Didn't get into UCLA, so taking a 3rd year at CCC to Boost GPA. Good idea?

The essence of this question is to weigh the negatives and positives of this plan.

Positives: I was rejected due to my low GPA but fulfilled all the other requirements (3.17 GPA), so if I take one more year, I can significantly bump my GPA to perhaps around 3.4-3.6. (I also use UCLA TAP)
-Locale does matter to Universities, so while my original CC was outside LA, if I transfer to a CC in Los Angeles (Santa Monica perhaps), would that locale also boost my chances?

Negatives: Is going to Community College for 3 years (And being rejected once) going to look bad despite a higher GPA?
-I also am divided on UCLA’s Unit maximum. I asked many people, I hear that UCLA’s Maximum credits before being seen as a high unit junior is 86.5, yet I also heard that that number doesn’t matter so long as you take no uppergraduate courses and that you could have 500 units and that number has never been a negative factor. Yet I hear from others that having alot of units does make you look unattractive. The other UCs will consider you if you are a high unit junior, but I heard UCLA will just not take you if you go beyond 86.5 units.

I’m also doing this because while UCLA is never a guarantee, if I can raise my GPA up, fulfill TAG requirements, then I can get guaranteed admission to 6 other UC schools through TAG purely as a fallback position.

Thoughts and tips?

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major indicates that UCLA’s 25th-75th percentile admit GPA for transfers was 3.63-3.93. So even if you raise your GPA to 3.4-3.6, your chances of admission to UCLA are low in most majors (you can check transfer admission stats by major on that web site).

UCs do not have local area preference, unlike most CSUs. The main advantage of local CCs is that they are more likely to have coverage of less common courses at the nearby UC or CSU (see http://www.assist.org ).

Lower division non-UC units for transfer students are capped at 70, although all courses taken count for subject credit.

Did you get admitted to any UCs or CSUs for this fall?

Yes I was admitted to some CSUs but I didn’t really want to go, I was accepted into UCSD while UCI, UCLA, and UCB rejected me but I also rejected UCSD because I no longer wish to live in San Diego. I also am a bit confused on the idea of course caps, so if its capped, does that mean they will only assess your GPA based off 70 units? Or does that mean if you go beyond, they simply won’t consider your application?

But since UCSD is seen as better than UCI, and I live in UCSD going to a feeder Community college, I just assumed that they only took me in because I was living nearby while Irvine is not as good as UCSD yet rejected me.

It is unwise to target one university.

You’re at a 3.17 and say you can get to 3.4-3.6. I’m not sure how that can happen. They only calculate gpa through fall and your base is already at 60 units, minimum. Assuming you took two summer courses and 18 in fall — all with A grades — that puts you at possibly 3.41. Will you get all As? Big assumption.

Next locale will not help you. Sometimes there are agreements in place, but SMC has no such agreement. Their admit rate is around 39% last time I looked. The fact that so many apply to UCLA from SMC disguises the actual stats.

Three years is fine.

Unit ceiling. Your friends are correct. You can take as many LD as you wish.

You didn’t mention your major, which is crucial to this discussion.

Finally, as @bearhouse stated, it is unwise to target one college. UCLA is not the only player.

Spend some time reading thru the UC admission reference material and you will find your answers. http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/quick-reference-2017.pdf start at page 24

For some, not all 6. Read carefully the TAG qualifications at http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/tag-matrix.pdf since some schools specify your GPA when you submit the TAG

With a 3.4, your chances of getting into UCLA are still low and it gets harder every year. If you don’t get into UCLA this year, what happens then?

I am not from California, but I would be very surprised if you can get into UCLA even with another year at community college, and even if you ace all of your classes (which looks unlikely given your GPA up to now).

Do you have any realistic idea regarding how you are going to increase your GPA? To me 3.17 suggests that you are mostly a B student, or that you have A’s and B’s and a few bad grades. How are you going to become an A student even at community college? If you are a B student at community college, how would you intend to handle the increased course rigor if you did get accepted to UCLA?

You don’t want to go to CC for that long. You’re literally wasting your money on lower level courses when you should be taking upper level courses and finishing your degree. Can you still go to UCSD? It seems like a rock solid education. I don’t see that taking a full load of useless electives would help you at all, especially when you have over 60 hours.

To give more background, im in my early 20s, at my current CC i got all As and have like a 3.9 gpa, my gpa is low because i went to a university long ago and i was not a very stellar student which lowers my gpa, but if i take substitution courses and do academic renewal which can erase a C or D and replace it with an A which is how i can justify the gpa boost, also i dont plan to focus on ucla, but my backups are the uc tags which i have fulfilled most of the requirements but i only applied to ucb, ucsd, uci, and ucla thinking my cc gpa would be good enough and not knowing that my gpa would go as low as 3.17.

UC TAG can only be used at one UC not all 6 so you would be applying for regular transfer admission at the other UC’s on your list.

@theangels. You still haven’t said the elusive major. Why not?

If all those bad grades were from a long time ago and you have a 3.9 current, I’m not sure that’s the issue. You did get UCSD, so they discounted them, as is often the case with really old grades.

If your GPA is hampered solely because of years-old grades I agree with @coolguy40 - to do another huge round seems like overkill. Try instead for AR, if possible, and forget about TAG, unless you can fit your current GPA into it - so a lower tier TAG. But you don’t want a lower tier. It might be wise to find out exactly why you did not get accepted elsewhere instead of guessing, and plan a course of action based on response.

Ok so aparantly the uc system doesnt take repeat grades if your lower score was a C thus taising my gpa very hard unless i do academic renewal, i was basing my info off the csu model but that model doesnt apply to uc and from what i heard, ucla specifically does have an 86.5 cap for units so after speaking to someone found that my chances are very difficult given the harsh method of determining gpa for ucs. Thanks for the insight

how is the limit used to determine high-unit juniors in any way related to determining your gpa?

The first part of your sentence “ucla specifically does have an 86.5 cap for units” seems completely unrelated to what follows in that same sentence.

I wrote that in a hurry on my phone, the fact is that both the harsh methodology of GPA determination and Course capping are both factors for termination. For example, I was under the impression that if someone takes one course with a C and then repeats the course with an A, unlike the CSUs, the UCs will ignore the existence of the A and only accept the C. While CSUs are happy to take the A and ignore the C.

You need to talk to an advisor. You keep repeating confusing information.
(1) The UCLA cap does NOT APPLY if you only went to a CCC or only took lower division courses. Stop listening to your friends or random online posts.
(2) The UCs will not accept a repeat of a C grade, only a C- or lower. I wouldn’t call it harsh.

Go to UCSD.

I don’t know why the OP is so reluctant to look things up on their own. It isn’t like UC tries to hide the info.

But we see “I asked many people” , “after speaking to someone”, etc. Even after being given the link to the info in post #5 to save the trouble of having to search the OP still wants to rely on what someone else says. Perhaps it hasn’t occured to the OP that the people might remember wrong or just be guessing.

In the end, though, the OP can make decisions any way they choose and if it results in missed opportunities or blowing a deadline they get to live with the consequences.

@mikemac and repeating a C grade course when OP’s target is UCLA makes one wonder if OP met with an advisor. Live and learn.

I agree with those saying you should go to UCSD, if that is still an option. You mentioned that you no longer want to live in San Diego but as a transfer student it could be as little two more years. Once you have your degree, you will be in a better position to relocate.