<p>I'm currently a senior in high school and i've decided to goto community college first without applying to any colleges. I have bunch of questions about it because i feel like i don't know ANYTHING. </p>
<p>First of all, i've been thinking of applying for all the honors program in community colleges i'm applying to b/c i believe that will give me betters chances. But in some cc websites it says that Honors Program will give priority consideration to following colleges : UCLA,UCI,etc... so does that mean other UCs like Berkeley that wasn't mentioned won't give me a better look. So GPA in regular cc and GPA in honors program cc will look the same? Berkeley is my dream school and i want to live up North. If it does ONLY give priority consideration to those following colleges, there wouldn't be any point for joining honors program ? Just harder classes and struggling to get better GPA? I live in Southern California. Should i still go for honors program? Is there anyone who was in honors program in a cc? And tell me their experience? How hard was it or whatever. I'm also scared b/c i'm weak in English so what if that will affect my GPA. </p>
<p>Second, should i get an AA degree when i transfer? In case, i decide to and take much more time in transferring will that also affect the chances? Can you just take your time or is it better to finish cc fast? If it is, why is finishing cc fast so good? </p>
<p>I feel like i have more questions to ask but i think i'm just nervous about my future. I just wanna finish my cc and transfer to Berkeley then get my degree.</p>
<p>Just incase if you guys are curious about my information..</p>
<p>First, honors programs / tap and tags are between THAT specific CC and the UC Uni. For instance I goto OCC and our Honors program gives TAP (not TAG) to UCLA but not UCB. Tag will guarantee you admission, tap just gives you priority. </p>
<p>Second, the most important thing is getting your pre-reqs for the major (follow assist.org). The GE (IGETC for most schools) done. 60 transferable units. And a strong gpa. </p>
<p>Assuming you are doing liberal arts. With a 3.7+ GPA and Calc 1 as your math class, you’ll get into UCLA and UCB no problem. Tap or no Tap. </p>
<p>Third, going back to Honors program. You need to talk to students at the college to find out more about the specific classes. For instance at OCC marine science oceanography with lab honors are insane. Lab reports every week, journal entries, current events, etc. My business 100 honors class was the exact same thing as the regular version except we had 1 extra presentation and all our tests were written instead of multiple choice. My current geology honors class doesn’t even feel like an honors course. It all depends on the professor. </p>
<p>Plus at our school you don’t need to take every honors course. Here they only require 15 units of honors credit. So you can take art history honors, anthro honors, geol honors, etc and get that certification without taking the most brutal classes such as english honors.</p>
<p>High school stats and test scores won’t matter in transfer admission.</p>
<p>The biggest factors are GPA and pre-reqs. So, once you figure out your major (or if you already have an idea of your direction) you should go on assist.org to figure out which pre-reqs you should be taking. Some majors also recommend/accept IGETC, which is a GE course pattern… your CC should have more information on which classes to take for that.</p>
<p>A little farther off is TAG… not all school have TAG, but if your GPA is good TAG makes a nice safety net. Guarantees you admission to whichever UC, assuming you meet the requirements. But you don’t have to worry about that until early sophomore year.</p>
<p>As for honors… I don’t know how it’s counted. But I doubt it’ll hurt your chances. If nothing else, you’ll probably get a couple points for taking on more challenging classes/schedules.</p>
<p>AA degree: I didn’t bother with it. When you get a BA/BS, no one really care about an associates anymore. If it happens to line up well with your transfer plan, or is just one or two extra courses, you might as well go for it. But if you don’t follow a degree plan it’s not going to affect your chances.</p>
<p>Just to clarify something because it wasn’t mentioned already, in CC there’s no such thing as “weighted” and “unweighted” GPA anymore. Unlike high school both honors and non-honors classes will affect your GPA to the same extent. Everything is unweighted, so you won’t get more of a GPA boost by getting the same grade in an honors class. That being said, if you complete an honors program at your CC it’s likely that admissions will see that and be aware that your curriculum for those courses was tougher, so you can assume that it looks better on your application to some extent. A 3.7 GPA with some honors courses would likely compare favorably to a 3.7 without honors courses. So although there’s no direct GPA boost, indirectly it may help you. Berkeley’s very competitive, the average transfer GPA was 3.77 (remember that’s unweighted) in 2012, so it might help to have any advantage you can. That being said, if you find honors courses a real struggle in CC, it would be better to protect your GPA and take non-honors. Lastly, it’s hard to say how tough or difficult it is because each CC and each professor is different. I took a few honors classes in CC and found that some had way more work than non-honors and others were the exact same as non-honors but with maybe one essay/assignment. It’s generally up to the discretion of the professor or your CC’s department, not all honors classes/programs are the same at all CC’s.</p>
<p>You don’t need an AA degree and many students transfer without them, but it does make a decent back up plan if you worry you may not finish your bachelors. About the time spent in CC, generally you can take your time to transfer. 3-4 years is common and many people even take longer than that if they’re returning to school from a career or the military. I would say 4 years or less is fine and if you have a valid excuse for taking longer then you’re fine. The UC’s understand that classes are hard to come by and some transfers have other priorities (jobs, families, etc) so they don’t penalize you for taking more than the ideal two years to transfer.</p>
<p>I think i’m asking a stupid question but Transfer Alliance Project and Transfer Alliance Program is same thing right? </p>
<p>If yes, on UCB TAP website ([Transfer</a> Alliance Project | Center for Educational Partnerships](<a href=“http://cep.berkeley.edu/tap]Transfer”>TAP | Center for Educational Partnerships)) it lists all the colleges in Southern California that has TAP to UCB if you’re in Honors program. Santa Monica College is listed and it’s where i want to go and on SMC website it doesn’t state UCB TAP, it states exactly like this, </p>
<p>“Through special transfer agreements with top four-year colleges and universities, Scholars students get priority consideration for admissions to the following campuses: The UCLA College of Letters and Science (TAP), UC Irvine, Loyola Marymount University, Chapman University, Mills College and Occidental College.”</p>
<p>Second, if i do get in honors program, can i only take “easy honor” classes? and harder ones as regular? I’m not that smart so i don’t want it to affect my GPA…</p>
<p>No they’re two separate things and people often get confused because they share the same acronym. One, the Transfer Alliance Program, is an agreement between a few universities and many CC’s that ensures priority admission consideration for students that have completed a specific honors curriculum. Most people join their CC’s Transfer Alliance Program if they’re focused on getting into UCLA because it allows you the advantage of getting to choose an alternative major when you apply to UCLA. Normally UCLA only reviews your application for one major, but with TAP they’ll review your application twice if you get rejected for your first choice major. </p>
<p>The Transfer Alliance Project for Berkeley is not an agreement between Berkeley and your CC and doesn’t guarantee you any sort of priority consideration or direct advantage in applying to Berkeley. From what I’ve read, the Transfer Alliance Project instead is more of a support program that helps you with various things such as academic advising, financial aid, and applying to UC’s. They’ll read your personal statements and application and provide you feedback so that you have a better chance of admission, but it’s not any sort of guarantee or collaboration with Berkeley admissions specifically. Also the Transfer Alliance Project, at least from what it says on their website, seems to be directed more toward underrepresented minorities and low income students, whereas the Transfer Alliance Program at your CC is open for anyone to apply. Here’s more info about each: </p>
<p>It depends on your CC’s honors program, but at my CC they allowed you to pick the honors classes you wanted, so it was up to your choosing. The requirement was that you had to have a certain number of honors units, but you pick and choose the individual classes. I’m not sure if that’s the case for all CC’s though. I wouldn’t be too worried about how hard or easy honors classes are. Realistically, if you’re smart enough to transfer to Berkeley you should be able to handle honors classes at CC. If you find yourself struggling with CC honors classes, just keep in mind upper division classes at Berkeley are bound to be much more difficult and your competition at Berkeley is much higher.</p>