Should I try to get into a 4 year UC school or do the 2 year cc transfer route?

Parents Forum
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<p>Yeah, I think I decided I would try the 4 year college experience. I feel kinda constrained at home and want some freedom, of course I want to visit home. I’m willing to go to any UC, maybe CSU. So I’ll try my best to get into Irvine (my goal), if not, Merced and Riverside are still pretty good schools. I’ll only go to CC if I really have to.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies, I think I have more confidence in my decision now :)</p>

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<p>Our high school’s naviance has one person with 3.0 accepted to UC Riverside, UCSanta Cruz and UC Merced.</p>

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<p>Chocolate20:</p>

<p>My younger son with learning disabilities did not apply to any UCs since despite his SAT scores of 700 in CR and 720 in Math, he would not have been competitive at any UC except for Merced with a high school GPA of only 3.05. He will start his freshman year as a Physics major in August at CSU Sacramento and live in an apartment near the campus with his brother, our older son, who is a junior Geology major at Sacramento State.</p>

<p>The UCs put the greatest importance on high school GPA and a low GPA, even with good SAT scores, will be tough to overcome. However, if you could get a 2100 on the SAT, with your GPA through your junior year UC Irvine and UCSB are certainly possibilities. Unfortunately, at this point you are a long way from 2100. A 620 W, 680 CR and 580 M only get you to about 1880 which is not bad but may not be good enough to overcome a low GPA at the more selective UCs.</p>

<p>I would not spend much time studying for CR since it is almost impossible to significantly increase your CR score through study and a 680 is a very good score and not really in need of much improvement. Where you need to focus your efforts is Math. A 580 is above average for all test takers but low for the more selective UCs and even CSUs like Cal Poly SLO and SDSU. Math scores can be improved through SAT preparation and while going from a 580 to a 700 is very unlikely, if you can break 600 your application will be definitely stronger.</p>

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<p>A convenient web site, [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) , can help you find out what courses you will need to transfer from a California community college to a given major at a UC or CSU.</p>

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<p>Finding a good job as a psychology graduate can be tough no matter where you went to school. UC Berkeley and Cal Poly SLO have career surveys of graduates (such survey results do not seem to be available from other UCs and CSUs).</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm&lt;/a&gt;
[Graduate</a> Status Report 08-09 - Career Services - Cal Poly](<a href=“http://www.careerservices.calpoly.edu/students/career_planning/gsr.htm]Graduate”>http://www.careerservices.calpoly.edu/students/career_planning/gsr.htm)</p>