I’m planning on transferring to USC and am thinking of spending my freshman year at either UCI or Occidental. At which school would it be easier to do well academically / which would be easier to transfer from?
Hey,
if you applied to USC for the Fall 2016 and wasn’t accepted, they have a “trojan transfer plan” that guarantees you a spot if you go to a community college with a 3.5 GPA+ and then transfer. I think it is the best approach if you want to transfer to USC because community college is less difficult than a private/uc campus.
Anyways from brief research, I say Occidental College is slightly less competitive because the fact that the acceptance rate is a little higher and less selective. Compared to UCI, where the acceptance rate is competitive and average applicant’s GPA and SAT scores average 4.0 + w/ 1800+ usually.
I actually am doing TTP, but am not going to go to a CC.
Bump
Depends on what you are looking for. I am pretty sure no one can tell you which is harder because no one has gone to both schools. Which do you prefer? Large public research university vs small private liberal arts college.
I’m leaning towards UCI but am worried that classes will be harder there than Oxy. Can any UCI students out there comment on how easy it is to get a GPA above 3.5?
I’m wondering about rigor too since I’m transferring from a CC but I think you gotta share your major to give a better idea unless you only mean general ed classes. If I was you I would save money and go to a community college, it will give you a better chance of admission at a school of choice like USC.
I’m an undecided major, so mostly general ed classes, I’d assume.
Can anyone speak (possibly from experience) on exactly how much harder UCI would be than Occidental? I want to transfer after my first year, and to transfer you need good grades, and from what I’m hearing that is more feasible at Oxy. However, I like the general environment of UCI more. Are classes at each of around the same difficulty, or is one substantially leagues above the other?
(Oxy is semester system and UCI is quarter, which could also play a part).
Look I’m very biased about this, but I would insist that you seriously think about what it means to turn down Oxy for UCI. I’ve found that UCI isn’t at all what it’s cracked up to be, and it’s really sad because there are a very small minority of really good faculty here at UCI, and it’s not fair to them that the rest of the school sucks enough to justify students choosing other schools over it – but I’d strongly suggest you to think about Oxy over UCI for many, many reasons.
I haven’t been completely fair to UCI though because I got the wrong impression from the beginning. If you’re expecting it to feel like a presitgous college then you need to shake that thought right away, UCI is not trying to be a prestigious college, it’s trying to be more like a litmus test for competency. UCI wants to educate as many people as possible, and with this is mind they are accepting lots of people who they feel deserve a chance but are probably not innately talented or disciplined enough to be accepted into private schools. As such, you might think of UCI as the place everyone goes when they are rejected from schools with low amounts of students.
I think UCI faculty and admin realize this and embrace this way of thinking. Okay, as such this means that prerequisites are absolutely the final word on enrollment and most courses are weeder courses. This means that many students have 2.0-2.6 gpa’s, probably take redundant classes if they change majors at some point, and many probably graduate with a C-average, and the school isn’t particularly concerned with this – in other words, it’s no big deal.
In a few shorter words, UCI is basically like a CSU on steroids, but with more prerequisites and probably lower average gpa’s. In fact, I’d say it’s probably directly comparable to a place like Cal Poly SLO, with SLO possibly edging out UCI depending on what you might find important and why.
At what school would you be happiest if your plan to transfer doesn’t work out?