Because cc~=prestigious for the reasons ucbalumnus stated.
CC quality and transfer rates depend greatly on where you live. CA is probably the tops. But even then, I see some unrealistic things going on. Weak HS students will post that they intend to go to CC and try for a UC two years on rather than taking a CSU admission now. I think that is crazy. The worst CSU is probably better than a few state flagships. Why not go with the bird in the hand?
And again, once you get outside a few states like CA, the CC picture is not nearly as rosy.
Expanding on my thoughts above, I think CC transfer plans are a bit like 3+2 engineering programs. They sound wonderful in the abstract, but in practice many students will fail to keep up with the requirements, lose interest, or otherwise fall through the cracks.
If the goal is a four year degree, it seems safer to me to go to the best affordable four year school you can get into.
If you can’t get into an affordable four-year school of any kind, then there’s nothing wrong with CC.
I think that a lot of B- students are likely to continue being B- students, and would be better off coasting through a four-year college with a 2.7 GPA (if they can afford to do so) than going to a CC where their 2.7 won’t earn them transfer admission to a four-year college. I’ve noticed that a lot of CC commenters seem oblivious to the vast territory between Stanford and community colleges. I’ve seen posts that are either hilarious or infuriating, advising students with 3.0-3.5 GPAs to go to CCs.
Here is California, 2.7 HS GPA students (with typical test scores) are usually looking at the least selective CSUs for frosh admission; these same CSUs typically admit transfers down to 2.0 college GPA.
So if (a big if) a 2.7 HS GPA student goes to community college in California and earns a 2.7 GPA there, s/he may actually have more choices of colleges to transfer to than s/he had applying as a frosh.
In which state(s) are the state university admission standards such that a 2.7 HS GPA (with typical test scores) gives a student more choices of state universities that s/he is likely to be admitted as a frosh than a 2.7 college GPA gives as a transfer?
People are social animals. They tend to conform. Try to fit in with their environments. There is a herd instinct in academic settings. When the majority of your peers will not ever finish even a two year degree, as at CC, that herd instict is working against you in many ways. The more selective the school gets, the more that herd instinct works in your favor.
A 2.7 student, I would think, would need help and not hindrances, socially.
The 2.7 HS GPA student is unlikely to get into a four year school with high graduation rates. Also, many of the colleges that such a student could get into as a frosh have a predominantly commuter social environment, similar to that of a community college.
Well, it wouldn’t be an order-of-magnitiude difference. I’ll concede that.
I personally loved CC. I was a math major, with a job on the side, and I had to work hard to keep up my GPA. It was the biggest bargain in education.
But I saw lots of other, less driven kids, flounder. I saw kids on the 3 and 4 and 5 year plan for a 2 year degree. And because our local CC is so immense, there was no safety net there. No one was there to encourage, to offer options when the work started to get a bit confusing. I don’t think I had a particular advisor; (though it’s been decades; I could be remembering wrong.) I think we just wen to whoever was free at the time. And that was fine for me. I took the recommended courses for a math major, did well in them, did the necessary coursework over the summer, and had my Associate’s Degree in hand two years after I graduated high school, all set to transfer to a local university.
That’s why the college placement office in my school recommended that I not explore it for my son, and I think their advice makes a lot of sense.
But there are lots of schools that seem to specialize in nurturing those kids who struggle a bit. Any good college placement office can name the ones in your part of the country.
@bjkmom. Perhaps everyone could give one suggestion for B/B- students. The criteria should be a legitimate, four year institution that does not cater to these students but is flexible to give them a chance.
- St. Bonaventure - been around for 157 years, well known for business, education and journalism. Division 1 sports, 5 billionaires have graduated, 6 Pulitzer Prize winners, very pretty campus. Has several early assurance programs with George Washington, SUNY Upstate, among others, for medical, dental, pharmacy and physical therapy. US News ranks it #3 in the Northeast for value behind Bentley and Villanova. AVG GPA is a 3.3 and 35% of students in the top 25% of their class, so there is a good mix of student capability. AVG ACT is a 24, 75th percentile.
Great idea!
2) Albertus Magnus in New Haven CT. 25th percentile SAT scores in the ballpark of 1100. Small school, with a student population of about 1,500. Graduation rate of 61%, and retention rate of 93%. Fairly generous with financial aid.
Oops gotta run
Sorry, had to get the kids out the door to church.
Anyway, back to Albertus Magnus: It was founded in 1925. It has a nice range of majors. including business, pre-law and pre-med. Lots of focus on experiential learning, with a decent variety of internships, aided by the fact that it’s so close to NYC. The campus is 50 acres, including some old mansions.
More than 75% of its students were in the top half of their class. And their overall admission rate is 68%.
It’s absolutely worth a look.
I guess here in Ohio that student would not find it a challenge to find a 4 year institution. We have a number of mid tier state schools that would accept such students and even more branch campuses of those schools and tOSU. They are more reasonably priced than the main campuses and are often in locations where students can commute. They normally have limited 4 year degree selection but those who do modestly well can often transfer to the main campus. We also have CCs that offer the remedial courses in addition to 2 year degrees.
I kind of feel like the bias against CCs is not because of a single cause. My wife is a CC professor and I love community colleges for many kids, but there are some who will never want to attend a CC for reasons that go beyond academics and prestige. Most CCs do not have dorms…This is a dual edged problem as many kids want that experience, but it also means that it can be harder to ‘find your spot’ in a CC than at a school where you live eat and breathe with others. Think about how many 4 year schools tout the advantages of living on campus and you quickly realize what an issue this is.
All of that said, I think the original poster does reflect a large population of students who simply want to go to college and get a degree and are not only not able to be accepted at the top prestigious schools, but wouldn’t want to apply there in the first place. (My son would tell you he had no desire to go to Harvard and be at the bottom of the class every time.)
There’s an entire thread for 3.0-3.3 GPA students. That would be a good place to start.
People look at Community colleges as if they failed high school, but it’s true. Some people do it to save money. Like me I’m done with my English requirements and history courses.
Our country (the U.S.A.) is filled with schools for average students. We also take for granted that many will do a complete re-do as far as schooling and professional pursuits later on, even in mid-life. In this we are different from the rest of the world in measurable ways.
What we don’t have so much is financial opportunities and great scholarships for the great middle. (This is not personal, as I was blessed with high achievers, though not much $.)
I have observed that, if you have the means, there is a nice college for practically everyone.
And so the OP is spot-on. Less than stellar students still have our amazing system of CC for little or virtually no tuition $. They are not LACs with their genteel amenities, but they are fantastic stepping-stones when neither exceptional merit nor finances are present.
OK, time to revive this thread.
It’s summer. School is over, which makes a HUGE difference in the dynamics of my family. (2 teachers + 3 students, now all off for the summer 
)
As I mentioned (I think) earlier, my son’s first set of SAT scores (1280) are within the middle 50% of most of the schools we’re looking at. He still needs to nudge them up, so that’s one summer priority. He got a job at a local supermarket, and his hours aren’t regular, so an SAT prep course will be hard to schedule. He can do one practice SAT per week-- he can do the sections as he finds the time. Both his dad and I have taught enough SAT prep courses that we can grade and explain as necessary.
We started talking last night at dinner about his Common App essay. He came up with an idea; now he can begin to write.
While his grades are online, his average isn’t yet. But his current average is a good 13-14 points higher than it was a year ago, so the upward trend could illustrate what I’ve been saying all along: his issue was a simple lack of maturity. Our parenting didn’t change this year; he became more self motivated and decided to do the work.
So far we’ve seen 4 colleges, and he loved 3 of them. (The 4th one was too large for his taste, so we’ve knocked the large schools off our list.) I’m working summer school next week, so the week after July 4th we’ll schedule some of the remaining visits. Once again, we’ll have to work around his work schedule, but his dad and I are wide open, so that’s do-able. We can schedule a visit with a few day’s notice or less.
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Money is an even bigger issue for the B and C students than it is for the A students. These students don’t have the grades to get into the places that offer the best need-based aid, and they aren’t going to land merit-based aid unless they have at least a 3.0 and stellar ACT or SAT scores.
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This!
B/C students can have LOTS of choices if parents are full pay or near-full-pay. The problem is that most B/C parents likely don’t have full-pay parents. That’s why many/most B/C students end up commuting to their local state school or CC.
Even the schools that do give “good aid,” who will accept sub 3.2 GPA students, will often give "preferential pkgs"to high stats students, which can mean that a B/C student gets a lousy pkg. Frankly, many of the schools don’t really care if those needier modest-stats students attend or not, so those schools don’t provide much/any aid to help the process. If the students are full pay, then they help keep the lights on. Otherwise, the schools have little incentive to dip into their limited funds to make their schools affordable.
You can’t blame the schools not to provide FA to the B&C students. Chances are, majority of those could not succeed. Forty years ago, when I went to college, as an experiment, my school did provide about 30 full ride scholarships to a group of under privileged students from the slums. The result, all of those 30 students were weeded out except a few graduated, the success rate was less than 10%.