I am just finishing up my senior year at High School in the bay area. I didn’t get accepted to any of my top schools, but got into a few that I’m sorta on the fence about. Recently, I’ve looked into community college as a possibly better option. With TAG programs and all the other sorts of helpful programs offered through these schools, they look like a great value and a chance at redemption in GPA, ECs, etc.
If I pushed myself really hard, got somewhere in the high 3.7 - 4.0 range, is that realistically good enough to get into, say, some of the mid-high range UCs or CSUs? (Major would be Computer Science, or similar). I know this is a very subjective question and many more variables come into play, but maybe anyone else who’s been in a similar situation has some words of wisdom for me.
Thanks in advance!
I would say absolutely yes 
If you can succeed at CC with a lot of dedication and having a good plan set out from the beginning on what classes you need to take, then you can get into any UC you want Comp Sci is, of course, very competitive, but like you mention the TAG program will benefit you greatly.
If you were to achieve even a 3.4 GPA (and get all of your CS classes done by the time you transfer) you could get guaranteed acceptance into a computer science major at UCI, UCD, UCSC, UCR (Santa Barbara doesn’t do TAG for engineering majors unfortunately). Of course, for Berkeley you would pretty much need at least a 3.9, preferably a 4.0 in comp sci, it’s crazy competitive.
If you were a relatively studious high school student, then you have a good chance at succeeding at CC as well, although bear in mind the classes are harder than your high school classes probably were.
But to answer your question, yes I think CC is a very good and viable chance for people to get into UCs. Do remember that the desired qualities in a transfer student are different than those desired in high schoolers. Your first priority should be your GPA, and secondly that you’re completing all the classes that are related to your major, along with your basic English and Math requirements, etc. These are pretty much the two things that get you into universities as a transfer, ECs count for a bit less than they did in high school.
There is also (perhaps worth mentioning) a much lower cost in spending two years at a community college, which is nice. Browse through the forums on this site to get an idea of what kind of people transferred to your desired schools and do some research on what it takes to transfer as a comp sci major and see if that option appeals to you. Either way, good luck!
@ananguiano Thanks for the response! It’s good to hear that people look upon this as a good option still. With so much differing information out there, it can be really hard to see whether or not it’s a good option, but this cleared some of that up!
Yes. Shoot for a 4.0 to be competitive for Cal/UCLA, though. CS is very competitive.
Keep in mind that there are many majors that involve CS (i.e. Cognitive Science, plenty of engineering majors). Some majors are less competitive than others.
Diablo Valley College sends a lot of CS majors to the top UC’s, as does De Anza College (and Foothill College). The peralta system offers many CS classes, too.