Soon to be military vet transfering to California Colleges

Student Lounge Veterans
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I’m sorry if I have grammer errors or misspelled words, it is what it is.

Little back story: I always thought school was not for me. In highschool, I maintained a 2.0 GPA throughout freshman-senior year. I started going to Diablo Valley Community College back in 2010-2011. During my time, I accumulated terrible grades once again (2.0 GPA) but still acquired 25 or so transferable credits. Community college was getting me no where so I thought why not do something with my life and join the military. While I got stationed at my first duty station in Hawaii (lucky I know), I decided to give school a second chance. I got admitted into Hawaii Pacific University and have been going to school for almost two years. I recently recieved an Associates Degree in general studies with a 3.6 GPA(I dont know why school seems easy after dealing with so much bs in the military haha).

Currently I am putting my applications for Fall of 2016. Although I got my associates in general studies, I have been focusing and eliminating the course works for general accounting major so I can get admitted into some sort of major or minor focusing into accounting.
Schools I have already applied for : USC (commonapp finished)
Schools I am waiting to apply to because of time frame (will apply in Oct or Nov when it opens) : Cal Poly, UCSB, ANY OTHER RECOMMENDATION FOR ACCOUNTING OR FINANCE WOULD BE HIGHLY APPRECIATED BECAUSE IF I DONT GET INTO ANY OF THE SCHOOLS I APPLIED TO, THAT WOULD SUCK
I am also reading from this website that CSF, SDSU, SAC, SJSU for accounting or business/econ is very well respected.
Also public schools are a plus because I dont have to come out of pocket like USC a ton of money (GI Bill Covers 100% tuition for public schools and ~$20,000 per year for private before Yellow Ribbon or Scholarships)

My question is:
Although I immensely improved my grades while attending HPU, I am kind of nervous that my grades back then are going to tarnish everything I had worked for up to now. Is demonstrating improvements from past/present a factor in college applications or is everything computer generated?? I have been trying to maintain a solid gpa so I could improve from my faults in the past but with the old grades averaged, it might drop my GPA a lot.

Additional Facts:
I get out of the military may 6, 2016.
By then I will have completed 6 more courses and currently if I were to stay at HPU, I would have about an year and a half till I receive my Bachelors in Accounting. But in all seriousness, I need to get accepted by one atleast one decent college for fall because that’s kind of how all of my plans are set for. (Cal Poly would be my #1 pick I think)

Important to note: While I was getting admitted into HPU, they took my transcripts from DVC and give me a pass/fail for all my grades. The ones I got D’s in obviously they just did not transfer those classes and the grades where it was C- or better, they give me a pass and 3 or 4 credits depending on the class. So when I started HPU, I went into my first class with a 4.0 (kind of felt like I cheated haha) But after taking 16 courses later, I still maintained a GPA of 3.6.

Again sorry for any misspellings etc.

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Hi @BummyKim1992 , I feel like there’s a lot I can say here.

My duty station was Hawaii too, although I wouldn’t call it paradise - coming from CA, I was essentially stuck on a small island when I wasn’t deployed, but alas I’ll count my blessings.

More directly to your past credits and applications question: it depends. Some of the colleges you’ve mentioned are private and use the CommonApp, as you know, for admissions and typically take what they call a holistic approach to admitting students. Meaning, they screen applicants through all aspects of their experiences - academic, professional, social, personal. In these cases, it is likely that your 5-6 year old DVC grades will not adversely affect your admissions position, although you would still be required to report them. Generally speaking, you’ll submit your application with all your college-level grades and your overall GPA from those courses. Eventually, your entire application would be placed in front of an admissions representative for XYZ college or university and that individual, or individuals, will be able to evaluate the difference in your grades from a handful of years ago and your grades from more recent times. They will also take your military experience and other factors into account.

Public universities, particularly the CSUs, do not rely on a holistic admissions policy, and generally speaking, your application will be matched up in a computer system to determine minimum eligibility criteria for campus and major, residence location, etc. If you fall outside of the minimum parameters, your application will be denied. This is where your previous DVC grades will have a greater effect because your overall college-level GPA will reflect all those courses as well as the ones from HPU and there isn’t necessarily a human set of eyes distinguishing that in the application process.

Of course, thinking ahead, that’s the catch I see you in: you prefer the cheaper CSU, but it’s more likely that your previous DVC grades will have an adverse effect on your admission, while the more costly privates (not sure if any you’re thinking about participate in YRP, you’ll have to check) will be able to distinguish the differences and it may not affect your admissions as much compared to the CSU route.

As far as how HPU transferred your DVC grades, that sounds about right, but when transferring into any other school, the new school itself will evaluate transfer credits being applied toward a degree from their institution.

Have you thought about finishing your bachelors degree at HPU and then using your remaining GI Bill benefits for a masters or higher level degree program?

I will also vouch for SJSU’s accounting and business programs. It’s a huge program at SJSU and they’re located right in downtown San Jose, which is in the backyard of major accounting firms, not to mention the plethora of businesses and technology companies.

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Wow, thanks for the great response. I thought about it but I think the decision to go back to CA is already set in stone so I will just put in my application and see how it goes…I think I will be able to get accepted by atleast one haha! And thanks again, I appreciate it!