Hi! I am really worried right now because I think that I will not be accepted into college. I applied to UC San Diego and UC Berkeley. My SAT scores are 1740 (650 Math, 550 Reading, 540 Writing)
So I’m looking at two options. One is attending a community college then transferring. The other one is taking a gap year and reapplying as a freshman. I am going to retake the SAT to get a better score and I will also be taking the SAT Subject Tests (Physics and Math). If I take a gap year, I will take the semester to work, take some languages courses, local volunteering work and working on the college app, and the other semester to travel and volunteering abroad.
If I choose the CC, can I just attend the CC for just one year and then transfer?
UCSD and UCB are the only schools that you applied?? Why did not apply to a few more schools? Were you not given a chance to speak with a Guidance Counselor or someone more knowledgable about college applications?
If you have not heard from these schools yet, so there is always a chance. Did you do research on these schools in regards to acceptance rates and statistics?
If you plan to transfer to a UC or Cal State, they only take Junior level transfers (2 years at CC), so SAT and Subject tests would not be required. Many privates would take transfers after 1 year and they will look at your HS grades and SAT scores, so depending upon where you want to transfer will make a difference on your plan.
There is also still colleges accepting applications that rolling admissions. You might want to consider looking into these.
Gumbymom
The thing is that I attend a school outside the US, I don’t have any guidance counselor who could help me with applications for US schools. I did apply to some other schools, but those are the only ones that I am interested in. Someone told me that maybe I could first go to a California CC and then transfer or maybe I could take the gap year to strengthen my app!
Are you International or US citizen? A CC will still be costly for a non-resident or non US citizen, but if money is not an issue, the CC route may be the best.
All the UC’s except UCB/UCLA and UCSD have the TAG program with guaranteed admission if you meet the requirements but you still need to attend a CC for 2 years. A GAP year would work and you would be able to target schools the fit your stats better. It is too bad you did not post on CC earlier, because there are many knowledgeable posters whom could have steered into more realistic and better college options. Good Luck and whatever you decide to do, you will get into a good school.
Thanks Gumbymom
btw. I am a US citizen 
UCs and CSUs generally prefer or require being junior level – i.e. transfer after completion of two years’ worth of college work.
Do your parents have about $30,000 for next year, and 55,000 for the last two years?
If you’re dead-set on a UC (and next time, apply to most of them, as well as the best CSUs…) then the CA CC route may be the best, but choose one that has a lot of students living nearby on their own, such as SMCC (= VERY VERY expensive rents) or Diablo Valley (ditto).
MYOS1634, which college is SMCC?
SMCC= Santa Monica City College
Since you don’t have a counselor, you should read through the information at https://www.educationusa.info/ and then you should get in touch with the office closest to you. https://www.educationusa.info/centers.php If none of the counselors there have worked with a US citizen lately, they have colleagues in other offices who have. These people are expert at helping students educated in the country where you are living find good places to study in the US.
Some of the CCs in California have residence halls. Here is one list, but there may be others as well: http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=CA&l=92&ct=1&ic=2&hs=1
I’ll put in a word for the gap year. We’re also US citizens abroad, and my son is a current senior but didn’t apply for colleges this fall because he wants the opportunity to take a gap year and do some of the things he hasn’t had time for during his last years of high school (like intensive full-time volunteering within the community here). Plus, as he’s pointed out, once you go back to the States and get on a roll with college, things are likely to just snowball from there … your world is college, and that leads to grad school or work, probably also in the US, and then later you think “oh my gosh I wish I’d done (x) and (y) when I had the chance!” There are just so many amazing things that you can do during a gap year – to strengthen your app, sure, but also just to have that experience for yourself as a person!
Other kids do Study Abroad to have the opportunities that are right outside your door, every day of your life. Why do a CC just because, whoops, you didn’t have good guidance (meaning you’re at a local and not an int’l school? that in itself makes you pretty interesting in the scheme of things) and so you didn’t apply to more than two schools?!? A CC is a great way for college to be affordable, but that’s not your issue. (Well, it may be, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the issue you’re focusing on here.) A gap year would be a chance to develop your own interests and skills, allow you to research and discover a stronger list of college options, and if you do travel to the States once a year, you could do your college visits at that time … because, for us anyway, there’s no way in the world we could possibly visit colleges during the regular school session LOL. Not exactly a weekend trip or even a “break trip.” (I know most int’l students do come to the US blind, which makes sense for their circumstances, but I don’t want my son to make his decision without getting a sense of the various campuses.)
Good luck; you can find the right school for you! It’ll work out
There are plenty of perfectly good schools that are still accepting applications for the fall, including the University of Arizona, Arizona State, University of New Mexico, University of Nevada-Reno, and University of Houston. There are many, many more. The only two schools that interest you are among the most selective in the US. You frankly need to be more realistic and broaden your scope below your current criteria whether you pursue enrollment this year or next. As others have said, there is a school out there for you. Good luck!