<p>I know some colleges like PCC and GCC are PACCKKKEEEDDDD. You have to be ON TOP of things to get the classes you want. Are there ANY colleges in the SoCal area that aren't affected by this chaos!?</p>
<p>What is packed? </p>
<p>When I applied to my community college, I found out 16K+ were attending.</p>
<p>packed = harder to get classes. might take longer to get out even with acing every class.</p>
<p>Yeah, every class I’ve had has crashers waiting inside. When I was taking Calculus I, they had 50+ people standing at the front while the rest who were previously registered were in their seats. He did a lottery. 2 got in cause we had two no shows. Same with my physics class this semester. Luckily, I’m an honor student and I’m carrying a decent amount of credits to put me at the front when registering for classes.</p>
<p>any advice to keep away from all that and just get the classes I want?</p>
<p>Hm. Not much. </p>
<p>If your community college offers TAP, I’d recommend taking advantage of that. At mine it’s called The Transfer Alliance Program, which means you’re able to take honors classes in college and prove some kind of rigor to UC’s. Mine’s specifically geared toward admissions to UCLA, but it varies elsewhere. This got me into the first priority zone for picking classes. </p>
<p>There’s not really a way to avoid it. It does end after the first week of classes most of the time, though. Just make sure you’re actually registered in the class and you should have no problem. If you’re not, I’d go to RateMyProfessors and scope out every teacher you plan to take. </p>
<p>I had to consider taking a risk to my GPA by taking the hardest professor in chemistry on campus my freshman year without any previous chemistry background. It was very rough. There were only one or two crashers as opposed to the next chemistry class which 20 students were trying to get into.</p>
<p>The bad professors usually have less crashers but you risk getting a worse grade. I recommend taking night classes because they have MUCH LESS crashers. Also, I heard that some of the LACCD are less packed; LA valley college, West LA, Pierce, and probably East LA too. SMC is the worst place to try to crash. Also, each teacher has their own system of adding students. Try to email them when enrollment starts to see if they save add codes. Its worked for me a few times.</p>
<p>pcc and occ are the least packed from what i know. mtsac and SMC are the most packed.</p>
<p>night classes, weekend classes, online classes, and bad profs are your easy to get classes. and those get full too :(</p>
<p>In this economy, nearly every CC is packed.</p>
<p>A history class I was in had 20+ people trying to crash. So don’t consider SMC if you plan on crashing. I’m pretty sure all SoCal CCC’s have suffered because of the budget cuts.</p>
<p>If a HS student is planning on attending Santa Monica College next year (after HS graduation) and wants to take classes in the Entertainment Arts division, how will he know if he can even get into the classes? Especially with all the budget cuts, and the huge number of students at SMC, how can someone major/get a certificate in the EA division? It’d be tragic to plan on going there for that purpose, only to find out you can’t get into the classes.</p>
<p>To save money, community college is still a good choice. Not being able to get all the classes needed the first qrt/sem. is a risk but better then running into debt quicker. Get into special financial services that allow priority registration, plan early, thats the best advice I have.</p>
<p>does anyone know about BCC bergen community college in paramus, nj</p>
<p>RisingSun, thank you for your answer.
One question: What do you mean by “get into special financial services that allow priority registration?” Is that like financial aid from the school, so they don’t want you to waste time on needless classes?</p>
<p>If you are low income, you can join EOPS which allows you to be the first to register for classes. Or you can join the Honors program which also gives priority registration.</p>
<p>Also, if you are a veteran of the armed services, you can get priority registration.</p>