<p>I am looking to go to college when I get out the Army. I joined the Army right out of high school, I was already accepted to Cal Poly Pomona but I decided I was tired of school, so I joined the services. Now that I have one year left in the army, it is time to look into schools. During my time in the service, I took 2 college classes at Central Texas College (took them online), I am planning on taking more when I am deployed next month. I will be in Iraq for a year starting next month.</p>
<p>So yesterday I started looking for some colleges that I am interested in applying to. Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly, UCI, and some others and found out some information that I was not happy with. Because of my 2 college classes I took, I cannot be accepted to Cal Poly (one of my favorite options right now) as a freshman. I have to apply after i get 60 credits and apply as a Junior. </p>
<p>Question
The New GI bill pays for 3 years of college. I am interested in going to Cal Poly as a freshman. Would they know if I took classes in Central Texas college? I really don't want to spend my gi bill on a subpar education (not saying it is a bad education, but I would rather be at Cal Poly because they are more into hands on learning). Would I have to retake the SAT? </p>
<p>I am leaving the army in October 2010 (should be august but I got stop lossed); The colleges are saying that do not accept students in the winter, So this sucks.</p>
<p>Did you find out that info by telephone with an admissions officer or by reading it online? I think you should call (if you are still in the US) or email an admissions officer directly. The fact that you took the classes online might mean they are OK. Or the fact that you are coming from the military, there might be special allowances (are they Yellow Ribbon program participants?)</p>
<p>And your idea of just forgetting to mention the online classes is an option. Read the fine print carefully though, you don’t want to compromise your status once admitted.</p>
<p>Don’t the UC schools like Irvine take winter semester students?</p>
<p>I doubt anyone would know about your taking classes elsewhere unless you told them. You should not have to retake the SAT, unless a large number of years pass (check each school for specifics). </p>
<p>It will be a challenge to get your Texas classes transferred, but not impossible. You need to start early on the process. However, if you go the transfer route, taking the courses at a local CC is way cheaper, and at least for me, allowed me to take classes with more mature students. It made going back to school easier. Since I went to a school with a CSU transfer agreement in place, the transfer was transparent. </p>
<p>In a strange way this works in your favor. California schools, as you’re learning, are severely impacted. Budget cuts combined with families having less money have driven students into the state system like never before, completely overloading the system. This is why there is no winter enrollment. One of the easiest ways to assure yourself a spot is to live local to the school of your choice, and have completed with stellar scores your GE’s at a local CC. It makes you the most eligible student.</p>
<p>What do you lose at your final school? Well you miss out on a lot of the social development, friends, cliques etc, but there will be CC’s that transfer with you and you’ll get a much more diverse set of friends there. Your also expected you to understand their system from day one (there will be an orientation, don’t miss it), no big deal just gotta handle making mistakes for the first week or so. A lot of trepidation as you expect your CC background will not be as strong (not true as I found out).</p>
<p>It’s your choice which way you go, but either way keep your goal fixed and plan ahead and you will make it, and you will have a lot of fun along the way.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>oh yeah, pay the cc’s out of pocket if you can, and save the GI money for the big expenses later. gives you the ability to pack in a few more classes at your final school if you wish.</p>
<p>I would recommend going to community college and get your 60 units out of the way, maintain a solid 3.2+ GPA and transfer to a great school as a junior. The UC system gives preference to community college transfers and if you do fairly well at CC you will have no problem getting into top notch schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Cal Poly SLO, UCSD, or UCI. This way you can pay tuition out of pocket for your first 2 years and have 36 months left to finish at the university of your choice. </p>
<p>The new GI bill pays for 36 months of education. If you dont go to summer school it will last you 4 years. If you go to summer school it will pay you for 3 years but you will probably graduate in 3 years. The 36 months are enough.</p>
<p>I go to UCSD and the GI bill is hooking it up. I went to CC for a year and a half, took a lot of classes and just recently transferred. Out of high school there is no way I could have gotten into a great school like that. Community college is the way to go for the first two years. Good luck.</p>
<p>Oh, and I went to Central Texas College too and the three out of four classes transferred over to Cali colleges just fine. The only one that didnt transfer was my government class. They said that every state teaches government/poli sci different and Texas didnt include California government curriculum and therefore would not transfer. So I suggest you dont take a government class with CTC. </p>
<p>You might wanna look into taking online classes with a California community college. Most of them offer a ton of online classes. I took a lot of them and now I wish I would have taken some while I was in the military. I would have been done a lot sooner.</p>
<p>The classes I have already taken were with ctc. I will probably just stick with english and math. I will probably only be able to take a few classes for the next year.</p>