<p>Hello everyone, I'm a student in a community college looking to transfer to 4-year UC schools. Due to work I have missed a few semesters in which I did not take any classes. The semesters that I have attended, I usually only take one or two classes. It dawned on me that UCLA might take that into consideration which might negatively affect my admission.</p>
<p>My questions are:</p>
<p>Do UC schools' admission take into account how soon/slow I complete my required courses? </p>
<p>Is skipping semesters bad for admission?</p>
<p>Many thanks in advance:D</p>
<p>It shouldn’t affect you. I missed a year and UCSD was the only UC who asked me to confirm that I indeed did not attend for a year. I still got accepted.</p>
<p>Did you have to explain to them why you missed the year though? If they really don’t care why would they even ask you in the first place? Sorry maybe I’m just paranoid.</p>
<p>Nope, they just wanted me to confirm. I did explain on my UC app that I decided to work for a year at my dad’s company though. Just give them a simple explanation on the UC app. I know a lot of people on these forums that took some time off and still got accepted to top UC’s.</p>
<p>Do you know if schools look at how many classes you take per semester? Do they value you less on admission if you only take 1-2 classes per semester?</p>
<p>@enchanteddamage - I went to five community colleges over the course of 10 years. Within those 10 years I had several gaps that varied from 1 - 2 semesters. Most semesters, I only took one class. I was just accepted to Berkeley.</p>
<p>On my application, I copied and pasted the same response for every reason explaining gaps in my educational history: “I had to concentrate on work and my living situation”</p>
<p>I don’t think you have anything to worry about =)</p>
<p>I don’t know if this would be considered skipping semesters, but I got all W’s for one year. I dropped all my classes for Spring 2012 and Fall 2012. I have a total of 9 W’s. By the time I applied to the UC’s, I had already dropped, so they knew early on. I applied to UC Riverside, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. I got accepted to all of them.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe someone with 9 Ws can get into UCLA and Berkeley.</p>
<p>I’m curious as well. Would you mind giving me a little bit of your academic backgrounds/Extracurriculars ? Thanks</p>
<p>Not sure for UCLA/UCB (seems unlikely) but I also have 9 W’s and still got accepted all the other UC’s UCSD-UCR. Got rejected for UCLA/UCB not due to my W’s but due to my really low GPA (3.3)</p>
<p>Well in high school I had an unweighted GPA of 3.94, weighted I believe it was around 4.7. All the extracurriculars that I included in my app were from high school. Volunteered at church for about a year, was in National Honor Society, and I also volunteered for my environmental club in high school. Most of my extracurricular were clubs, I didn’t do like 200+ hours of volunteering as several people here. I took 6 AP exams and passed them all and I also was part of the Academic Decathlon team at my school for two years. I used my experience in the personal statement regarding my passion for history. I received an award from the San Bernardino County that only people that were top 1% of the county received. For community college, when I applied I had a 3.87 GPA. The UC’s were only able to based their decision on one semester because I entered as a full time student on Fall 2011. I had previously taken 6 college courses while I was in high school. About the 9 W’s, well in that year that I dropped, I didn’t do any activities because I was going through depression. I did explain my 9 W’s in the essay, but unfortunately I won’t go into detail because I just think it is something that is too private for me to write in here. I am a first generation college student, only in my (immediate family) to go to college, and low income/low middle income. I don’t really know if I was going to get accepted to UCLA and UC Berkeley, but I just went with it because those were the two schools I wanted for me. I also got accepted to UCLA and UC Berkeley in my senior year of high school, but decided to not attend because I didn’t want to accumulate loans. CC benefited me in that sense, I was able to save money. </p>
<p>For major prerequisites in history, I was taking two during Fall 2012 and dropped. I am taking two history classes to finish the requirements. IGETC should be done by this semester. I know it’s hard to believe, but I think the essays showed another side of me that numbers cannot always show.</p>
<p>Edit: long post, I know. I hope it is helpful.</p>
<p>@lufausljc</p>
<p>Wow thanks for the very detailed response. It’s been very informative and help.</p>