I'm trying to transfer to UCSD next fall from a community college (with horrible previous grades)

This is my first post, so I’m sorry if the formality is off.

So, I’m 24 years old, work full time on a children’s ambulance, a Californian native, and UCSD is my top choice out of all the UCs. I’m a political science major (specifically international relations). My current GPA is at a 3.29, but still have the rest of the school year to raise it up if I continue with A’s.

Long story short, when I was fresh out of high school (barely even graduating) I decided to immediately jump back into school by enrolling at the local CC. While at CC in my younger years I flunked out some classes. I have a few Fs, but mostly just a lot of withdrawals (W). After a while I decided that I wasn’t going to do this until I was ready to take school seriously.
Fast forward to age 21 I decided to enroll at a new CC for a ‘fresh start’ and have been taking school seriously since then.
I may be foolish in thinking this, but I was hoping that I could spin my poor past academics to show the growth from then to now; an F and W student to A’s and honors student.

So, my questions:

  1. Is 3.29 as a transfer even good enough to apply to UCSD?
  2. Is it a long shot that they would even accept me with such poor grades on my transcripts?
  3. What else can help my chances of getting in?
  1. Is that the GPA of your current CCC or does that include your F grades as well? If it’s the latter, I believe that they will take into account the improvement and view the GPAs separately.

If it’s the former, the admit GPA range for Political Science at UCSD for fall 2017 middle 50% is 3.24-3.80 so I would consider that a High Match/Low Reach. Different emphases have slightly lower GPAs as well. You can see the data here:
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major

  1. No, plenty of people flunk out and then come back strong. You can’t do anything to change the past and they know it.
  2. UCSD considers transfers Personal Insight questions to be very important so work hard on those. Make sure you complete IGETC and all major prerequisites.

You are a competitive candidate. Good luck.

retake those D’s and F’s. UC has grade replacement for the purposes of calculating GPA.

Check out academic renewal (or grade forgiveness, as it is sometimes called), at your previous CC. Assuming it’s California, you should be able to get C-, Ds and Fs removed without retaking them if they were from at least a year or two back. The forms are online at the CCC where you go the bad grades, and you can usually submit online. That will pull the GPA way up.

And FYI, GPA is only calculated through this fall - the final winter/spring isn’t calculated in.

Hey. I can relate to your situation here. I’m transferring to UCSD this Fall and was accepted with about a 3.34 gpa for structural engineering.

Right out of highschool I went to a private university far away from home and was really unhappy and got bad grades. Like 2.7 gpa.

Then I came home and went to community college and got straight As for a year and a half.

I think that they really do look at progression and trends with transfer applications. I would go so far as to say it gives you an advantage if you show how you changed in your essays and extracurriculars.

Don’t stress about your past grades, just focus on doing your best this semester and I really thing you will have good chances of getting in.

You got this fam, you can do anything you set your mind to.