects on your own, both because you have interest in the field where you’re going to spend your working career and to test how strong it fit it really is.
The admit rate for CS for transfers for UCLA is 8%, and admit pool of GPA is 3.90+.