Hi, so currently at my community college I have 55 transferrable units completed. This Fall 2018 I am going to be taking 16 units and 13 units in Spring 2019. I am planning on applying to USC for Neuroscience and I know that their application is due February. I read on their transfer website and they said that 62 units is the maximum you can take. I will be transferring with 83 units and I am worried that they will not even consider my application because of the high unit courses I am required to take on top of my general educations courses I completed. Is it possible to get accepted for Neuroscience if I have higher than 62 units? Thanks.
54** transferrable units
You can apply to USC with more than 62 credits but they will only allow 62 credits to actually transfer. In your scenario, that’d mean that 21 credits would not be transferred in and you would have to retake those credits. They’d likely accept the credits from your pre-reqs and major related courses and some of the GE credits but not all of them.
But this is not a situation you can avoid. Almost all colleges, including the UC system, have a maximum credit policy because they want you to finish four semesters in residence at their institution.
By this logic, can I submit only my best grades? My poorest grades have been in my most useless classes. Last spring I transferred to a school 3 weeks into their semester because I was a late recruit to their baseball team, so I ended up taking a holistic health class and a kinesiology class just to fill units for eligibility. I got a B and a C in them, and without them my gpa would probably be a .1 higher or so.
This is the part that always confuses me. I mean, they have your transcript, how exactly do they calculate your gpa? How do you decide which credits you’re using to transfer? So you can only carry over 62 credits to their school when you’re admitted, but how do they consider all your credits when reviewing your application?
You will receive subject credit for all units beyond the 62, you just wont get unit credit. So you’ll start at USC with 62 units, but you will get credit for all 84. You will NOT have to retake courses you have been given subject credit for unless there’s a unique situation.
You must report EVERY course on your transcript, even if you’ve taken a 1 unit credit/no credit gardening class. You will risk being rescinded if you don’t.
Not 100% on how USC does it, but most likely you’ll be reviewed with your cumulative gpa with every course you’ve taken. They’ll see the individual grades and whatnot too.
Generally speaking, how do schools view repeat/renewed courses? That makes a HUGE difference in my case. If you consider grade replacement, my gpa has gone up from a 1.9 to a 3.5 from after I flunked out of a cal state. Without grade replacement, I probably have like a 2.8 or 2.9 now. I don’t even want to think about what all those F’s would do to my gpa… My former cal state has a grade replacement program and I can send them repeated courses from CC and they’ll update my transcript, but I think it will still show the F on there.
@NoahPM To my knowledge, most colleges will include the failed courses in your GPA even if they are retaken. Both courses will appear and be calculated in your GPA. USC definitely looks at transcripts in this manner.
With that said, however, upward trends are looked upon favorably so I would apply and explain your situation. Is there also any specific reason that you flunked out? If it was health/death in family related, you could possibly request a retroactive withdrawal.
Yes, I took one full medical withdrawal and was dealing with a new mental illness diagnosis, and I’m working on another retroactive withdrawal that should go through. But with that said there are some classes I can’t retroactively withdrawal from. All I know is my former school will consider your gpa changed when you retake the failed class for their own records.
@NoahPM Unfortunately, your previous school policy really do not matter for transfer admission because all the other schools will calculate the GPA in their own way. You have to find the schools your interested in and reach out to them to see their policies.
Well I figured but don’t some of them have a similar policy? Isn’t that pretty standard? Like maybe my gpa will have an asterisk of course, but I don’t know, it seems kind of screwed to look at my gpa as a standard 2.8 or so. I guess it might be a little higher than that, I haven’t calculated it like that in a while. Is that really an important number though? There has to be some adjusted version in their mind, or you’d think that would be common.
The unfortunate fact is that you did get those bad grades initially. The transfer admission process is extremely competitive, more so then even freshman admissions. Colleges have to have a system to somehow manage the applicants and if people could just retake any course they got bad grades in then everyone would be doing so and now everyone would have super high GPAs.
Furthermore, colleges have a realistic question of if you got bad grades at your first university, will you get bad grades at their university? And that is where explaining your story comes into play. You have to convince them that your bad grades were due to something that won’t be repeated. Luckily for you, colleges practice holistic admissions and your entire story is considered and not just grades. Use that to your advantage!