Or do they treat every applicant the same, including those from community college?
Let’s say you go to a not so famous but hard to get into college like Pitzer College. If I wanted to transfer like USC or UCLA, would they take into account that I likely had good grades and EC’s in high school to get in the first place? I know that the UC’s and some other colleges don’t ask for your high school transcripts, so they would not be able to tell how good my high school grades were. Even if colleges asked for HS transcripts, mine weren’t 4.0/2400 type but I had outstanding EC’s which helped a lot but they would never know since they don’t ask for HS accomplishments. However, they could probably tell if I want to a selective college right? So would something like that be a hook?
Alot of colleges give priority to CC students who just earned their AA over people transferring from a university or state college. This isn’t to say if you were transferring from MIT or a top 50 college they aren’t gonna take a look at your application because they most likely definitely will.
@Herokid11 , correction, a lot of state / public colleges give priority to in-state CC students over students transferring from a out-of-state university or state college.
In all other cases, if there is any difference in how CC vs. 4-year institution students are treated, it is not discernible.
That being said, @Kris5i , if an institution does not require one to submit their HS transcripts, then that means that they don’t account HS stats for transfer admissions (this is prevalent in students who apply as a transfer after 55-60 credits of college coursework). HS extracurricular activities are considered irrelevant in most cases.
Even when colleges require you to submit HS transcripts, your college GPA / EC’s are extremely important (and if you’re applying w/ 55-60 college credits, college GPA is WAY more important than your HS grades).
Colleges only account academic rigor when it comes to what school you attended. Schools are concerned with your academic success. They want to see that if you’re coming from a lower ranked institution, that you can handle the harder curriculum. This is why it is crucial to perform well in college, and why HS GPA / EC’s overall bear less weight in the transfer admissions process.
As @Herokid11 pointed out, if you are transferring from a school with a similar, or perhaps even harder curriculum (since higher school rank = more academic rigor, usually), it is somewhat easier to get in.
Here’s an example:
Two students apply to Pomona College, both with the same major. One is a student in CC, transferring with a 4.0, excellent EC’s, etc. Another student is a student in Pitzer College, also transferring with a 4.0, excellent EC’s, etc. Pomona can only accept one student.
They will most likely pick the student from Pitzer College, not because Pitzer College is more “prestigious”, but because Pitzer College is a rather high-ranked liberal arts college, and that means their curriculum is most likely WAY harder than community college coursework. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the Pitzer College student is more likely to academically succeed in Pomona.
The Pomona example is off @TransferStalker More than 50% of admitted transfer students at Pomona are from community colleges, and they are particularly reserved about admitting other consortium members as transfer students since there’s cross-enrollment and house-exchanges possible. Actually, there isn’t more than one or two transfer students from liberal art colleges; most of the non-CCs are from public and private universities. Pomona wants to identify students for whom the transition into Pomona will be a considerably different experience than what is already at their home institution; Pitzer is too similar as a liberal arts college.
@nostalgicwisdom Ah, sorry about the bad example. In an attempt to use California CC’s to better fit the poster’s situation, I gave some bad information. Did not know that Pomona had such a unique philosophy when it comes to transfer students. Just goes to show you how different each school treats an applicant.
However, barring the bad school choice in my example, the information concerning coursework rigor and transferring is still very true.
Since you mentioned UCLA and USC, for those specific colleges, transfers come heavily from California community colleges.
https://www.admission.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof16.htm (92% of transfers to UCLA come from California community colleges)
http://admission.usc.edu/transfer/prospective/transferprofile.html (58% of transfers to USC come from California community colleges)
California public universities (UCs and CSUs) by design take substantial numbers of transfer students from California community colleges, which are set up to provide good course work for transfer-prep students. Some private universities in California also have a favorable view of California community colleges, so that they are also willing to admit transfers from California community colleges.
This situation with respect to public and private universities and California community colleges may not necessarily be similar in some other states.
I still standby saying that majority of schools give priority to CC transfers as opposed to transfer from others universities and state schools. An example of this is the various articulation agreements with nearby CC’s that Major universities and colleges have, such as the Santa Fe - UF agreement. I don’t remember the school exactly but I know Cornell has an articulation agreement with a certain CC also. If your stats are good and you aren’t trying to get into a top 50 college or a college that gives most of it’s priority to CC transfer then I wouldn’t even be worried about this topic tbh.