Starting fresh at De Anza

I’m a first year at foothill right now. Back early on in high school, I took two courses at Foothill and ended up failing them both because I didn’t think I’d end up here out of high school.

I intend to transfer as an aerospace engineering major, and you need a pretty high GPA for a chance at that anywhere. I’m currently finishing up my last quarter of english, 2nd out of my third quarter of chem, and finishing up precalculus.

I was wondering what peoples opinions are on just starting fresh at De Anza and staying there, which would entail repeating two quarters of chem and english but in return, getting a clean slate and higher marks (I had a low 3 last quarter).

I’m not sure I understand you. The grades you failed way back when don’t go away, regardless of where you choose to go to school now. They will still be factored into an application.

Since they’re falling grades, you should be able to retake them or do something like academic renewal … but there’s no such thing as starting over again clean. That’s not to say you don’t have options to make this into a better situation, but you’d be wrong to think going to a different school will make the situation different than it is.

As @briank82 stated you cannot start fresh and make those failing grades disappear. There is a clearing house where all your college work can be found. There is no way to hide your past mistakes. Switching schools will not solve the problem. If you are doing well at Foothill, stay there and prove you can overcome the earlier issues and check into academic renewal.
http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/

Good Luck.

@briank82 @Gumbymom
So starting at a new school doesn’t mean having a new transcript?

@ayylmaoooo Whatever college you apply to will require you to send transcripts from every single community college you’ve attended, even the ones you took while in high school.

I agree with the previous posters that you must list any college class you have ever taken, anywhere. They tell you that right on the UC app (or any college app, for that matter). If you don’t they will catch you and likely rescind you. It’s doubly-dumb not to list them because Foothill and DeAnza are in the SAME college district, so they have your records from both campuses!

It sounds like you are thinking that if you start “over” at DeAnza the past never happened. Nope. But here’s where it gets interesting. The 2 classes you failed you took while in high school. I don’t know how UCs treat this. Do they ignore them like they would other HS classes for transfers? Do they still count as college F’s? I don’t know, I doubt any poster here knows, and I doubt your counselor at Foothill knows. What you need to do is either email UC admissions or wait until a UC rep visits your campus and ask them.

@mikemac Actually OP can check if the classes he took while in high school will count for UC credit (they will take it into consideration) right here:
http://www.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=tca&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=28&ia=FOOTHILL&ay=08-09&arc=N&dora=

If they are not transferable, then OP would still need to list them and send them in with the other transcripts. If they are transferable, they would take those grades into consideration, so OP may want to look into academic renewal if possible.

@ayylmaoooo “So starting at a new school doesn’t mean having a new transcript?”

Well, it does … from that school. When you apply to transfer, you’ll also submit the transcripts from your other schools as well. As a personal example, I have attended 7 community colleges and I’ll have to submit transcripts from all 7 schools. All will be factored equally.

As others suggest though there’s a chance they may not even be transferable classes. They still need to be reported but they don’t put much, if any, weight on non-transferable classes.

If they are transferable, there is a decent chance you can somehow just retake them for a passing grade. Look up the policies specific to your school and/or talk to a counselor. If you were willing to retake 2 semesters of chemistry and english, this is obviously the most logical choice. Regardless, taking those chem/english classes again is a terrible idea and will not benefit you in any way.

@nirvanemesis I’m not so sure. Maybe you’re right. But UC does say

So all classes taken in HS, even if taken at a CC, count towards your GPA when applying as a frosh.

But the OP won’t be applying as a frosh. For transfers, HS grades don’t matter, at least for HS classes taken at the HS. The $64 question is whether CC classes taken while in HS count towards transfer GPA. I don’t know, and the link you gave is not going to answer that question, unfortunately.

There is an easy way to answer this, though. The OP can ask UC admissions.