I’m enrolled at my CC this upcoming Fall since my end goal is to transfer. My schools are ND, Emory, Vanderbilt, UNC, UVA, UIUC (safety), UT and USC. I plan to get into their business colleges which is pretty competitive. My questions are:
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In regards to credits, should I narrow my list to I can really nail each pre requisite? The thing is, priority is given to those with the least amount of pre-reqs left.
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Should I transfer in Sophomore year into the CAS then internally transfer into their business schools? Or should I externally transfer into their business schools my junior year? Some say it’s counter intuitive to internally transfer but my chances are simply higher, right?
Why are you starting at the CC? Did all of these places reject you as a freshman applicant? Are you a full-pay student and you are trying to keep the overall costs down?
If your grades and test scores weren’t good enough to get you in as a freshman, then just one year at the CC is not going to make enough of a difference to go the internal transfer route. If your grades and test scores are good enough now to make you a viable candidate, then think about taking a gap year and applying to a better list as a freshman.
@happymomof1 I was accepted into all my state schools and PSU. I didn’t apply for ANY of these schools I want to transfer to. I just didn’t find it very rationale to pay tuition for a state-flagship with the intent of transferring after a year or two. My family makes $45k with a family of 4 so I can’t afford it atm.
My HS GPA was 3.4 GPA with 6 AP courses, not good enough for these schools.
PSU is a great school. Where will you have transferred if you went to PSU for two years?
PSU is an OOS school for me. I couldn’t attend due to little financial support. I wouldn’t have transferred out of it if I attended since it’s an awesome school.
Why didn’t you attend your state schools?
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My state schools are terrible in terms of my career goals.
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Didn’t get enough from FAFSA (please, before you all give me a “money is a gift not a privledge” pep talk just understand I’ve never complained.). I wasn’t willing to pull out private loans for crappy schools.
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Divorced family. Dad is moving to NC (UNC is my top choice next to UVA because of this), Mom is moving overseas and my Brother is graduating in a year and will leave this state.
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Kind of tied to 3, my Mom literally woke me up, crying, telling me I can’t attend my state-flagship (I was enrolled for it and ready). Divorce was official, finances weren’t very solid so I wanted to make it easy on all of us and attend CC.
I’m just willing to leverage prviate money for a school that will help me to get to where I want to go.
In most state schools, its best to transfer directly into the business school or whatever major you want. There may be rules and restrictions around changing later. Stay in CC until you have the prerequisites.
Private schools may take you after one year at CC, if you can find one that gives good aid to transfers. Many do not.
You will probably have to scratch many/most of the public universities where you cannot get in-state tuition off your list for affordability issues. Check with a financial aid advisor before you apply.
I MAY be able to get UNC for instate tuition, would be willing to take a gap year if needed to make this possible, but should happen by the time I apply for transfer 
I’m just more concerned, academically, if I can get in to these schools but with concrete FAFSA options my decision should narrow down.
@AroundHere
Your transfer admissions chances depend on the rigor of your classes and your grades, which we don’t know.
Look at the common data sets to see overall selectivity. Transfer admissions acceptance rates can be very different from freshman rates you see in the guidebooks. You will generally have a tougher road both admissions-wise and financially at public schools where you are not a state resident.
If taking a gap year and applying next year as a North Carolina resident to community colleges and four years as a state resident is an option, I would strongly consider it. The most straightforward transfer option is staying in one state system.
@AroundHere Classes aren’t official yet. I have an idea though, assuming I complete an Associate of Science I want to go up (and complete) to Calc 2. I will also take Accounting 1 and 2. I got a 3 on the AP Micro exam so I can get that class out the way at CC and will complete Macroeconomics.
I wanted to do what you suggested, attend a CC in NC then transfer to UNC - CH. I brought up this idea to my parents and they’re against it. They think I’m weird with how I want to do everything but I reassured them this is the best way to get to where I want to go. There is just a lot of uncertainty right now and I don’t know what the next step is for my family. Paying OOS tuition for a CC when I can do it for free here just seems like the best option as of right now.
I was thinking gap year until you were in state for NC. I agree it makes little sense to pay OOS for CC.
@AroundHere Ah. The process will begin this upcoming Fall and it would take another year for him to establish residency. I would need to prove that it’s not just for tuition-purposes.
Aside from that, are my school choices bad since they’re mostly state schools?
As I said, your school choices are probably bad. Unless something changes, you don’t have the resources for out of state tuition. You have two years to research your options, though.
@AroundHere Thanks for the advice.
Is it your dad who is making that 25k, or is that your parents’ combined income? In either case you are going to need serious aid from somewhere in order to afford any education at all. Filing the FAFSA might get you some Pell money in addition to the student loans, but a full Pell and full student loan only come to about $10,000. That is something like half of what you would need for the cost of in-state at a lot of public Us. There is almost no decent merit-based aid for transfers. You would need to be extremely lucky inyour admission. Aid is a lot better for freshman applicants.
Take a gap year. Don’t take any classes at all. Move with your dad to NC. That should give you in-state residence there and make him your custodial parent for FAFSA. During your gap year, explore all the public options in-state for NC. Re-take the ACT/SAT if you can raise your scores to scholarship range. There should be decent CC to UNC guaranteed transfer articulation agreements if you find that you can’t get into UNC directly or if you can’t afford a 4 year for 4 years.
If your mom will be in your current state through the completion of your associates degree, and you can live with her for cheap, it might make sense for you to do that. However you could end up with NC as your only possible residential state because of your dad being there, and no affordable options for finishing your degree.
The parents in the Financial Aid Forum have seen everything, and should have good ideas for you and your parents. I think that you should pose your question there. Include your GPA and test scores in your post. You might have options other than the CC to state U plan that you currently are working with.
@happymomof1
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I’m still not 100% sure if my Dad is moving to NC.
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I’ve brought it up and my parents don’t like the idea.
I think I may just have to go to my state school after 2 years, options don’t look very good.
If your parents move out of state, you may not have residency anywhere. Find out what your status is before you start school.
How are you paying for school? If your parents are low income, you’ll probably get a ~$5800 Pell grant. But you can only borrow ~$5500/year. Where’s the rest of the money coming ftom?
For where I am, I get $7500 a year if I major in Computer Science or $5000 in everything else.
I have no time to figure things out. My parents are idiots and only care about themselves. I’ve proposed all the things I could do to get to where I want to go and they reject.