<p>Hi!</p>
<p>My plan right now is to attend a non-private college for a few years and then transfer to a bigger college that is slightly better. My question is: should i go to a regular, small college right now or a community college? i hear that some places like stanford and ivy schools have a higher acceptance rate of students from community colleges but i'm not sure..</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Help me by defining “slightly better” private school. Stanford or Ivy League schools are, by most standards, slightly better than 90% of all colleges. They also have a transfer acceptance rate in the single digits, regardless of whether or not you go to community college or a different Ivy. </p>
<p>Now the UC system in CA has a well-defined matriculation plan. If you are a CA resident, then the goal of transferring to a UC after 2 years in community college is a solid plan. If you are living in a state with a poor system and your goals are Ivy-calibar then you need to readjust your plans.</p>
<p>“i hear that some places like stanford and ivy schools have a higher acceptance rate of students from community colleges but i’m not sure…”</p>
<p>You’re mistaken about this. Successful transfer applicants, by and large, are students who were accepted by this caliber school at first but chose not to attend for some reason. Yale has had one community college transfer in the last 4 years or so. That’s one out of 80-90 people accepted. That’s one out of 2800-3000 applicants.</p>
<p>Stick w/your plan for the CA schools. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>how about high caliber non-ivy colleges? like university of chicago? how would one improve their chances of transferring there?</p>
<p>Top tier schools generally admit transfer students of the caliber they would admit if they were applying as freshmen.</p>
<p>Even if you 4.0 your first few years, your path is still uphill. Maybe knock out a great Bachelors and get into a great grad school?</p>
<p>Public universities tend to accept a lot of junior transfers from community colleges. If you are in California, UC and CSU accept junior transfers based on college record, so a past poor high school record is not considered if the student makes a significant improvement in college before transferring as a junior.</p>
<p>Private universities vary considerably in how friendly they are to community college transfer applicants. For example, in one recent year, about a quarter of accepted transfers to Stanford came from community colleges, but the total number of accepted transfers was only about 5% of the transfer applicant pool.</p>