Hey,
I am a high school junior in California. My grades thus far aren’t anything to admire. I do take and have aced both AP Language and AP U.S History and expect to do well on my AP tests. I took the SAT in March. My freshman and sophomore GPA range between 2.3-2.9 and my junior G.P.A is 3.5. So I am looking into not applying to any state universities because I hope to attend a community college and transfer to a U.C or a private institution such as Notre Dame. I know I am capable of attaining stellar grades in a collegiate environment, however with my current GPA I’m afraid I won’t be considered at any high tier universities.
So I have a few inquiries:
Should I go out of my way and attend a CC such as De Anza which is known for having many students transfer to Berkeley or UCLA or attend my local junior college(Santa Rosa Junior College). Does it make a difference if in both schools I maintain a 3.8-4.0 GPA?
I know U.C’s give priority to community college transfers over transfers from State Schools or even other U.Cs. What about private institutions? Statistically, it is almost impossible to transfer from a CC(or any college in general) to an Ivy, particularly pertaining to the ones I would like to attend, Harvard, Wharton, or Dartmouth.
Also, I know four years want your high school transcript as well as your college transcript; what do they look for in your high school transcript and what of it do they take the most into account in terms of your admission into said university? For example, I have a rigorous senior schedule next year (AP Calc, AP Physics, AP Lit, AP Gov), and given that I do exceedingly well in those courses, how much would that be taken into account by prospective universities?
As of now, I have mediocre extracurriculars (volunteering 2 summers, varsity baseball) and no excuse but laziness and lack of self-application for my terrible G.P.A.
And if it means anything, I would like to major in Business Administration.
I know it’s early, but any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Your literally have no shot at any of the private institutions that you mentioned if you were to go to a community college. Even if you were to go to the best college you could, and got all A’s, the chances of transferring into any of those schools is EXTREMELY remote (like you would have a better chance at winning the lottery). Your lack of EC’s certainly don’t help either.
To me, it seems like your best chance at getting a top level education is busting your butt the rest of high school and for two years at a California Community College, really work on getting some decent EC’s and hope you score well on the SAT. After that write some compelling essays for admissions that while you take ownership of your under performance in high school, that shows your academic performance in more challenging courses improved drastically because they were mentally stimulating etc etc etc… Basically you need to convince someone that your under performance in high school was because the classes were simple, boring, non stimulating but yet somehow convince them that you take ownership of your performance. Good luck with walking that fine line.
After reading my post, I guess I didn’t make it clear in the 2nd paragraph that I was suggesting that after two years at a California Comm College that you then try to transfer to a U. C.
Also, Notre Dame’s Business School doesn’t accept transfers from other schools.
While the data is a bit old, the UC database shows Santa Rosa still sends in the hundreds to UCs every year. See http://www.cpec.ca.gov/OnLineData/TransferTotalsbyCCC.asp?Seg=A That means they supply the classes kids need to be eligible to xfer and the counselors are probably reasonably informed.
So academically there is no advantage in going to DeAnza. However all is not roses.
CC’s are a great option for kids such as you that took a while to get their act together. But there is another, and probably larger, population. With 11 million students, community colleges are home to 45 percent of the collegiate population in the United States. One report found 81.4 percent of students who enter community colleges for the first time planned to obtain a bachelor’s degree in the future, but just 11.6 percent achieved that goal.
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/community-college-bachelors-degree_n_3373125.html
The slackers at Santa Rosa? You probably know a lot of them from HS. So if you end up hanging out with friends from this group you become more likely to share their outcome.
That isn’t to say DeAnza becomes the obvious choice. If you need to live at home and commute that’s a lot of wasted hours on the road.
@GraceDad
Thank you very much for the advice. I still have my heart set on Notre Dame and I will do my best to keep my grades up and do some stronger ECs until the time comes to apply. But Cal is an amazing school and if I ended up getting into Haas that would be amazing.
@mikemac
Thank you very much for the advice and information. I will take that into high consideration. Honestly, the JC would be much cheaper and I wouldn’t have to move out. However, if I decide that going that extra step towards DeAnza or some other UC-feeder, it wouldn’t be too much more trouble.