Moving from CSU to CC

Transfer Students UC Transfers
1

<p>Hi, i'm in an awkward position and i'm trying to restructure everything in my academic career to meet my current goals. Due to my poor performance in high school I was only accepted to a local CSU and not knowing what I wanted to do in life, I started attending there as undeclared. I now want to get into an engineering program at a UC (note: my CSU does NOT offer any engineering degree, I feel that this is an important point, but I am unsure if the college acceptance people will feel the same), and I am completely determined to do so. </p>

<p>So, I'm debating going to a CCC in my area, but the problems are this: the CCC system is in disarray due to budget cuts and I will be sacrificing my level of education in key points in my education. This includes math, calculus based physics, etc. To add on to this, from my understanding it is very difficult to obtain classes and such due to overcrowding, whereas at the CSU it is a breeze. Also, the CC that I will be attending does not have any requirements for the major I am interested in, as the department has been cut due to budget, so I will only be attending for solely Gen. Ed and not getting a leg up by knocking out these needed classes (sometimes which increase your chances of being accepted). But, the trade off is that I will more than likely get priority into the UCs. My GPA is not an issue, but my questions are this:</p>

<p>1) If I were be at the CSU as a 'part time student' (i.e. taking 1 or 2 classes a semester in key subjects [calc2, difeq]) and be a full time student at a CC, will I be considered a CC student and possibly eligible for TAG? (As of now, I have 9 credits from a 4 yr institution and 13 credits from CSU, a possible 9 more if I don't go to a CC in Fall 2011)
2) Should I just stick it out and stay the next 2 years at a CSU and risk transferring to a UC? In my opinion, the quality of education is much higher and the professors are wonderful here, I am certainly learning a lot.
3) Does it matter to college acceptance people if the current school I am at does not offer the major I am interested in?
4) Or should I just drop everything I am doing and attempt to get into a CCC ASAP?</p>

<p>Thank you so much for reading this and any help would be greatly appreciated! Sorry it is sorry long winded, but it is extremely frustrating to me that even when I am doing everything right in life (going to school, getting decent grades), things are still difficult!</p>

2

<p>I was in your situation a year ago. I went to a CSU straight out of high school and wanted to get out.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I’m not really sure how it works, but for me more than half my units came from Community College in the end. I had 32 units from San Jose State and 46 from Community Colleges. I stayed at my CSU for one year and then attended CC the following year and applied to UCs that year as well. For me, the only school I tried to TAG with was UC Irvine. First, they don’t allow you to TAG if you have units from a 4 year and I wasn’t allowed to TAG for my major.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are really set on transferring to a UC, your best shot would be enrolling in a CC. However, you should go to a CC with pre-reqs for your major because pre-reqs are a big deal. As for it being hard to get classes, at my school honors program students were given priority for registration. Also, at my CC, I probably met one of the best teachers I’ve had before. He was a lot better than any of the other teachers I had during my year at a CSU.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>3.^, Pre-reqs are big. If you are going to apply without any pre-reqs, thats not such a great idea.</p>

<p>4.Yes, I was sceptical at first and a little worried that I wouldn’t get into any college and that dropping out of my CSU was a bad move. But after seeing how most of my applications went, I’m sure I made the right decision.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the response, it was unfair of me to suggest that I would be getting a different level of education from a CC, just because of the simple fact that I have not attended one. Now, if I had attended one, that’d be a different story. Lol.</p>

<p>Now I’m leaning towards just dropping everything and going to CCC.</p>

<p>Would the college acceptance people look down on someone going from a CSU to a CC? I’ve been told that’s the equivalent of ‘giving up’, though I doubt this… it’s just what I’ve been told.</p>

4

<p>I wouldn’t see it as giving and did it. Last year, I was asking what kind of student I would be counted as if I came from a CSU and CC, but never really got a response. I don’t really see how people could say dropping to a CC is equivalent to giving up. Maybe if the CSU was too hard and you stopped caring as much sure, but dropping from a CSU to CC in order to go to a UC is like the total opposite. </p>

<p>In one of my personal statements, I worked in the reason for me leaving my CSU in order to pursue a UC. I think my personal statements are also one of the reasons I got the schools I did.</p>

<p>I mean I’m sure we are at some sort of disadvantage from someone who just went to a CC for all their units, but if you make your case and are an exceptional candidate there would be no reason not to do it.</p>

5

<p>Depending on your situation, you might find the credit limit to be a problem. For most of the UCs, you need to make sure you keep your total UC transferable units under ~80 or 90 (variable, depends on which UC) to transfer in at all. First, you need to check how many of your CSU classes are UC transferable to see how many units you already have. I was under the impression that you haven’t been there long?</p>

<p>For TAG at UCI, you can not have any courses at a 4-yr college so that’s out. For TAG at UCSD, you need to complete 30 units (2 semesters at least at a CC) and maintain a 3.5 GPA BUT you can NOT exceed 90 units (which would include your UC transferable CSU units plus your UC transferable CC units). So you would be able to TAG there technically. You have to look up all the other TAG programs because I am lazy but their requirements vary. Keep in mind that TAG only guarantees admission to the SCHOOL, not into your major, so if your GPA isn’t amazing, you might just be accepted into your backup or as undeclared. </p>

<p>Like you were saying, for an Engineering major, you traditionally should’ve focused on your math and science pre-reqs (calc 1-3 & lin alg, physics seq, gen chem, bio, ochem, usually a comp sci, sometimes an engineering class) during your first 2 years at schools. If you don’t have any of these classes, it’s going to be really difficult to finish all the ones they recommend prior to transfer. Especially considering that you have a unit limitation. </p>

<p>Getting accepted is another thing… If you don’t mind going to UCR or Merced, I don’t think you would have much of a problem but if you wanted to get into some of the more renowned schools for Engineering (like UCSD), you are going to be competing with a lot of other student due to the major generally being impacted. Speaking from experience, it is REALLY hard to get into impacted majors without TAG, you basically have to have about a 3.8 and all your pre-reqs, IGETC, AND recommended classes to be the best candidate.</p>

<p>If you can accomplish all of that, if you do go to a CC, I think you will be there a minimum of 2 years, with a good chance at 3, followed by 2-3 years to finish at a UC (since Engineering requires a lot of Upper Division coursework). If you’re not too picky about where you go for your degree, you can definitely do it but if you’re expected to get into one of the top UCs, it’s going to be a long process that might not come out how you want it.</p>

<p>Just a precaution. But if you are truly dedicated to this, then I think you should go for it.</p>

6

<p>OP, There are CSUs that do have good Engineering programs and I think that it would probably not be as difficult to transfer to another CSU. Transferring from a CSU directly to a UC is nearly impossible and as you say, the CCCs are in complete disarray at the moment due to budget cuts. Leaving a four year school to go to a CCC at this time could be a real crap shoot. The CCC will consider you a transfer student so you will get the latest registration priority dates for enrolling in classes that are going to be heavily impacted and hard to get even for people with early registration priority dates. If you have to take Calculus, Physics and Chemistry at a CCC before you are eligible to transfer to a UC you could be years at a CCC before you are able to enroll in even one of these courses.</p>

<p>If it is most important to you to graduate from a UC rather than a CSU it may be worth it to endure the risks, uncertainty and time lost to go to a CCC and then try to transfer to a UC.
If all you really want is a degree in Engineering from a good, but not “research”, university you may want to look into Engineering programs at other CSUs and try to transfer directly into one of them.</p>

7

<p>@lemaitre</p>

<p>You always seem to post after me and mention the budget cuts. Although we all know that classes have been cut, it’s really not as difficult as you make it sound to get classes. It will not take you years to get into a single chem class and CCs tend to have more lectures (& even more labs) for the first classes (like Calc 1 or Gen Chem 1) and then they reduce the size and number as you enter more difficult courses (Linear Algebra or Ochem 2). I started from my CC at the very bottom and it took me 3 years to finish (by choice not becuase I couldn’t get into classes). Students ALWAYS have the option of taking classes at a different community college. </p>

<p>Maybe things are different and worse wherever you live, but in most of Orange County at least, we don’t have THAT many issues with people getting in classes. At most, you might have to wait til the next semester. I’ve never heard of a single person not being able to get a math/science class the next semester if they couldn’t get it the first. If this is continuously an issue in your area, maybe you should start suggesting that people look for other community colleges if they find that their local one is too full. And classes like Calc can be taken at a ton of schools online. Coastline Community College NEVER has full classes even and all their math is UC transferable. For example, when I took Calc 2, there were only 20 people in a 40 person class. This semester there is a comparable amount.</p>

8

<p>Thank you all for the responses, reading these things puts me more at ease.</p>

<p>Yes, as of now I’ll have 20 or so WASC accredited credits, so I am well below the 90 credits. The trick of now is trying to get into the Community College, I applied for Fall a few days ago. :slight_smile: It’s a shame that I am so far behind, but I am happy I finally know what to do.</p>

<p>From my own research on the side, if anyone is interested. The admission rates for Californian transfer applicants in Fall '09 for the engineering department at UCSD was: 55% for 2 year institutions, and 25% for ‘other’. Similar rates are seen at other schools, at UCD it’s 43% 2 year and 33% ‘other’. At these two colleges alone it appears that simply attending a 2 year increases the likelihood of getting accepted between 10-30%; of course this is not indicative of GPA. These are odds that I am not willing to take by attending an ‘other’ school, as you said engineering is a tougher program to get into, I need the best odds I can get. (All this taken from [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu/statfinder/]University”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu/statfinder/) BTW)</p>

<p>Oh, and about the CSU and UC debate; honestly the only thing I know is I want to do engineering, the other stuff does not really matter to me. But the fact is this - either way (since i’m at CSU that does not offer engineering), I am going to have to get through the General Education requirements and if I could end up at a school that is actually more subsidized by the government (the UC system), why not? Cal Poly is an extremely viable option for engineering, but I won’t get my hopes up :)</p>

<p>It’s interesting that you mention Orange County, it is one of the larger cities in California (compared to mine at least), so perhaps I won’t have too much trouble at my CC, but we’ll have to wait and see. </p>

<p>My next issue is finding out how to get some of my major classes done (since my CC does not offer engineering) to make myself a more attractive candidate, back to the drawing board! /le sigh</p>

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<p>Actually, UCI does accept coursework from other UC’s, just not CSU’s or privates.</p>

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<p>@ Sadfish, </p>

<p>Which UCs did you apply to and which UCs did you get accepted to?</p>