How do you start communication with a potential transfer school?

<p>I'm looking at Oregon State University and Colorado State University, and live in California. I go to a California community college. I think I'm pretty spoiled by the ASSIST website because seriously, that thing is genius and beautiful. </p>

<p>Both schools, as well as other ones I'm looking at, tell you to email them and be sure you're taking the right classes for your major. What I'm worried about is how to do that. It may sound crazy, but I don't want to ask too much or too little. I need to know which classes at my school correlate to classes at theirs, but it seems like a huge question that would take a lot of work to answer. Their websites tell you what classes you need at their school, which is helpful, but I need to know more. And they will say (just for example) that you need Organic Chemistry, but there are literally three organic chemistry classes to choose from at my school, along with their lab portions. So I need to know which one works, if all of them do, or whichever. </p>

<p>So, bottom line: what should be included in that email? My name, current school, intended major, and...? </p>

<p>Please let me know if i'm not explaining this well. It may seem very obvious, but I really don't want to potentially leave bad impression with them. They probably don't care about all the people that email them, or keep track of them, but just in case...?</p>

<p>When I applied for transfer, I requested an info packet from four schools I was considering and after a ton of research called admissions to ask specific questions. They directed me to the admissions people at the departments I was interested in, we talked for about 15 minutes discussing the various merits of the program, and how to apply. They told me to send my transcript and from there they’d review it to see which credits would transfer over. </p>

<p>I’d imagine you can do the same thing via email. Just shoot whoever’s in charge of transfer admissions at OSU and CSU an email saying you’re an OOS CC student interested in x major and want to know which classes will transfer over. They might require you to pay an admissions fee before they review your stuff, but they will review it. Even in states with no program like ASSIST (such as Oklahoma) a student can get a pretty good idea of which classes will transfer over based on the description on the university’s transfer page. </p>

<p>I’d imagine that most UC approved courses would also be approved by OSU and CSU seeing as they’re noticeably less selective for both freshmen and transfer admission.</p>

<p>Thank you so much for replying! That really helps a lot.
One issue I see is that this is my first year at the CC. I earned some credits during high school, but I really start in August. So my transcript isn’t much. I was hoping for some sort of guidance with what classes I should enroll in in future semesters so as to be accepted as a junior. </p>

<p>I’m also looking into to transferring as soon as possible. OSU and CSU both require somewhere around 30 transferable credits, as opposed to California universities’ 60. They give basic classes that need to be taken, but I assume they have some preference as to what the other classes are? </p>

<p>I’m not sure which path I’ll take. I could change my mind about my major, I could decide that I could never leave California, or any other thing that would make all of this research a little pointless. But I really want to look into all my options. And I /really/ don’t want to take any useless classes.</p>