Hello! So I’m a freshman right now in community college, I did all the CSU/UC requirements in HS and I got in to a lot of colleges. However, i decided to not end up going due to money reasons. Is it possible for me to apply for fall of 2016 as a freshman? I have my SAT scores and everything. Or is this a lower-division transfer?
For UC and CSU, you would be a transfer if you take any college courses after the summer after high school graduation.
Other schools may have different criteria.
As stated above, if you take college courses after HS then you are a transfer student. UC/CSU’s will only take Junior level transfers (60 semester/90 quarter units) so you need to stay for 2 years and then try for transfer. HS grades/test scores/EC’s are no longer considered in transfer admissions.
To answer your next question, if you “forget” to mention you attended a CC and wonder how they’ll catch you, there is a nationwide student database that will trip up any attempts to do this.
Some CSU schools accept lower-division transfers if you want to try to do that, for UC you’ll need to wait until you’re a junior. Another plan may be to attend a CC in the vicinity of the CSU/UC for your sophomore year. For schools outside of a city such as UCSB or Cal Poly, doing so would let you live in a student community and get much of the sense of being away at college.