<p>Hello,
I applied to a number of UCs of different levels, UCD, UCSB, UCI, UCLA, UCB and UCR but none accepted me.
I spent half of my HS career in Italy and the last 3 semester in US high school. I think I did not properly enter the Italian grades (numeric) in the application system... I have straight As in US high school (4.42 WGPA), including AS and AP classes. 2000 SAT. I'm appealing some of them providing all the report cards from the Italian school and letters of recommendation from US high school teachers. In case I get rejected again, should I go to San Francisco State or Community College and go for a transfer? I heard not great reviews on SFSU, so I'm not sure what to do.
Also are there chances to get a transfer from SFSU? I know there are priorities for transfer from CC.
Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>if your main goal is to transfer to a UC, I would attend a CC. you will save money and get higher priority when admissions roll around.</p>
<p>Going the CC route is pretty much always the best option to getting into a UC if you don’t get acceptance straight out of high school. In addition to what Citiz3nerased said, through a CC you can apply through TAG, which GUARANTEES your admission into the UC of your choice (save UCB and UCLA, and possibly UCSD in coming years) granted that you meet the TAG criteria. You also know what courses directly satisfy UC lower division coursework and prerequisite requirements because of the articulation agreement between CCs and UCs. And you have the resource assist.org so you never have to guess what classes are going to transfer over for credit, like you may have to do coming from a CSU. There’s also the added benefit of financial savings. You save thousands of dollars attending equivalent courses from a CC as you would at a CSU. </p>
<p>However, the one big drawback is that CC is the entry point of higher education and courses can be hard to come by, which could result in having to transfer later than you might hope to. Generally though, there are ways around that and the benefits of attending a CC compared to a CSU in the hopes to transfer to a UC seem to be fairly one-sided. </p>
<p>All of that said you may also want to consider what your ultimate goal is. If you plan on going on to graduate school, sometimes CSU is a better route because it allows you to preserve your GPA and still end up with a UC degree after graduate school. Often times, high GPA and examinations scores for grad school entry can drastically outweigh the advantage of the prestige that’s associated with going to a UC for your undergraduate education.</p>
<p>at my CC if you join the Honors Program, I believe you are guaranteed certain classes, or if you can get into EOP than you get priority registration =]</p>
<p>CC is a great idea! But you need to be self motivated and very organized. Do not rely on any CC counselors to give you the information you need to be competitive as a transfer student. Use the IGETC transfer sheets provided by the schools, and complete all the required UC courses, including the Language (no problem for you!) and be sure to check assist.org and print out a list of all the prerequisites you need for each UC department that you will be applying to. </p>
<p>Then CAREfully plan your courses for the two years, and be sure to complete the Math and English classes within the first few semesters. Those should not be IP or pending when you apply to a UC. Be sure to complete your IGETC and get that approved by the school you attend. </p>
<p>Also, organize your courses well and don’t overload: I took 12 units each semester, and just a few classes over the summers, but maintained a perfect GPA. Then you will not have any trouble getting into a UC. I suggest that you do not take any breaks either, when you start at a CC continue and transfer without gaps in your studies. This will help in many ways. Also, and this is very important, get in touch with the departments that you want to transfer into, or meet with them, to discuss your transfer courses and plan. This worked for me, and that is my two cents worth. Good luck, and keep us posted.</p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) is your friend when choosing courses.</p>
<p>For majoring in physics, you likely need the following:</p>
<p>Math: calculus, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations
Physics: the entire sequence for physics and engineering majors, including mechanics, waves, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, optics, and modern physics
Breadth / IGETC: in many cases, the IGETC certification can fulfill the campus specific breadth requirements
Chemistry (sometimes): a quarter, semester, or year is needed at some schools</p>
<p>Thanks all for advising,
@dilapidatedmind, can you clarify your point about preserving your gpa? What’s the difference in gpa if you take the first two years at CC? You can also just point me to where I can get more info on this.
Thanks!</p>
<p>It’s more anecdotal than anything so I wouldn’t know where to point you. The point I was trying to make was that if you decided you wanted to go to a CSU instead of CC to transfer to a UC and your ultimate goal is graduate school, which I assume you’ll try to take at a UC, it might be worth considering getting your degree from a CSU. Effectively, what’s going to matter after you finish your education is your last degree, no one’s going to look at or care about where you went for undergrad if you have a masters degree or PhD. If you intend on going on to graduate school, the two most important things are your GPA and examination scores. So I was just proposing that if you ended up choosing the CSU route, maybe staying there instead of trying to transfer would be something to consider. At a CSU, classes are assumed to be less competitive so you’re likely to graduate with a higher GPA and you won’t have to worry about trying to transfer, which can have its setbacks (usually takes longer to graduate). Remember, you may do well at a CC, but after you transfer not only are you going to be taking more challenging upper division courses so your grades may drop a little (they might not too), but at a UC you’ll be doing so against more competitive peers. Typically, science classes are curved so you will be in direct competition with them; so, it’s just more likely that your GPA would be higher coming from a CSU than a UC. If you do well in undergrad at a CSU and you end up testing well, you’ll have your pick of UCs to choose for graduate school. Also, it would be cheaper to go to a CSU for four years than it would to even go to a CC first then to a UC. Obviously, going to a CC for the first two years is going to be cheaper than a CSU, but tuition at a UC is about 6 times more expensive than your final two years at a CSU would be and that’s where the difference comes into play. However, all that being said if you really want to end up at a UC or you’re confident enough in your academic ability that you’ll do just as well at a UC as you would at a CSU then by all means go a CC first so that you have the best chance of transfer to a UC. Also, if you think it might be possible that you’ll end your education at your bachelor’s degree then obviously a UC degree generally is going to serve you better. So you have a plethora of options before you, you just have to choose what you think is right for you.</p>
<p>CCs and CSUs tend to have lower average grades than UCs, according to [url=<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com]National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities<a href=“look%20at%20the%20bottom%20for%20specific%20schools”>/url</a>, but generally less competitive students.</p>
<p>^I think they tend to have lower grade trends because they have less competitive students. Which tends to make it easier for highly intelligent, highly motivated students to succeed at that level, especially in classes where they’re being graded comparatively with their “less competitive” peers.</p>
<p>i am a physics major and so far i’ve been accepted to ucsb. still waiting to hear back from sc, sd and berkeley. i’ve been in community college for a while. i haven’t even completed a physics class, but i’ve done some astronomy, bio and the general chemistry for science majors series. right now i am in calculus 1 of 3. i’ve gone to CCs in cali, but i am transferring in from a texas CC. i think my gpa is around 3.6. i probably got in because i am involved in the honors society at my school, as well as the astronomy and math club. i also go to physics conferences in tx and cali.
i could’ve never gotten in coming straight from HS. a lot of the time you get guaranteed admission to UCs from your CC in california.
hope this helps somehow. but i think you would probably get in just from appealing.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Go to CC. Your score on the SAT most definitely prooves you can do well at a good UC. Don’t settle when you can do better.</p>
<p>i agree with ragingzero. you pretty much can’t transfer to a UC after a certain number of hours from a 4-year college. but there’s no upper limit on the amount you can have from a cc. don’t settle. the UCs are some of the best physics colleges in the nation. don’t screw up an opportunity like this because you’re getting impatient to start school. 5-10 years from now you don’t want to look back and wish you had done it differently. a physics degree from one of these schools will open up a lot of doors for you.</p>
<p>APPEAL! You have a 4.42 WGPA. Why wait when you could and should be admitted into a UC now.</p>
<p>My appeal was successful, I’ve been offered admission at UCD!
Now I have to accept it within one week, but I still have my UCLA and UCSB appeals pending…</p>
<p>Congratulations 
I hope you get into where you want to 
UCD has a nice quirky physics department though </p>
<p>That said - UCD >>> Community college. Depending on where you take it, and who you take it with, your lower divisions classes can actually be a real pain in the butt; My calculus teachers were proof heavy, and my physics teachers were very rough on lab reports. The exams were closed book/notes, and it was rare that teachers allowed formula sheets on exams. </p>
<p>Rough teachers aren’t a deal killer though - the skills you can gain from just passing a class with a teacher like that will stay with you (though I admit, I tend to retain less from “hard” classes than I do from the “easy” ones). That said, in upper divs you will be expected to write decent lab reports and if you get good at that, teachers & TAs will notice and grade you accordingly. </p>
<p>[Watch out! “Easy” teachers might just be incredibly good teachers, and “hard” teachers might be terrible at explaining the material. IT HAPPENS]</p>
<p>The deal killer is when there’s 65 people trying to get into a class that has 50 people in it. Some CCs are so overtaxed that it can take over a month to get things like financial aid squared away!</p>
<p>So definitely, I’m glad you made it ^_^</p>
<p>I know this thread is quite old, but everything dilapidatedmind said has merit. Undergrad degrees aren’t worth much now due to the large supply of college grads(everyone has a college degree of some sort. And physics at the undergrad level isn’t that employable). If you’re shooting for post bac degree, CSUs may be a better bet. Even at 2000 SAT score, you would probably just be an average student at schools like UCLA or UCB since that’s the SAT score of the typical student at these elite schools. The same amount of effort and intelligence to pull C’s at these schools would get you A’s at CSUs, generally speaking. Just my two cents. </p>
<p>OP has made his/her choice by now, but hope this helps the younger kids out there decide.</p>