Im transferring from a ccc next year as an engineering major and will have about 88 semester units. Is that too many? some people will say that having this much will look bad for me and other people who were able to complete all the prereqs with fewer units will have priority over me. most of the prereqs are GEs.
Generally speaking, some top schools may have an issue with a student having too many units/credits. Some of these top colleges discourage students from applying if they have more than two years worth of credits/units (some will even flat out say “do not apply”).
Many state schools don’t care, though I’m not familiar with CA universities if you plan to stay in CA. Many also won’t care that you have a lot of credits, but will only allow a certain amount of units/credits to transfer toward your degree.
If a school you’re interested in has a restricting policy, it might still be a good idea to check with the admissions office directly for specifics. I suspect that some of these universities may exempt community college transfers from such a policy, especially if many of the units are from vocational/ technical/ remedial courses (generally non-transferable to 4-year colleges).
It varies. Some schools accept 75 or 90 credits for transfer, some want you to spend two years at their school. You can still apply and attend anywhere, but might lose credits at some colleges/universities. State schools should be okay. The main thing usually is that you complete a major of 10 classes: and it also varies how many classes in your major may be taken elsewhere. Call transfer admissions to discuss.
If all of the 88 semester units are lower division non-UC units (e.g. if all are from community colleges), then having lots of units will not cause admission to UC to be denied for excess units, but your unit count at UC will start at 70 semester or 105 quarter units. You will, however, get subject credit for all courses taken (e.g. fulfillment of specific requirements like English, math, physics, humanities and social studies, etc.).
CSUs have a similar 70 semester or 105 quarter unit cap on transferred credit from community colleges, though it does not seem to be easy to find a web page that describes the full details of transfer credit policies to CSUs.
^^^ agree with alumnus.