<p>I'm looking for some excellent transfer school recommendations. A little bio on me: I graduated high school, class of 2009, with a weighted GPA of about 4.2 or thereabouts-- lots of APs, great teacher recommendations, heavy volunteering outside of school through the Girl Scouts. I went to a tiny, private liberal-arts college out of state the fall after graduating (ie. fall 2009), without having visited it before (got a near-full scholarship, so parents made my college decision pretty clear: pick the cheapest, or fund it yourself) and absolutely hated the academics. I left my classes mid-semester and came back to my hometown-- I've since been living at home with my parents, taking a full load of courses at my hometown's city college, and also taking on a 20-hour-a-week internship with a city councilmember.</p>
<p>I'd do pretty much anything to transfer back to a four-year school, as soon as possible, but I've got two mitigating factors interfering with my upcoming college applications. One, I took five courses at the city college and received A's in 3 classes; I failed the other two (boil it down to the fact that motivation was pretty difficult to summon up my first few months back, and my night classes suffered as a result). I plan on retaking those courses (not at night!) to replace those grades on my city college transcript (fully OKed by my city college counselor, and the school's policy allows for students to retake/regrade classes which have been failed) of course, along with new courses. Two, I don't know where to apply.</p>
<p>Can anyone out there help me think up some California four-year colleges/universities that might be a fan of my particular history (ie., they like transfers)? More importantly, I'm looking for an academically rigorous school that also enjoys a healthy social life. I'm applying to UCSD in a transfer agreement, and likely UCLA as well, but I don't particularly want to go to either one of those schools-- I prefer smaller schools. Any suggestions anyone can offer up would be welcomed!!</p>