Questions

Student Lounge Veterans
1

<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>My name is Michael. I served in the Marine Corps for 4 years, and I am now out with an honorable discharge. I had a few questions regarding college.</p>

<p>I am already accepted to Lansing Community College in Michigan. LCC participates in the MACRAO transfer agreement, which basically means that you are guaranteed to have your general education courses will transfer to certain universities. Here is where my questions begin.</p>

<p>1.) I'm not sure which university I want to transfer to as of right now. I am leaning towards either University of Michigan Ann Arbor, or University of California Berkeley. I am studying Computer Science. Due to this, I can't call a specific college and ask them which classes would transfer, because they would differ from one university to another. What should I do in regards to this? I was considering taking the courses on the MACRAO transfer agreement, simply because I'm not sure and the counselors at LCC did not help as well as I had expected. I am only going to be attending community college for a year, I will not be completing my associates at the community college.</p>

<p>2.) When transferring to a university, especially one that has high standards, what do they look at? I have my GED and never took the SAT or ACT, but I plan on doing extremely well at LCC. I know that I can achieve atleast a 3.7, if not higher. Will a years worth of credits (spring, summer, and fall) get me accepted into a good university if I do exceptional at LCC?</p>

<p>3.) If I do decide to attend an out of state university, I heard that there is a possibility I could immediately gain residency status by being a "commuter in-state student"? I'm not sure as to how often this happens but I know my friend transferred from HFCC in MI to MIT for the same thing, computer science.</p>

<p>More questions will probably pop into my head as time goes on.
Any help would be much appreciated!</p>

<p>Thank you,
Michael</p>

2

<p>1) I’m not really sure how transferring from Michigan to Berkeley would work. I only really know the California system. You should try to get int contact with an adviser at your community college and go over what you need for out of state transferring. Colleges have agreements detailing the specific courses they require. But to find out the details you need to get in contact with a transfer adviser at your community college. In the meantime check out the website assist.org. Although it only deals with California community colleges, it might be worth checking out since you interested in UC Berkeley. This website will list out the required community college courses needed to transfer to any California school depending on major.</p>

<p>2) As a transfer student, you don’t have to worry about GED or SAT scores. Unless the college (usually ivy league or private schools) want an SAT score, most state/public universities don’t require any SAT/ACT. They also don’t care about high school grades. They will only look at your community college GPA when considering admissions. Just get a good GPA and write a good admissions essay and you should be fine. Also being a veteran is a definite plus.</p>

<p>3) You might need to contact the community college and the VA for advice on this. The GI Bill will pay up to the most expensive in state college, any more and you will need to enroll in the Yellow Ribbon program. I would try to contact the VA for advice.</p>

<p>Good Luck</p>

3

<p>Michael,</p>

<p>I am a Marine veteran and current student at the University of Michigan. I also started at a smaller school (EMU) and transferred to Engineering at Michigan. </p>

<p>Before you read all of my ramblings I will start with three simple suggestions: </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Contact the veterans office at every university you are interested in (this is not the VA, this is a university employed person to help vets).</p></li>
<li><p>Contact the school’s chapter of the Student Veterans of America. You can get some advice and suggestions from students who have done the exact same thing you are doing. (literally I have a friend who is a former Marine and transferred from LCC to UM Engineering.)</p></li>
<li><p>Take info from this website with a grain of salt (yes, including my response). The best source of information is the Institution itself. Call them all. Also Personally establishing a good relationship with people in the admissions office doesn’t hurt anything. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Transfer Credit:
As for Michigan, they have a database that outlines what courses are transferrable and what credit they receive ([Michigan</a> Engineering | Course Equivalency Database](<a href=“http://www.engin.umich.edu/transferdatabase/index.jsp]Michigan”>http://www.engin.umich.edu/transferdatabase/index.jsp)). I wouldn’t be surprised if Berkley had something similar. </p>

<p>In State vs. Out of State:
I can tell you from personal experience (so this is my story and not necessarily inductive of the rest of the student vets out there) that getting in-state residency status is not easy and often impossible. I am out of state for Michigan and my wife and I own a home here. The University of Michigan would not grant me instate residency even after owning a home and paying taxes in Michigan for 4 years. Some schools offer instate tuition/status for vets, but it is a school by school basis. For large, prestigious public institutions like UM and UC, they have to be protective about in state status because people will abuse the system. Wealthy families could buy a home in a state just so their kids could all get in state tuition for example. Moral of the story is call the schools admissions office to find out. Even better find the schools veterans office and ask them. </p>

<p>Some silver lining is that instate/out of state may not matter if the schools you are looking for participate in the yellow ribbon program. MI does, so my $44,000 a year tuition is completely covered between the VA and the university. Again contact the schools admissions office for confirmation. To my knowledge the Institution enrolls in this program not the student, so if the school participates it should be added to your benefits regardless of your actions. Amount of extra tuition covered does differ from school to school, so be aware of that. This info can be found on the VA GIBILL website. </p>

<p>SAT and Grades:
Get good grades. Period. It doesn’t mean you won’t get in if you don’t, but it sure as hell helps. I did take the SAT before applying to Meghan (still in the corps actually). I was worried about the score I got, so I called the admissions at Michigan and they basically told me that as a transfer student they would be looking at College Grades more than anything so it didn’t matter. The SAT is a college ENTRANCE exam. Meaning if you are already a college student (which you are) the score holds a lot less weight anywhere because you have theoretically surpassed the difficulty of the SAT questions by attending college. If they don’t require it I wouldn’t take it.<br>
A years’ worth of great grades tells a much better story than good scores on one test. I had 1.5 years of credits and great grades when I transferred to UM. What is more important than overall GPA (for engineering) is good grades in the required transfer courses. To transfer to Engineering Computer Science (different from LSA Computer science at UM) there are classes you must have complete before even being considered as a transfer student. Rock those classes. A C in history doesn’t mean a lot to them when you have A’s in Differential Equations and Calc 1,2 and 3.</p>

<p>Other info:
Resume. Get your resume polished. Michigan requires it with the application. And if a school doesn’t require it send it anyway. It is a better way to showcase yourself and your military experience beyond just checking the “Veteran” box on the common app. </p>

<p>Another thing I would recommend considering when choosing between CA and MI is cost of living. Even though you get a stipend from the GIBill, it may not be near enough to actually cover living in a place like Berkeley. It is barely enough to scrape by on in Ann Arbor. The amount you get differs by region, so I would recommend searching for the Gov’t site on BAH where you can actually see what you get. Also keep in mind that you do not get paid for days you are not in school. Example: Finals end in MI on Dec 20th, classes resume Jan. 9th. Both BAH payments for those months are prorated so you only get paid for Dec. 1-21 and Jan 10-30.</p>

<p>If you have any more questions, private message me on here and I can give you more specific UM info and more personal experience. </p>

<p>J.</p>

4

<p>I just read another post on here that reminded me of something: Do the FAFSA!!! you may be eligible for grants and loans and they by law cannot consider you veterans status or benefits when calculating your federal aid. I qualified for the Pell Grant for two years (until I got married) and that was an extra ~$3000 a year that I don’t have to pay back. And in a pinch you can also get federal student loans this way, much cheaper than private student loans. </p>

<p>A note is that the schools CAN consider the GI Bill benefits when they consider you for grants and scholarships.</p>