<p>Since my HS record isn't that great and since I'm getting rejected from near-safety schools, I figured I'll go to my local community college for 2 years and transfer based on how well I do there. My question is, are there are negatives to going to a Community College when it comes to looking for a job? Do employers or grad schools discriminate if they see Community College on the resume and transcripts?</p>
<p>No if you transfer and get a BA/BS your degree will be from that college/uni. Most often on your resume you will be listing you degree, the degree granting college/uni and your major.</p>
<p>Terp - just make sure you check with a couple of the 4 year colleges where you want to finish up to understand what classes will transfer.</p>
<p>I don’t think your prospective employers even need to know you started at community college. I wouldn’t think you’d need to put anything but the degree granting institution on your resume. If I was hiring and I saw that someone had started at community college and gone on to get a degree from a 4 year institution, I’d assume they did it for financial or personal reasons (and not necessarily because they didn’t get in anywhere else) and think nothing of it.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you live but the community colleges in my area offer instructions even below high school level. They have the course title of college classes but the content is not challenging and I am afraid you will not be prepared well for a real university.</p>
<p>Hope it’s not the case for you…</p>
<p>I attended a cc for 2 years before transferring and it has never been an issue with my employers. I usually just list the degree and school that I graduated from and don’t list the cc. Of course if anyone asked, I would tell them.</p>
<p>I think you are making a good choice, by the way. Good luck.</p>
<p>"I don’t know where you live but the community colleges in my area offer instructions even below high school level. They have the course title of college classes but the content is not challenging and I am afraid you will not be prepared well for a real university.</p>
<p>Hope it’s not the case for you… "</p>
<p>I felt my community college was pretty dumbed down, but I was still prepared for university level work. I would imagine the only way someone coming from a CC would be unable to handle university level work would be if they could not handle the CC work. Dumbed down or not, it serves as a decent stepping stone between high school and a 4 year university.</p>
<p>OP: I barely met the requirements for graduation in high school and was so successful in CC that I got to transfer to Umich. It has given me opportunities I hadn’t dreamed of in high school. For some people, for me and perhaps for you, CC can be a really great option that yields fantastic opportunities. If you do choose to go, make the absolute best of your experience so that you are also able to achieve bigger and better things. It is a great opportunity to open doors for yourself in life, but only if you actively take advantage of it. This could be your chance to do better in life than you might have before, but if you coast through it won’t happen for you.</p>
<p>Collegeproject and OP. Community colleges often have articulation agreements with colleges and universities. In the articulation agree often it will list the community college course and the equivalent course at the university or college. If you are considering starting at a CC and then a transfer it is not difficult to work with the CC and the university to structure your schedule to maximize the classes that will transfer. Every system is abit different so I can’t be specific. Also OP, there is a transfer forum where the kids discuss all the ins and outs of CC to Uni or college and the transfer process. Lots of good advice there. As a heads up to Collegeproject, community colleges are explicit in their mission to serve the community so yes, many CCs have courses geared to the young, the old, those that are looking for a 2 year program, those that might be looking only for an enrichment class…to dismiss them outright is to tell me you really haven’t looked into a cc or what it can offer for many different types of students.</p>
<p>Terp2014, it’s a fine choice to make.</p>
<p>Community colleges offer a good value for the money in many cases – smaller classes with faculty whose sole purpose for being there is to teach, and a range of course options that can enhance your “employability” (one example, Cisco network certification). I’ve applauded many students who took this path to a 4-year degree. I agree with others who’ve said it’s important to target your 4-year college early and make sure your CC courses will transfer; it’s not such a great deal if you have to take three years of courses at the 4-year college because your CC work didn’t count.</p>
<p>The one concern I have about the CC path is that it may not offer the same degree of personal development. Of my son’s graduating class, it seems like the students who left home for residential college life seem to have matured more over this first semester, whereas most of the ones who went to a CC don’t really seem to have left high school behind. But that’s a blanket statement about a very small population, and I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about causation from that!</p>
<p>What are your stats? Where have you applied to? Where have you been rejected?</p>
<p>Perhaps you can go to a 4 year, but you’ve applied too high for your stats? </p>
<p>(or maybe your stats are great and the rejections were a fluke 
)</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Wait, you applied to UChicago and were rejected? Why do you think your only choice now is a CC?</p>
<p>Why can’t you go to a decent 4 year U for a couple of years and then transfer to UChicago? At least you’d have a full college experience for 2 the first 2 years that you wouldn’t have at a cc.</p>
<p>If you have the stats to even think about applying to UCh, then you have the stats to go to a lot of other universities.</p>
<p>Are you also a URM? You’re a male, right? Are you AA? I think you have more options than you think. :)</p>
<p>What is your home state? What are your stats? What is your likely major?</p>
<p>I see on another thread that your parents want to help pay for your college costs. You have other options. We can help you find what you need. :)</p>
<p>OK…
I see that you have a 3.4 UW and a 4.1 Weighted GPA. Many schools only look at weighted, so that’s GOOD. </p>
<p>What are your test scores? ACT? SAT? (and SAT breakdown)???</p>
<p>Talk to the college counselor at your high school. You need advise that’s in sync with your specific high school, and the community colleges/four-year public colleges in your state.</p>
<p>Of all the students I knew in my U, those who went to a CC first then transfers did drastically better in engineering than those who did the standard 4 years at the U. I think CC are great,</p>
<p>I disagree with almost all posts on this thread. </p>
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<p>I discriminate. When I do a search for a position, I get a LOT of resumes. Right or wrong, I usually assume that those who went to community college have set a lower standard of excellence for themselves. Whether that’s the case or not they usually HAVE been held to a lower standard than those who went to a more difficult 4 year college. I have enough resumes where I don’t have to take a chance. Also someone who said that you don’t have to put it on your resume may not be correct. On most job applications, you have to list all post-secondary institutions attended. </p>
<p>I looked on your previous posts, 32 ACT! Questbridge finalist!</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I think that you need to aim much higher. Let the people here help you out finding a better fit. There is a world of difference between UChicago and community college. </p>
<p>Deadlines are approaching!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies @ everyone, no I didn’t get rejected from UChicago, I got deferred, but that’s not what I’m worried about. I got rejected from UMBC and a couple of other schools that are in UMBC’s league. And no I’m not AA, but I’m first-gen, so I guess that kinda helps. The reason I thought I was competitive for UChicago was because I have some pretty impressive awards and Extra Curriculars that I’d rather not list here, because it would be pretty easy to figure out who I am :p</p>
<p>Ya my WGPA and ACT score are pretty good, but my transcript is pretty messy (Ds in a few APs and Cs all over the place). I talked to our school’s career counselor and he thinks my transcript might be what’s bothering schools. So I figured I’ll retake those classes at a Community College along with others and then transfer out.</p>
<p>I’m really not choosing CC as a last option or anything. It’s pretty cheap and it might offer me a chance to straighten my academic life out and prove to colleges that I can excel in college courses.</p>
<p>About Grad School, don’t Grad Schools want all transcripts? So, can’t they figure out that I went to CC?</p>
<p>I looked at your previous posts, your GPA isn’t that low, and I really think that you can get into a decent 4 year school. There are just so many of them that would love to have you and would nurture you. I think that for you, CC would be a huge mistake. I think your counselor is misguiding you severely. Let people here help you. </p>
<p>For example, pick a “Colleges that Save Lives School” such as Beloit, McDaniel, or Wooster. </p>
<p>Beloit has a 25%-75% ACT range of 24-32, but 18% of their students had GPA’s between 2.5 and 3.0. Yet almost 10% of their graduates go on to get a PhD. That’s 26th in the nation for that metric! Even if you don’t want a PhD, that metric is a sign of an intellectual school. If you liked Chicago, you might like that one too. </p>
<p>For a financial safety, consider Truman State, a public liberal arts college in Missouri. In order to get in there, you need to an “index” of 140. This index is the % of students who you outscore on the ACT (the 32 give you a 99), so you only need to outrank 41% of the students in your class. Their 25%-75% ACT range is 25-31 and even if you had to pay full price, their 2009-2010 out-of-state tuition is only $11,543!</p>
<p>If you need, more, ask for more.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad: I am really disappointed that you discriminate. </p>
<p>I teach at a community college, and I have some extremely intelligent and able students. This semester I wrote recommendations for students who are transferring to Sarah Lawrence, Yale, and NYU.</p>
<p>I have a PhD. In fact, the year I wrote my dissertation it was awarded best in the country from University Microfiche who publishes all dissertations in the country, and I have been published in the NYTimes as an expert in my field.</p>
<p>Both my kids went to very elite LAC’s, and I don’t feel their teachers were more knowledgeable in my area than I am. Nor do I think their classes surpassed mine.</p>
<p>The draw back of a community college is some of the students. And I stress SOME. Some do look at the school as 13th grade and are unmotivated. Many do not understand what is expected in an academic environment.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we have tremendous diversity. Some students are immigrants (many) just learning the ropes of a new culture. Some are URM’s struggle to get a toe up in a discriminatory society. Some have had personal setbacks. Some have returned from partying too much at their more elite schools.</p>
<p>Many are thoughtful and very intelligent.</p>
<p>My own children have been impressed by the discussions in classes. Often elite colleges have cautious students who don’t share as much in class as my students do.</p>
<p>Another benefit is that the computer tops our classes at 25 and will not accept more, so class sizes are generally small.</p>
<p>Are standards relaxed? Well grading standards are, for sure, but that varies among four-year institutions as well. A young relative of mine went to a Pennsylvania public (not Penn State) and returned to the cc where I teach and reported that the teaching and grading standards were more rigorous at the CC.</p>
<p>To sum up, in response to the question, “Are there negatives?” I would have to say, “Yes, yes, there are.” One negative is the maturity level (or immaturity level) of some community college students. A second is the course offerings which may be generic, and third is the often unfounded biases of employers and others from the outside looking at the community college.</p>
<p>And speaking to the second, I teach intellectual history and mythology, two courses that were not offered by the elite LAC’s my kids attended, and by elite, I mean think top of the pile.</p>
<p>The mythology class my S took as an extra class at SUNY Stony Brook was a lot less demanding than the class I teach which begins with Joseph Campbell and recent scholarship in theory of myth.</p>
<p>The intellectual history department has included classes like “The Making of the Modern Mind” and “Post-Modernism.” The Post-Modernism course has Derrida, Foucault, Levi-Strauss and Lacan on the reading list. It also discusses Chaos Theory and fractals. The “Making of the Modern Mind” begins with a discussion of Thomas Kuhn and THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS. The readings include excerpts from THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DAS KAPITAL, THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, Case studies of Freud, CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS. For Einstein we do not read primary material.</p>
<p>Studies have repeatedly shown that community college teachers have equal preparation as faculties of four year institutions. Often random circumstances dictate who gets hired where, and then the CC teachers do do less publishing and more teaching than their colleagues. It’s a value judgment whether that makes us worse or better teachers.</p>
<p>Mythmom, I meant no disrespect to you as a teacher. I understand that there are some gems at community college. However, I really think that this student would be better served at a 4 year college. </p>
<p>I am an engineer, but I imagine it is similar in many fields. As an employer who has very few openings, when I do have them, I get a pile of resumes from my company’s database. I then look through them all and sort them in rank order based on who is most likely to be a good fit for me. There are a lot of factors that go into that. I have a high standard of excellence (at least I think it’s high), so I tend to rank those that have done well in challenging schools high. In my experience, it does correlate well with how well they do on the job. For example, I’ll get 50 resumes and rank them based solely on the resumes. I know that there are real people attached to those resumes, but I don’t have time to call them all. After I have the resumes ranked, I’ll phone screen down the pile until I have maybe a list of 3 candidates to bring in for a full day of interviews. If none of those work out, I’ll continue down the pile. I have never gone beyond 10 before the job is filled. While I’m sure that there are CC graduates that do transfer to very selective schools, I have never actually seen any of those resumes. I don’t know a better more time efficient way for me to plow through resumes, and I am open to suggestions. Nonetheless, this is what I actually do. </p>
<p>Yale and NYU can afford to take a chance. I can’t. If I see a warning sign, it is what it is. Again, I admire you for what you do. I am just being honest though.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad, thanks. My GPA might not be that low, but my transcript is definitely an issue. Like I said, Ds in a few APs and several Cs are probably raising red flags all over the place. Just curious, why don’t you think CC is a good fit for me?</p>
<p>And for Truman State, I doubt I can outrank 41% of the people in my class. My school doesn’t rank but the school profile (which has the median GPA) clearly puts me outside of the Top 50%. I looked up “Colleges that Save Lives School” on Google, but didn’t find any. Though I did find something called “Colleges that Change Lives”. Were you talking about that?</p>
<p>The way I see it, if I do well at a CC I could transfer to decent schools too.</p>