Hello everyone! I was having a difficult time getting the right information needed by looking up online resources, so I decided to give College Confidential a shot. I am currently a Freshmen attending the University Of Nevada Reno and I am going to attend De Anza community college starting Fall 2016. The reason for my transfer is because I plan to transfer to a 4 year college in California after I establish my in state residency. I have family that live really close to De Anza and I heard that CC is a wonderful school for transfers. My biggest concern is that after this semester at UNR I will have a first year GPA of a 2.5 (after already re taking a class over the summer). I am also currently a Biology major. And as of right now I do not know which credits will transfer to De Anza as well. Will I have a new GPA just for De Anza when I start school there? Also, I do already know that when I transfer I will still be submitting my transcript from UNR. And if I were to get an average of 3.5 + GPA average for the remaining time at De Anza would I be able to still transfer to a school like SJSU for Biology or perhaps maybe even UCSC for Biology? I am having my doubts and it has been really been putting me into a stressful situation. I appreciate the advice anyone can give me. Thank you.
If by “family” you mean anyone other than a parent or relative with legal custody then you are not going to be able to establish CA residency for UC purposes. The rules are very strict. Read thru the info at any UC registrar site. For example http://www.ucop.edu/residency/10-things-undergrads.html and http://www.ucop.edu/residency/establishing-residency.html
The rules may be different at CSU; I’ll leave that for you to check.
Thank you for the information! But my father lives in San Jose so it shouldn’t be much of a problem. Thank you again!
Look carefully at the residency issue for the CCs, CSUs, and UCs before assuming when you will get California residency.
Each of UNR and De Anza will have its own GPA for you. However, when you apply to transfer, all college courses and grades from all colleges will be considered by the colleges you apply to transfer to.
ok, it sounds like the residency plan will probably work out. What are your goals with a Bio degree? You should know that to get a decent job in the sciences these days it usually takes a PhD or going to a professional program such as med school.
Let me suggest that you go for the 5-year plan with 2 years at the CC. This will do several things for you. First off, it will allow you enough time at a CC to apply for TAG which guarantees admission to some UCs. Each UC has slightly different rules so you’ll have to look each of them up. Since you mentioned Santa Cruz here is there plan: http://admissions.ucsc.edu/apply/transfer-students/tag.html
Second, it will let you raise your overall gpa when you apply to a 4 year. Even though you may not get credit for all the units you take towards your 4-year degree, they will use all the classes you take in calculating your gpa when you apply. If it’s really the case you can earn a 3.5 at a CC, then 2 years of a 3.5 and 1 of 2.5 gives you a 3.17. Note, too, that if you apply during your 1st year at a CC all they will see is 1 semester of grades from the CC before they decide, meaning a 2.83 gpa.
I do have to ask, what is the plan to jump from a 2.5 to a 3.5? People are really good at making rational promises for what they’ll do in the future, but what they do today is a better predictor of tomorrow since the distractions and problems they face today are likely to also be present in the future and have the same degree of distraction. And vague goals like “study harder” don’t really translate into concrete behavior. It’s also possible, if you are getting a C+ average now, that your study skills can use some help. They have a learning center at just about every CC. There is also a great book you can read called “Make it Stick” that discusses what research shows about learning effectively and how college kids can apply it.
Ah, thank you for the great response mikemac. This really helped me out a lot. Will I be able to stay at the community college for two years and apply for a tag program? As long as I get the gpa requirement at the new school? Even if I attended one year at UNR? My plan to get a 3.5 for the next two years at De Anza will be changing my study habits. The reason why I couldn’t do good here is because of a lot of family drama and there were many nights where I didn’t have a place to live and had to sleep in my car, and other personal things that really got in the way. I want to move to california and do well, extremely well at a Community College and get good grades and make my way into UCSC (at least). To be honest, I applied to De Anza currently for AS-T Computer Science for transfer, not sure if that is a good idea, but I believe technology is the new future. But currently still deciding on Computer Science or a plan to attend Pharmacy school. But your 5 year plan is definitely something I will most likely be doing. I just hope they will actually let me TAG UCSC.
So I looked at the thread you linked me to. For computer science it is a min of 3.0 to TAG UCSC. Would I be attending De Anza for two years taking the courses that my counselor tells me to take and then maintaining a 3.0 + at De Anza for a guarantee admission to UCSC for Computer Science? As long as I obtain a 3.0 + in all of the required courses? Will my first year GPA at UNR affect this tag if I stayed at De Anza for two years?
De Anza’s coverage of computer science prerequisites:
For biology:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfer-admissions-summary indicates that, for UCSC 2015 transfer applicants, admission rates were 63% for GPA 3.20-3.59, 46% for 2.80-3.19, and 32% for 2.40-2.79. But they may vary by major, which is not shown.
SJSU transfer admission thresholds by major are listed at http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html . Note that SJSU has software engineering and computer engineering majors that are typically less selective than the computer science major.
@ucbalumnus Thank you so much! I appreciate the information. Seems like if I were to get at least a 3.1 then I’d have a decent shot at being admitted to UCSC. Of course that will be after at least two years at De Anza. Hopefully I can just do everything right the first time around when attending De Anza and just being able to TAG into UCSC for Computer Science. I heard their Computer Science department is pretty good. Also, I heard getting a job with a Computer Science degree is very easy nowadays.
I don’t know how to advise you between pharmacy and CS. You should know that the workload for CS is pretty difficult. If you haven’t done any programming yet then its probably best to think of this as in interest and not a firm plan. You asked about what gpa they consider; I think your gpa is from all the transferable classes you have taken, not just the ones at DeAnza.
My advice is to treat your 1st year as an exploration. Start on the CS track, but also look into Pharmacy. I knew someone who worked at a drugstore (Longs or something like that) and ended up working in the Pharmacy dept. Getting 1st-hand exposure is a good idea before committing to something, whether it be CS or Pharmacy or something else. Impulsive decisions are seldom good ones.
The first week you show up at DeAnza, start using the resources there to help you. They have a career center, you should start working with a counselor and attending their workshops. They also have a transfer center; same story there; become a regular visitor. UC and CSU schools regularly send counselors around to CC, you should meet with them and double-check what your xfer advisors have said; sometimes they have it wrong, sometimes you can misunderstand.
Lastly, unless financial reasons compel you to stay local, don’t focus on UCSC just yet. There are lots of other UCs. And for that matter there are good CSU schools too.
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