CSU admission problem

<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>I'll try not to make this too long.</p>

<p>I've been lurking this forum for the interesting info regarding colleges for a while and just recently decided to make an account. </p>

<p>Little bit of background:
-I applied to a CSU in the fall and was provisionally accepted based on the info I listed in my application.
-I have been at a CCC for 3 years with hopes of transferring as a junior. </p>

<p>Now the problem: Earlier this year, I realized I didn't have enough transfer credits to meet the 60 semester unit minimum. It turns out that I'm a measly 8 units short of the 60, which I could complete in less than a quarter. </p>

<p>My CCC is on the quarter system, and the CSU is on the semester system so I was confused on the relationship between the two and how quarter units were converted to semester. </p>

<p>I have fulfilled the IGETC general ed requirements and have submitted it to the University. I'm supposed to send the final transcripts by the 15th of July at which they will either accept me or deny me. </p>

<p>My question: Since I'm short of the 60 unit minimum, do I have ANY chance, any chance at all of being accepted even though I've completed the IGETC? </p>

<p>This has been worrying me the entire year, and I guess I'll find out in a few weeks. I'm just hoping that there is some way despite me being short of the Unit requirements I could still get in.</p>

<p>Which CSU is it? </p>

<p>I know the CSU admissions are purely number-based. They only care what classes and how many you took, and what GPA you have. If you don’t meet the minimum requirements, your application is tossed out because there’s no essay to write, or space to put your work experience or extra curricular activities. If it’s one of the less demanding CSU’s, you could try as a Spring admit. If it’s one like CSULB, I would say they will reject you since they get a lot of students and are more strict on their requirements.</p>

<p>It would be the same at the UC’s – you could probably plead your case at one of the lesser UC’s, like UC Riverside. But at, say, UC Berkeley or UCLA, you would get rescinded on the spot for something like this.</p>

<p>Thanks for the reply. </p>

<p>It’s San Jose State University. Bah, that’s not good news to hear though. </p>

<p>Early on in my Community College career I had to take remedial classes for English and math because I didn’t test high enough. A lot of that time I spent doing non transferable remedial classes, I could have been working towards that 60 unit minimum.</p>

<p>Turns out I got so many W’s in Algebra 2 I couldn’t take it at my college anymore. Luckily I could take “Psyc 7” which is applied statistics without taking any pre reqs before it and ended up passing. It just sucks to realize I came so close, only for it to not be good enough.</p>

<p>Also my grades early on weren’t the best either and was on 2nd level probation at one point. At the start of the next year though I kicked it into gear and started doing really well raising my GPA into the high 2.00.</p>

<p>Do colleges like this look for improvement you make? Man, I just don’t want to believe my fate is purely a numbers game at this point…</p>

<p>Did you send them your transcripts before they accepted you? If so, I don’t see what the problem is because they already know how many units you have, correct? And if you had less than 60 (semester)/90 (quarter) transferable units they would’ve denied you a long time ago. </p>

<p>Also, send in you transcripts ASAP, the 15th is right around the corner. Do you have a least 90? I’m not sure how to calculate quarter units since I’ve only been to schools with the semester unit count.</p>

<p>With San Jose State, they have you wait till the Summer to send in your transcripts. Apparently other CSU’s have you send in your transcripts around March or so. I have no idea why they do this.</p>

<p>Since they haven’t received my transcripts yet, I’m afraid they don’t know that I’m a few shy of the minimum requirements.</p>

<p>I have 82 quarter units as of now, which equates to 54.67 Semester Units meaning i’m about 5.33 semester units short and around 8 quarter units short. Taking these credits wouldn’t even make me a full time student at my CC which sucks. </p>

<p>I wonder if there is an agreement I could make with San Jose in which I make up the remaining units up at my CC in the fall but be enrolled at San Jose as a student as well. </p>

<p>Maybe I’m just being overly hopeful of something that doesn’t have the slightest chance of happening…</p>

<p>Ask them if you can make up the courses over the summer. SOME CSUs allow you to do that but I’m not sure which ones. On your app did you indicate that you would have 90 quarter units completed or did you write just what you have? Also when you filled out the application it should’ve allowed you to tell them what classes you’d be taking for the Spring 2013 term also.</p>

<p>If you get penalized for not having 90 quarter units, does SJSU accept Spring admits? I know my school is accepting Spring admits this year (CSUN). Look around if SJSU doesn’t work for next term.</p>

<p>I’m sorry you’re going through this. I had a rough time getting into a CSU as well because of a core requirement that wouldn’t transfer over from my University unless I got it signed off by my previous CCC. Eventually everything worked out, hopefully things will go in your favor also!</p>

<p>UC’s do look at grade improvements; CSU’s don’t – they only really care about your GPA right now.</p>

<p>Do contact the university as soon as possible. You’ll be talking with Admissions. Ask and call if you can talk to an admissions officer, and explain the situation. Also ask if they would take you in as a spring admit, or ask them to direct them how to apply for spring, if they do in fact accent students for spring.</p>

<p>Good luck to you.</p>

<p>“On your app did you indicate that you would have 90 quarter units completed or did you write just what you have?”</p>

<p>—I did say I would have 90 units completed by the time of transfer which I made a mistake on because I’m short of this. </p>

<p>"If you get penalized for not having 90 quarter units, does SJSU accept Spring admits? "</p>

<p>—I believe San Jose does accept Spring applicants, but if I don’t get in for Fall I might take my education somewhere else. Who knows though. My cousin went to CSUN, so I might look into some SoCal CSU’s possibly.</p>

<p>Hopefully things turn out, thanks for your help in this thread.</p>

<p>“UC’s do look at grade improvements; CSU’s don’t – they only really care about your GPA right now”</p>

<p>—Bummer… Although I just calculated my transferable GPA and I’m very close to a 2.9. </p>

<p>“Do contact the university as soon as possible.” </p>

<p>—Yeah, I will probably do this. I already sent an email to admissions explaining my situation and they said in general that applications will be denied if it doesn’t meet the minimum requirements. Didn’t give me much hope. </p>

<p>“Good luck to you.”</p>

<p>—Thank you as well for your help and good luck to you too.</p>

<p>@StudentTransfer CSUN is pretty cool. I’m going there in the fall as a transfer student. Just to let you know CSUN accepted me with a 2.66, although I could’ve sworn I had at least a 2.7, but I don’t know what happened. So I would guess you could get into CSUN for spring. Just make sure you have 90 transferable units. Also all of California is CSUN’s service area so that’s a good thing. Say if you were to transfer to CSU San Marcos or SDSU, there would be a problem because your GPA would be too low. (I’ve been through it, I know lol).</p>

<p>Yeah, maybe I’ll see you there next year/ in the Spring if I don’t get in my CSU this Fall haha.</p>

<p>So all in all, do you think I have a chance of being accepted at San Jose for Fall? Or is it not looking good in your opinion?</p>

<p>Honestly… If you don’t have the 90 units it’s an automatic rejection. Same would go if you don’t have the Golden 4 (been through it lol). Try anyway, they may make an exception.</p>

<p>Do you know anything about the appeal process?</p>

<p>Appeal processes are very slim. Check SJSU website on more information on appealing. They encourage not to do it BUT there’s a slim chance they’ll grant your appeal so you do have somewhat of a chance. On College Confidential there’s been a couple of people who have gotten accepted on appeal.</p>

<p>There’s such a thing as a “Special Actuon” admit that you could look into and if your situation is special enough they are inclined to grant acceptance. A lot of Universities won’t do spring transfers so look into this ASAP. I know my CC offers something called a credit by examination where if you know a course’s material well you can just take a test and get credit for it, if you believe you could pass that.</p>

<p>Otherwise meet with admissions and see what’s up</p>

<p>I just briefly looked into Special Action Admission and came up with this as a general definition:</p>

<p>"Special Action</p>

<p>In rare and compelling circumstances, an applicant who doesn’t qualify for admission under the previous provisions may be admitted by special action if on recommendation of the appropriate faculty of the department/college concerned and in the judgment of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of Graduate Studies or his/her designee there exists acceptable evidence that the applicant possesses sufficient academic, professional, and other potential pertinent to her/his educational objectives to merit such action, as shown through aptitude scores, recent academic performance, and experiential background."</p>

<p>You’ve given me hope Matt.</p>

<p>Any good news?</p>

<p>I sent my final transcripts in last week. They just received them so my online “to do” list was updated. Now I just play the waiting game, hopefully I’ll find out within the next seven days though.</p>

<p>I calculated my transfer GPA and it comes out to a 2.9 nearly, which is higher than I stated on my application so hopefully I’ll get some brownie points for that. </p>

<p>Overall everything is in place, and my fate now rests in the hands of the University. </p>

<p>I’ll post again when I find out more.</p>

<p>Giving an update on my situation:</p>

<p>I checked online today and it looks like they denied me. They haven’t sent me any message saying what for or why, but under the application status it reads: “Admit/Cancel Not Accommodated” which can only mean one thing.</p>

<p>What a bummer… I will try and appeal the decision, but I’m afraid I fell victim to the Cal State University numbers game they play with applicants… Although at this point I’m somewhat doubtful of my future as a student at SJSU in the Fall.</p>

<p>On the bright side, Spring 2014 applications open up August 1st, so I will be doing that in a couple of days and will have met all of the admission requirements by the end of 2013.</p>

<p>Did you get a email like this?</p>

<p>

[quote]
Subject: Your Spring Application Status
Message Text:</p>

<p>Dear Transfer applicant,</p>

<p>We have reviewed the information you provided on your Spring 2011 CSU application. As a result of our initial review of your self-reported information, including GPA, total transferable units, and progress toward meeting the four basic skills (“Golden Four”) courses it appears that you do not meet the California State University transfer admission requirements as posted at <a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/static/admission/transfer-requirements.html[/url]”>http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/static/admission/transfer-requirements.html&lt;/a&gt;. Therefore, it is with regret that at present we must deny your admission to San Jos</p>

<p>^ Nope, they haven’t told me anything. You would think they’d send something though.</p>

<p>I wonder why…</p>