<p>also if you look at chibi_loopi's argument, then what about those community colleges that send 2 or 5 transfers to top tier schools, does that make them relatively simple or basic compared to those that send 500 like smc</p>
<p>I completely agree with the larger number of transfers correlating with the amount of resources a CC has. Just compare a school like SMC which has tons and tons of resources with a school like Porterville College. 'Nuff said.</p>
<p>but motus, you dont have to be a genius to realize that schools are measured by alot of things including their professors (that is the same with 4 year universities). with better professors, you get better educations + more difficulty which in turn lead to more success. generally speaking, the more highly recognized professors in community colleges are those that teach honor courses. a school with more honor courses, tend to be better/more difficult and thus transfer alot more students to top 4-year institutions. </p>
<p>get my logic here? professors play a crucial role in determining the community college's ranking. the schools with more honors courses and higher transfer rates = better than those with a small amount of honors courses and low transfer rates.</p>
<p>Better yes. but not harder. Community colleges with less professors in each department have more flexibility in what they want to teach. Some community colleges only have one professor who teachers Calc and Upper level Mathematics and they can choose to be really rigorous or lenient because there are no department meetings or regulations to hold them back. While with a larger community college with more resources has more professors so there is a wider range of teaching styles which is overall beneficial to a student rather than following the style of one professor throughout their whole academic career</p>
<p>Lets get back on subject</p>
<p>Pasadena City College- 7</p>
<p>3.9 transfer gpa</p>
<p>anyway, if you're looking to transfer, you should go to the hardest community college, not the easiest.</p>
<p>Just for chuckles and giggles...</p>
<p>LACC: 5
SMC: 7</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0 (not a lot of units)</p>
<p>chibi> Professors teaching honors sections at cc aren't hired by their respective universities to teach these courses. They are allowed to teach honors sections because they are the best candidates within their own divisions who openly seek to teach in the program. It's a small pool. </p>
<p>It gets more difficult to gauge professors at the cc level. They aren't measured in the same way that professors in the university system are. Many of them are at a cc because they don't want to publish. In many cases this is
because they are more interested in teaching than in performing research. Without research and peer review it gets difficult to rate them in their fields. In mathematics and the sciences this isn't as critical as, say, the humanities and the social sciences</p>
<p>Isn't the reason why a lot of professors choose to teach at LACs because, like you said, they want to focus more on teaching than research? If lots of professors choose to teach at community colleges rather than universities because they truly want to teach, I wish all of them would share that kind of enthusiasm.</p>
<p>motus> absolutely. I was simply pointing out the difficulty in rating a cc professor by the fact that they teach honors courses. Many of them teach in cycles and the responsibility is shared within each department. </p>
<p>I also agree that these professors should be lauded for their commitment to teaching. The only problem comes when the professors don't keep up with their subjects (this can happen when they become tenured at the cc level and don't publish or review the work of other academics). I came into contact with a few of these professors while I was attending cc.</p>
<p>calbear, i agree with you on alot of your points. but you somewhat prove me point a little</p>
<p>"They are allowed to teach honors sections because they are the best candidates within their own divisions who openly seek to teach in the program."</p>
<p>even if it's a small pool, alot of the "best" teachers in the community college system are attracted to bigger, more known cc's like deanza and etc. that was the growing trend at cc's around my area in that alot of them get paid higher at those institutions, and thus bounce to teach at them. </p>
<p>but even if that doesn't make sense, on a community college scale, the larger, more resources cc's will be better because they'll have a bigger pool to select honor teachers (or the best in their respective fields). this end, results in more students transferring. </p>
<p>i dont know though, although i am making claims about how there are better cc's then others, i still think they are all hella legit. it doesnt matter where you go, it's what you make of it. </p>
<p>as for the main topic of this, i can't really rank my college because ive only been attending them for summer courses. this is my first fall course here, so maybe at the end of the semester, i'll do this ranking.</p>
<p>Same here. The ratings I gave for SMC and LACC were strictly from summer courses. I'll probably update my ratings after my upcoming first fall semester.</p>
<p>For the last time, schools does matter, its all about the average. And some schools has more programs than others</p>
<p>Thedude44 probably gave the most commendable advise, to those looking for ways to prepare for the work hardest : go to the hardest CC. As most of you said, difficulty at the CC level is highly subjective and varies from one person to another. The best preparation you can get would be to challenge yourself while at the community college. You can do so wisely without completely crippling your gpa. It helps in terms of preparing you for the work ahead at the UCs.</p>
<p>If you want to know what a UC is like, just take like 27+ units at your CC in one semester. Win!</p>
<p>LMFAO! I agree. 27 units for the ****ing kill!</p>
<p>So 27 units at a CC equals 16 units at a UC? Very cool.</p>
<p>^ Not necessarily. 27 is an arbitrary number.</p>