<p>Hello all, thank you for reading my post in advance.
I come from Los Angeles, and I am moving to Berkeley this summer. I want to transfer to a community college in Berkeley with some of my class works done within my local college. My major is Mathematics, and the next major course I want to take is Discrete Mathematics. I will live in Albany which is closed to the University Village. Could you give me some recommendations on which community college is better for me? If possible, could you also leave some brief descriptions on the colleges? Thank you!</p>
<p>The nearest CCs to Berkeley are</p>
<p>Berkeley City College
Laney College
College of Alameda
Contra Costa College
Merritt College
Diablo Valley College
City College of San Francisco</p>
<p>All except Merritt College have a discrete math course that is accepted by UC Berkeley for Math 55, as needed for the math or applied math major there. See <a href=“http://www.assist.org”>http://www.assist.org</a> . Note that Math 55 is not required for admission as a transfer to UC Berkeley as a math or applied math major (though you would have to take it after transfer if you were admitted and enrolled without it).</p>
<p>Berkeley City College isn’t very noted for transfers to the UC’s – ie, it is lower ranked and doesn’t benefit from being close to a UC as SMC would to UCLA, or SBCC would to UCSB (sorry for painful reference). The best of ucbalumnus’ list is probably Diablo Valley.</p>
<p>Chabot College is good, but it is a stretch from Albany. </p>
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<p>You can’t compare the number of students transferring from a CC to a UC/CSU and assume the higher number of transfers indicates a better CC since all CC’s have a different number of students attending. SBCC = 19,028 students enrolled in fall 2013. Berkeley CC = 6,500 students enrolled in fall 2013.</p>
<p>Berkeley City College consistently ranks as the second highest percentage of UC Berkeley transfers in California and in the top 10% in the state to the California State University system. </p>
<p>transfers to UC by juco. (of course, one does need to adjust for size of juco.)</p>
<p><a href=“http://ucop.edu/transfer-action-team/appendix-3/3-uc-transfer-enrollment-by-ccc.pdf”>http://ucop.edu/transfer-action-team/appendix-3/3-uc-transfer-enrollment-by-ccc.pdf</a></p>
<p>City College of SF is in danger of losing its accreditation, so be aware of that.</p>
<p>Thank you all for recommending colleges for me. After doing some researches on these colleges, I find that Berkeley City College may be the most suitable college for me because it is the most closed to where I will live. In fact, the number and percentages of students transferring to UC’s are not my biggest concerns. Also, I notice that Berkeley City College, Laney College, College of Alameda, and Merritt College are in the same system and they have the same class search portal. lol. However, one problem there is that all of them will not offer Discrete Mathematics in Summer, and that kinda disappoints me though. By the way, @simba9 I am kinda interested in why City College of SF will lost its accreditation? Its name sounds like an official and big college. </p>
<p>CCSF’s accreditation issues appear to have more to do with the accreditation organization’s dissatisfaction with its administrative and financial management, rather than its academics. There are numerous articles about the whole affair, some of which can get quite political.</p>
<p>True, but the fact remains that CCSF is still in danger of losing its accreditation. Enrollment has drastically dropped as students are going elsewhere until the uncertainties are settled.</p>
<p>Good point, MLM; I knew BCC was probably smaller, but I didn’t know that it had significantly less enrollment. However, enrollment in cc’s is probably open to all, and I don’t think BCC would cap it in any way – ie, I’d think enrollment at cc would be based on pure demand, without restriction of supply (ie, caps of places in its frosh class). (More enrollment -> cc’s hire more professors to teach.) I’d think if BCC were greater at transferring pure nos. to UC, students, including Int’l and oos, would flock to BCC, especially if this cc had greater pure-number transfers to Cal. SMC has particularly high enrollments from these two types of non-residents because they flock to SMC mainly to try to transfer to UCLA. As an offshoot, they’re able to get into another UC. Even kids who desire UCLA come from the Valley and other parts of CA to is attend SMC, mainly again, to try to get into UCLA, even if SMC has some sort of bureaucratic junk that students there always speak of, and even recommend to students that go elsewhere. (I’m not sure what it is; I believe it’s something to do with counseling.) </p>
<p>Good link bluebayou. I put the rounded enrollments (source: Wikipedia) to gain a transfer % based off of them: </p>
<p>1 SANTA MONICA COLLEGE SANTA MONICA 783 5.6% 5.6%, 32,000, 2.5%
2 DE ANZA COLLEGE CUPERTINO 511 3.7% 9.2%, 22,000, 2.3%
3 PASADENA CITY COLLEGE PASADENA 498 3.6% 12.8%, 27,000, 1.8%
4 DIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE PLEASANT HILL 483 3.5% 16.3%, 22,000, 2.2%
5 SANTA BARBARA CITY COLLEGE SANTA BARBARA 464 3.3% 19.6%, 19,000, 2.4%
6 ORANGE COAST COLLEGE COSTA MESA 457 3.3% 22.8%, 23,000, 2.0%
7 CITY COLLEGE SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO 354 2.5% 25.4%, 33,000 (2012), 1.1%
8 MOUNT SAN ANTONIO COLLEGE WALNUT 353 2.5% 27.9%, 33,000, 1.1%
9 SADDLEBACK COLLEGE MISSION VIEJO 328 2.3% 30.2%, 26,000, 1.3%
10 IRVINE VALLEY COLLEGE IRVINE 310 2.2% 32.4%, 46.1%, 15,000, 2.1%</p>
<p>28 BERKELEY CITY COLLEGE BERKELEY 162 1.2% 62.5%, 6,000, 2.7%</p>
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<p>While they cannot cap matriculations, enrollment is effectively capped by the space available in the classes (so CCs are most likely to have problems getting into classes during budget cutbacks). Budget limitations (for hiring instructors and other costs of classes) and facility limitations (amount of classroom space) can limit the number of spaces in classes than a CC can offer.</p>
<p>^Absolutely, ucb…</p>
<p>But I think of the act of hiring more profs to teach classes just lags in adjustment to enrollment growth. Enrollment doesn’t grow particularly fast – hopefully – but would probably be more gradual. If, say, 2,000 new students is typical every fall, it would be unusual to see 3,000 kids enroll in a following year. If its reputation as a strong UC-transfer institution were to improve, BCC, if I may call it that, would probably see an uptick in enrollment, of probably hundreds, and submit to the state for more funding and later, say, a year following, hire more profs, especially in UC-prep type classes. I think as it is kids might be more willing to travel to someplace like DeAnza in Cupertino, or more nearby in Diablo Valley if they’re from the East Bay. </p>
<p>And certainly, maybe possible budget constraints at BCC, could be causing students to enroll elsewhere. Perhaps word of mouth has circulated that it’s tough to get classes at this cc.</p>
<p>Wrt no. of classrooms and general classroom resources, per wikipedia (quick access), </p>
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<p>If I may be more technical, enrollment is more approximately 6,500, so the building is not at full enrollment capacity. Most highly desired cc’s are bursting at the seams and overenrolled, though because of fire laws and because it’s just a building, BCC wouldn’t be able to seat more than 7800. And it does have good transfer %'s on its limited enrollment. Strange dynamic, small cc but with seeming open enrollment. Good points on clasroom resources, ucb. </p>
<p>Of course, there may be other constraints in trying to reach the maximum capacity of the building. For example, there may be difficulty hiring instructors for all of the possible time slots that could be scheduled into every classroom at the building (e.g. there may be a classroom open MWF 2100-2200, but they might not be able find an instructor to teach a class then). It is also possible that the class sizes do not exactly match the classroom sizes, resulting in (for example) some 30 student classes meeting in rooms that could hold 50 students.</p>
<p>As my last point on this topic, I think all cc’s can tighten up and increase their transfer statistics. I would assume that the majority of transfers of all cc’s would be to the Cal States. So I can’t account for, without looking at transfers to CSU and also to other institutions besides the UC’s, for total transfers from the individual cc’s. I’m sure, though, that they’re all pretty low in relation to each’s enrollment divided by two, or three, or even four, considering that they’re two-year colleges. </p>
<p>All cc’s undoubtedly have a mixed bag of full and part-time students, vocational training and certification programs such as those enrolled as fashion design and merchandise students, and as well as older returning students, who just want a class or two or three. </p>
<p>I think SMC had a good plan to separate those who wanted to transfer by this cc having a stepped-fee program to those who desired specifically to transfer to UC and CSU, but unfortunately it was shot down. They could have done this and guided those students who were generally more “serious” about the academic side of things and increased its resources with more profs and higher class availability by the higher fees.</p>
<p>Some cc’s won’t ever have great transfer stats compared to the top cc’s, but they can be resources for high school students in poorer communities to gain access to AP’s, so these should retool their missions. </p>
<p>So I guess all cc’s pretty much do their job for a whole array of students, but 2.5% max transfers for SMC and BCC (adjusted for BCC’s more accurate enrollment) seems a bit low to UC. I don’t see UC being able to enroll more cc students, even if Governor Brown desires this, but again, it does seem like this rate even woefully low. So I guess my point is the efficiency can be improved, or seemingly so. The point is, even if UC’s cannot enroll more cc transfers – I don’t think it should, the whole subset of cc students can be better educated and have greater options, and lead to the state having a higher educated group.</p>
<p>Wow, so many replies in this post. I really appreciate all of you helping me choose the school. By the way, just one question off the topic, which bank would you recommend me to open an account in Berkeley? Which bank offers the most convenience?</p>
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<p>Given the CCs’ multiple missions, including offering courses of interest to non-degree students (e.g. someone wanting to learn a foreign language) and offering various associates and certificate programs that are not aimed at transferring to complete a bachelor’s degree, it may not be obvious whether the transfer rate is “low” relative to those who enter CC aiming to transfer.</p>
<p>Note that the average CC student is a half-time student, since there were about 2.2 million CC students in 2012-2013, but only 1.1 million full-time-equivalent CC students in that academic year, according to <a href=“California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office - Data Mart”>California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office - Data Mart; . There are also a number of other stats that can be found on this web site, including something called Transfer Velocity (but the web site seems to be rather slow and unresponsive at the moment).</p>
<p>Playing with <a href=“California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office - Data Mart”>California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office - Data Mart; indicates that Berkeley City has what appears to be a similar or better 2 year and 3 year transfer rate compared with De Anza, Diablo Valley, and Santa Monica.</p>
<p>Other reports have interesting information as well. For example, it appears that 10-13% of grades are withdrawals (non-military – military withdrawals are tiny in number), which implies that the space in the class ends up being “wasted”, since a withdrawal implies dropping the class too late for anyone else to add the class.</p>