Community College or Regional State School

I’ll be graduating from high school next month with a 4.1W GPA, 7 AP classes, pretty great extra curriculars.

I got rejected from the schools I wanted to go to so my options now are community college (Norwalk Community College) and the UCONN Stamford campus. My goal is to transfer after one year to a four year college, ideally USC/Occidental/etc.

Which school would “look better” to transfer from?

Of course community college is cheaper, essentially I wouldn’t have to pay anything with financial aid. I didn’t apply to UCONN quite yet (deadline is in July), and while I probably will have to pay a bit more, it would’t be impossible to attend by any means.

I’ve been told UCONN classes would be more academically challenging so that would be a plus. But, would it make that much of a difference when trying to transfer? NCC lists an honors program but the school says it doesn’t run and won’t be any time soon. Would that “look bad” going to a CC and not being involved in an honors program when trying to transfer to such competitive schools?

The community college is very close to my house, and the commute to Stamford would be longer. However if there’s a benefit in going to Stamford I wouldn’t mind.

What do you think?