@MYOS1634, UMich and UVa take a lot of CC transfers. The UC’s take a ton of CC transfers.
Of course, I count Cal, UMich, and UVa in my top 25.
If you don’t, USC takes a lot of CC transfers and NYU takes a lot of transfers in general. Columbia SCS is friendly to them as well (no fin aid, though). Stanford is very difficult to transfer in to, but a relatively high percentage of successful transfers are from CC’s.
^sorry PurpleTitan, I was speaking of privates (to me it’s so obvious that public universities have a public service mission - including a second chance for hard working students from CCs - that I forgot I was typing a post on CC, where if not mentioned public universities are considered to have been forgotten, since so many posters focus on a dozen specific schools only :p. Hence mentioning Cornell but not the UCs for instance… and even then, it wasn’t very precise since strictly speaking if CALS admits many transfers it’s specifically because of that public service mandate by the State.) Thanks, I’ll pay more attention now on because there’s no such thing as skipping the obvious. And in any case, you’re right, I should have mentioned USC. I like how a private CA school was contaminated by CA’s mandate actually, also a testimony to how good CA CC are compared to most accross the country.
The OP seems to have vanished though.
Although Stanford (another private school that is usually seen as high on the prestige and selectivity level) enrolls only a few dozen transfer students every year, about half of those it does enroll come from community colleges.
It does appear that disdain for community colleges is quite heavy in the northeast part of the country. Are most northeast states’ community colleges poor in terms of lack of offerings needed for students to prepare to transfer to four year schools?
I’d guess that the disdain for community colleges is linked to disdain for public universities, which also seems more prevalent on the east coast. Obviously, in some parts of the country CCs are strong and many kids attend them before graduating from four-year universities (often with a guaranteed path to do so).
It may be population density, and urban kids more likely to end up at CCs without basics. Poverty level here near NYC is quite high, enough to be quite comfortable in other areas of the US.
When I was looking at houses in an area 500 miles from the nearest big city, the housing costs were 25% of those near where I live now, NYC suburbs. Mortgage is the major cost for people, so it makes sense to me that CCs might be serving more college-ready populations in other parts of the US.
As for “Ivy hype” - if you don’t have the money to visit the campuses, you will be missing out on what the point truly is. The full university experience, it was something I felt that I did get at the Ivy I attended. I have said that I would have been fine at the local state land grant school, BUT I know from graduates then and now that it was a totally different experience of community.
Conversely, I know people who did think “everybody is snobby” on various Ivy campuses, and really hated the experience.
Money matters a lot. If your kid, or you, gets in to many top schools, finances will matter a lot, and for some, honors colleges will be too good of a deal to pass up. An honors degree does mean something, at least for a while.
Wouldn’t you expect the high cost of housing produce the opposite result–that so many families in the NYC area spend a fortune on living expenses that they don’t have as much left for college?
Hi everyone.
I tried not to look at this thread for a while and did some soul searching, to really think about everything. I didn’t have much “Ivy hype” to start with, but since I’ve been thinking, the little bit of it I had has disappeared.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve applied to all of the schools that gave me fee waivers (and schools that weren’t Ivy that I just liked in general), and heck, they’ve been pretty nice. Daresay, some of the programs they have might be more beneficial than what I might get from the Ivys, though I will try to refrain from holding a final judgement there since I don’t yet have word from them. In the few acceptances I got from the other colleges so far, I got scholarships (one of them was full tuition!!! :D), and when I think about the debt I could incur from Ivy schools that won’t give me as much of a reduction on tuition, it really makes me think.
I mean, Harvard is still my dream school, and that’s not going to change. I love their programs, campus, and extracurriculars that are available, but if things turn out for the worst, I’ll at least have other colleges to land on. So I’ll shoot for the moon, and should I miss, at least I have a net of stars 
And you know what, those stars aren’t any worse than the moon. It just looks a whole lot better from here on Earth.
BTW, I’ve started ignoring my nasty classmates and focused more on earning scholarships with my friends and focusing my time and energy in my music and work. I’m glad I’ve practiced all those values now than have to learn them all later in college and truly struggle. That has been absolutely gratifying haha. Makes life so much easier.
Congrats! You are on the right path. If you do get in Harvard, great, but I’ll bet all the schools you’ve been accepted to have some great opportunities. You have a great work ethic and that will make you stand out even if you end up somewhere with larger classes, etc. Just be as enthusiastic about learning as you have been and seek out professors and others who can help you maximize your UG experience. Professors at all colleges love to have students who care!
@kangarule Good strategy. One note though, you have the moon and stars saying backwards - you shoot for the stars and if that doesn’t work, land on the moon. There aren’t stars between the Earth and the moon. 