<p>I'm not a big fan of transfer students unless you are transferring from a USC-calibre school like Cal. That said, just because you get good grades at a community college, a very easy task to accomplish, you should not be expected to coast into USC. I've met plenty of Trojans who got their graduate degrees at USC. If you don't get into USC as an undergrad, go there for grad school. Not everyone gets into Stanford either.</p>
<p>Seattle,</p>
<p>SC is considered highly selective. For the class enrolled in fall of 2012 the profile indicates nearly 37,000 seniors received letters of regret. I do not have the numbers for the 2012 class, but over 7000 transfer applicants were not admitted to the class which entered in 2011.</p>
<p>
Haha! This strikes me as funny (and as nonsense)! Couldn’t someone also say, “Just because you get good grades in high school, an easier task than in community college, you should not be expected to coast into USC.” </p>
<p>I am not sure what the point of your post is - just to insult transfer students? Transfer students know how to set goals and achieve them - in fact, studies show that transfer students do as well or better at four-year universities than those who start as freshmen at those same universities <a href=“http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/about/media_center/articles/files/USNews_111512.pdf[/url]”>http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/about/media_center/articles/files/USNews_111512.pdf</a> . </p>
<p>A passage from the report:
</p>
<p>But it is okay that you didn’t know that, not everyone can support thier arguments.</p>
<p>alamemom,</p>
<pre><code>You have been missed!
</code></pre>
<p>About 40% of USC is composed of transfers, creating at least two tiers of undergrads. At least 6000 transfers attend USC at any given time. There is no way USC can enter the top ranks of colleges with such numbers. And I stand by my comment about the shockingly low quality of community colleges. They are arguably easier than high schools.</p>
<p>Studies show (please see above-referenced article) that over 71% of community college transfers graduate from four-year institutions with **4 years<a href=“including%20their%20time%20in%20community%20college”>/B</a>, while overall only 50% of students attending 4-year institutions graduate within 6 years. As 6-year graduation rates are an important component in calculating rankings, I submit that USC’s recruitment and enrollment of transfer students can be named as a significant factor in their rise in the rankings in the past several years. I am certain that the numbers-crunchers at USC, who have so successfully engineered USC rise in the rankings, are well-aware of the benefits of enrolling well-qualified transfer students.</p>
<p>Your position cannot be defined as an argument, but rather as one persons opinion in that you have not supported your statements.</p>
<p>Wow, yet another helicopter parent weighs in…I’m not saying that USC should ban all tranfers but that USC has far too many. No top university in America has such numbers. USC’s rise is not the result of transfers but despite them. Our admit rate for entering students is what is relevant, not back door admission rates.</p>
<p>
And your support for this personal attack is…?</p>
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“Too many” for what? In what way(s) are you suggesting transfer students have a negative effect on USC’s rankings? Have you any statistics to support this statement?</p>
<p>
You are correct. No other university has come up with the innovative ways USC has to have an unprecedented rise in the rankings in the last decade and a half - such as presenting an excellent 6-year grad rate which can be partially credited to the goal-oriented, hard working transfer students who are* proven<a href=“please%20see%20actual%20facts%20and%20figures%20in%20the%20above-linked%20article”>/I</a> to have a 4-year graduation rate superior to those who start as freshmen.</p>
<p>alamemom, where have you been??? Don’t go back into retirement! We miss you!</p>
<p>You may want to fact check. UCLA is the school with 40% transfers.</p>
<p>As a CC transfer, I can certainly see both sides of the argument on this one. A few points:</p>
<p>1) I only went to CC because my grades fell through the floor in high school for 3 semesters when my dad had a bout with cancer and was wasting away from a chronic disease. My grades were fine otherwise, but suffice to say life intervened for a bit there. Such is the case when you’re the kid in the family, born long after your siblings and when your parents are older.</p>
<p>2) My CC honors program transferred me to USC’s film school and other kids to Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, and the University of Chicago. I was admitted to every single school I applied to including the latter two schools, as well as UCB and UCLA out of state.</p>
<p>3) Any discussion of CCs and CC transfers has to take into account the fact that CA has a very robust CC system that other states do not have, and, frankly, the prickly issue of social class. USC now costs $60,000 a year and publics in-state are not the deal they once were. Education is like everything else today: the wealthy pay for it out of pocket, the poor get handouts (Neighborhood Academic Initiative), and the middle class goes broke paying for it. So long as colleges will accept credits from 2 year schools, students are nuts to NOT start at a CC.</p>
<p>4) USC has accepted transfers for a long time because most CA schools have accepted transfers for a long time. They know what they’re getting and, again, other states do not have the strong CC system that CA has. USC has said in its strategic plans that it has no intention of eliminating its CC transfers and instead is working on selling other top schools on CC transfers precisely because they’ve had so many fantastic students come that way. Personally, I know several people who went to Ivy League grad schools out of CCs and have several highly successful friends from my days at a CC. While I wouldn’t recommend going that route and it is true that CCs are generally home to weak students, that is not <em>always</em> the case.</p>
<p>The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has endowed scholarships and research for and about students transferring from CCs to elite universities and found that the more selective the school, the less difference there is between the CC transfers and the native students:</p>
<p>[Jack</a> Kent Cooke Foundation - Transfer Access to Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States](<a href=“http://www.jkcf.org/grants/community-college-transfer/research/transfer-access-to-elite-colleges-and-universities-in-the-united-states-threading-the-needle-of-the-/]Jack”>http://www.jkcf.org/grants/community-college-transfer/research/transfer-access-to-elite-colleges-and-universities-in-the-united-states-threading-the-needle-of-the-/)</p>
<p>[Jack</a> Kent Cooke Foundation - Community College Transfer: Video Feature](<a href=“http://www.jkcf.org/grants/community-college-transfer/community-college-transfer-video-feature/]Jack”>http://www.jkcf.org/grants/community-college-transfer/community-college-transfer-video-feature/)</p>
<p>5) Colleges and universities are on the receiving end of the absolutely horrible K-12 system these days and if you only ever went to private schools (I was half and half) then you really have no idea what you’re talking about. Top privates have their own issues (drugs, entitled attitude, parents who will destroy the school and think their children’s shortcomings are the fault of the teachers and the school, etc.) but public schools unfortunately have to educate EVERYONE and that means not just the nice kids from good families who come to school with their homework done, are involved in the school, get good grades, and want to be successful in life. Public schools - even the good ones - still have plenty of kids who come to school drunk/stoned/high, whose parents don’t care, who never do their homework and disrupt class, etc. while in private schools those kids would be gone right away, if they were ever admitted in the first place. The public schools have been sued into the ground and have to bend over backwards to accommodate those students, and the ones hurt by that are the silent majority of good kids. Again, unless you’ve been there, you do NOT know what this is like. Going to a private school is like living in a gated community with your own private security patrol. When you can control the students that enter, and hire and fire the teachers as you wish, then it’s an entirely different ballgame… and that’s not even including how public schools have been lowering their standards for decades.</p>
<p>USC is becoming stratefied into two tiers and we are fooling ourselves if we believe having a subset of college transfers is good for USC and our hopes of cracking the top 20. The only justification for the thousands of transfers is that they add revenue. However, it’s not fair to admit transfers who were screw ups in high school. A better solution is to allow more spring admits, most of whom have far better credentials than cc transfers.</p>
<p>SeattleTW, can you provide proof the spring admits have better credentials than CC transfers? From what I understand, the spring admit pool is drastically weaker than the fall. I was told at the most frequent alumni meeting that legacy students with weaker statistics are deferred to spring because their statistics do not factor into the US News rankings. Encouraging these students to defer to spring is a compromising strategy between USC and their donors.</p>
<p>Alamemom. You have really been missed!</p>
<p>Everyone presumes legacies are weak applicants but I’d argue the precise opposite. USC needs to stop relying on spring admits and huge transfer classes to raise revenue. We can do more with less. Our transfer classes should be capped at 500 per year. USC should stop rewarding kids who believe they can save money by attending a cc and then transferring into USC like it’s an entitlement. That behavior is unfair to those who spend all four years at USC.</p>
<p>@seattle
No offense, your statement is pure bs to nth power</p>
<p>Really, which part, Mr. newbie?</p>
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<p>So are you for or against spring admits?</p>
<p>USC transfers are not the same calibre as freshmen, you know it and I know it. There is some hollow claim that transfers deserve to be at USC…why then, were you not there as freshmen? Unless, as alum 05, you have some extenuating circumstance that adversely affected your high school years, or you transferred from a UofC or other good college, I’m not impressed.</p>
<p>P.S. : I’m slightly more sympathetic to spring admits because they matriculate as freshmen, adding to the strength of that class.</p>
<p>Apparently you didn’t read Alamemom’s response which dispelled many of your prejudice against transfer students. Unless you can dispute here claims with facts, you have no credibility here.</p>