<p>Xcron,</p>
<p>No worry, you shouldn't feel disheartened by Caltech students' typical trait. You may excel even better than the average Caltech students as long as you're motivated and passionate about your learning. Many distinct scholars come from a modest education background to start with. Being in the top 1 or 2 in PCC and able to ace the transfer exam would bring you into Caltech community. All the best.</p>
<p>Hehehehe. That is probably why I won't be taken into the Caltech community, haha. Oh well, I will try my best and see what happens, though I have already faced a couple disappointments this semester at PCC. </p>
<p>The competition pool will probably be way above my level and the only chances I would probably have would be my essays, which I am hoping to work on with my recent English teacher so that they are as good as possible.</p>
<p>One note though:</p>
<p>I know a few ex-PCC students at Caltech. Those whom I met so far are internationals; and they choose PCC as jumping stone because it's cheaper and they need to boost their English. Nevertheless, they come from overseas elite high schools and hence PCC curriculum is kinda toy story for them. I hope you somewhat belong to this category, because Caltech is incredibly difficult, much more rigorous than Stanford or UCB. Many Caltech drop outs (who couldn't bear the workload) went to Stanford and Berkeley. This shouldn't be discouraging you, on the contrary I hope you will prepare yourself better.</p>
<p>Though I still have no knowledge of any of the courses beyond the level that I have just finished at PCC, I still think that it is extremely easy and there is absolutely nothing that is difficult about the classes that I am taking. I will nonetheless follow Caltech's agreement with PCC and complete the courses and I will hopefully be able to conduct some self-studying of perhaps more advanced/in-depth material. I am also taking and will be taking a consistent district maximum of units to demonstrate that the work is very easy for me.</p>
<p>PCC is not really a jumping stone for me and is really more of an opportunity for a second chance to try out for Caltech. I do not need to work on my English at all but I hope that I will be able to bring myself to the level at which those students were at when they were admitted. All of that talk about Caltech and its rigor is pure motivation for me and does not scare me at all. In fact, that is one of the reasons why I want to desperately be admitted...for a challenge.</p>
<p>Xcron,</p>
<p>Your determination is impressive. Are there any other schools you are applying to in case Caltech does not accept you?</p>
<p>I wish I could have attended a community college like PCC. I was looking at their website and they obviously have more rigorous courses than my community college. I'm applying to Cornell myself, and the classes their engineering school recommends for transfer students are exactly what PCC has in their class descriptions. My CC's descriptions are a little different, and sadly seem to be less rigorous. I hope I can somehow show that I was and am capable of more rigorous work.</p>
<p>johnM, put it all in the essays and let them know what you're about. =P</p>
<p>PCC has nothing over your community college probably. It may look like it has more rigorous courses but the math, physics, geography, etc. is all at the same level. The only difference that I have noticed among community colleges is that some are better funded than others and are able to provide more classes at different times than others. For example, PCC does not offer Multivariable Calculus (Calc III over here) during any session other than the two main Fall and Spring sessions and to catch up to Caltech's agreement, I need to take it over this next Summer. To do that, I need to turn to a better funded, and obviously a better, community college - which in this case would be Santa Monica College (SMC) and I don't even know if there are any better than these two. Here's a link that shows statistics of the California Community Colleges and their record of transfer admittance to UCLA:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=121385&page=2&pp=20&highlight=Rank%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=121385&page=2&pp=20&highlight=Rank</a></p>
<p>I definitely have to apply to other schools. I almost know for sure that I will not be admitted to Caltech and to deny that fact would be a show of ignorance. I will also be applying to UCSD (as my safety), UCLA (match/safety), and UCB (reach, probably). For now, those are the schools that I am sure about but Harvey Mudd is still floating about without my having too much knowledge of it. I hear that HMC is talked about among Caltech students, which would probably mean that they are quite impressive in their academics. I still have to research it a bit I guess. They admitted 10 out of 68 transfer applicants at some point, according to Collegeboard.</p>
<p>I was also thinking of applying to Stanford because its admit rate is very similar to Caltech's and if I thought that I would have even a sliver of a chance to be admitted to Caltech then I would probably apply there too. I was also thinking about Cornell because I hear their admit rate is rather high for transfers. However, I also heard that most of the transfers who are admitted have participated in the transfer guarantee program that Cornell has with a number of community colleges around that area. I have a couple of other schools in mind but they are also not worth mentioning because I am getting somewhat off-topic and they are just throw-ins and I mostly have no chance to be admitted to them.</p>