<p>I am wondering what experience anyone out there has with transferring to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the college of Media from a community college... my daughter has been admitted there, but has been offered a full tuition scholarship to a local community college. She was offered financial aid from FAFSA and scholarships to UIUC, but it still leaves her with an $11,000 bill for the first year at UIUC. How hard is it going to be for her to transfer to UIUC if she goes to the community college to get her general education requirements? Will UIUC still consider her if she rejects them now, based on her financial situation? Any and all replies would be greatly appreciated and thank you for your time!</p>
<p>Suggest to your daughter that she applies to parkland community college- she can live right on campus and take classes at Parkland, then transfer in for her junior year. My cousin didn’t get into UIUC as a freshman, but took the parkland route and is now a junior in advertising at the college of media and loves being down there.</p>
<p>Admission to UIUC as a transfer will be based almost entirely on her community college grades. It won’t be an issue that she said no this time.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>This is true…but do the math. the scholarships that she’s been offered now from UIUC will not be offered as a transfer. So, you’ll pay more for junior and senior years. figure out how much you’ll really be saving if she goes to a CC first. The amount may still be a lot…or not. </p>
<p>How much was the scholarship from UIUC? What all was in the FA pkg?</p>
<p>There were scholarships and grants from UIUC in the FA package…–obviously there is financial need… don’t want to go in to the details, but UIUC is more than we can really afford, but I don’t want to ruin her chances of getting back in… I am just wondering if anyone has experience with turning Illinois down, and then getting back in–to the same college and major. The thought is that she will just stay at the CC for a year and then transfer–and get some gen eds under her belt. Any more thoughts? Thank you for your time and response!</p>
<p>She should pay a visit to the Transfer Advisor at the CC that she would be attending. Get that person’s advice about the transfer situation between the CC and UIUC. There may be transfer-only scholarships that are available to graduates of the program she would be pursuing at the CC, and/or the CC may have a formal articulation agreement for her major that would guarantee admission into the specific major she wants at UIUC. The Transfer Advisor’s whole job is to help students with this kind of thing.</p>
<p>Most scholarships are reserved to freshmen (in order to entice them to attend - same reason your daughter was offered a full ride at the community college). There is very little aid for transfers and basically no merit scholarships, save for sometimes $1,000 which hardly makes a dent in the total bill.</p>
<p>You need to compute things like this:
(community college full ride) + 2 or 3 years full in-state costs at UIUC - (Pell + federal loans)
vs.
(UIUC costs - (scholarships + Pell + federal loans) ) X4</p>
<p>If you have high financial need, obviously choose the cheapest. Your daughter won’t have trouble getting back into UIUC (it’ll depend on her grades, mostly) but she won’t have access to the same scholarships/grants when she transfers.
There was an Illinois resident just a month ago who was bemoaning the bad advice his guidance counselor had given him to go to community college first, thus losing in effect thousands of dollars rather than saving. This may not be your case, of course, especially since the full ride may save you a bundle, but do the math before you assume CC free ride + UIUC full cost will be cheaper thant UIUC on scholarships X4.</p>
<p>I second what happymomof1 said above: in particular, check to see if there are automatic transfer agreements between that community college and UIUC; if there are, then as long as your daughter studies there two years and gets the required grades, she could be admitted (I believe that for UIUC, the students are required to attend their CC for at least 3 semesters but they lose any right to an automatic transfer of credits; if they don’t want to lose credits, they have to take a prescribed program and transfer into their major only, after 4 semesters).
Since there’s a full ride scholarship in play, is there an Honors program that may provide more challenging classes that would prepare her for UIUC? Would your daughter take “honors” classes at the CC or just “regular” classes? How many classes are at the level required for her rather than remedial or basic? Depending on how advanced she is, check that the CC does offer classes that will make sense to her. (Some CCs in IL make no sense for students with lots of AP’s, for instance, due to their reaching the highest level offered after 1 semester and then being stuck due to the 3-semester transfer requirement - I don’t know how they deal with credits though, so you should check.) </p>
<p>Finally, check whether the College of Media is transfer-friendly or if your daughter would have to start basically from scratch, depending on how specialized some required first year classes are, or what gen eds are required. (Gen eds at CC’s are supposed to parralle those at UIC and UIUC, although it’s subject to course by course scrutiny and approval for any transfer prior to the 4th semester.)</p>