I got waitlisted for uci, ucd, and cal poly pomona for chemical engineering.
I haven’t heard from ucd yet and just recently got off the waitlist for cal poly pomona.
Now i cant make a decision… should i go to cal poly or community college and do tag because i definitely want to transfer to a uc.
It would be harder for me to transfer from cal poly than community, since community colleges get first priority. However, tag would give me automatic admission into chemical engineering.
Please help me make a decision to whether i should go to cal poly or community by 5/12. If i get off the waitlist for uci, im definitely going, but im worried that i wont get in due to my stats. Hopefully, uci releases decisions today.
SAT/ACT: 1600/24
UC GPA: 4.00
Why? What magic do UCs have?
Sure, they’re a bit more prestigious. But your real worry ought to be whether you can succeed in the rigorous classes that engineering requires, not the school where you do it. About 1/2 of all engineering students drop out, so the real determinant of your future is on your shoulders. A strike already against you is that you seemingly haven’t taken the time to look very closely at the ChemE profession. If you did you’d know that kids from an ABET program are in demand, and that the primary factors hiring companies look at are your GPA and whether you’ve had internships. I’d bet the kids that throw in the towel come in much greater numbers from those who have seemingly chosen a career and yet not spent the time to find out what ChemE’s actually do or how companies go about hiring them. That lack of knowledge plays out in many ways, such as not being motivated enough to get thru the crushing workload since they can’t really tell themselves why its worthwhile.
But to answer your question, here’s your decision in a nutshell. If you go the CC route you can get a guarantee provided you do well enough. A bad semester or two, even if you then hit your stride, then forget ChemE. If you’re at CPP then a bad semester or two will be forgotten by the time you are a senior ChemE. Furthermore if you go to CPP you’ll have developed and friendships with fellow students over 4 years and spent that same amount of time getting to know some faculty (which can help in internship/job leads and recs). If you xfer you have about 1 year before you try to find internships summer of junior year.
Since you don’t seem to know a lot about ChemE, and since you say a UC is your dream, I’d say the CC route is the choice for you. Another reason I’d recommend the CC is that if you change your major then you’re not stuck at a school (CPP) that you chose just for ChemE. Hopefully your SAT doesn’t reflect your true abilities, but it is on the low side for someone who wants to take engineering.