<p>Ok so to start off, I graduated high school in Spring 2011. I applied to multiple CSU's and got accepted into a few. I made my choice and attended my freshman year at this school from Fall 2011 to Spring 2012. My parents had some financial burdens, and after much discussion over this past summer, we all decided it would be best if I went back home, finished my GE at a local community college, and then transferred to a CSU much closer to home to save money. Here's where it starts to get kind of complicated. My parents had a bit of good luck, and informed me that we actually became more financially secure a lot quicker than expected. This was about October of this year, a month ago. Out of curiousity, I went on the CSU's website that I attended my freshman year, and to my great discovery, learned that I could actually take a semester off, and come back the next semester, which would be Spring 2013. I loved this school so I decide to go this route, and would go back after only missing one semester to the same university I attended and pick up where I left off, and subsequently, have recently enrolled in a full load of classes for Spring 2013. Here's the thing though. I enrolled at my local community college for the Fall 2012 semester (as during the time of enrollment I was going to finish my General Education at this community college and then transfer to the local state) and got a very bad priority registration date, I only enrolled in 3 classes that were just kind of the only ones I could get. All I am wondering is if I need to transfer these courses from the community college to my original CSU when I go back this Spring 2013 semester? I would prefer to enroll in classes more specific to my major and do not really want to get credits from these few community college classes I am in, I would rather just pick up where I left off, so I have some room for more interesting classes in a sense. I know this is a weird situation, but any assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated, and I know this may be a quite confusing post, but if anyone needs any clarifications I would be glad to provide them. Thank you.</p>
<p>You don’t have a choice … you have to send your transcript from the CC to the CSU. They will decide what transfers, and you will have to live with it. However, I don’t see how that would preclude you from taking classes you want to take. I suggest you talk to a CSU academic advisor.</p>
<p>Taking classes at the CC will not hold you back from taking anything at the CSU. You should probably transfer the credits and use them toward general credits you need anyway. </p>
<p>Glad you got to go back to your school. Good luck</p>
<p>(and call CSU with transfer credit questions.)</p>
<p>Thank you so much, I am so glad I can return as well. And yea I understand what both of you guys have told me, I just don’t get it all that well… do I need to tell them about these classes I took? Or could i just not mention them, and basically finish where I left off? The classes I took at the community college were geared towards my transfer towards the other CSU I was going to go to, so I would just rather pick up where i left off at my original CSU. Thank you for the replies everybody.</p>
<p>Hi, sorry I don’t actually have any useful advice, just wanted to say good for you that you didn’t give up and glad that things are working out. It must feel great that you are going back.</p>
<p>If you really don’t want to take the classes at the CC now you need to talk to your GC and drop them. Hopefully it’s not too late.</p>
<p>Were the grades at the CC a problem? If not, you can use them for electives and save some money in the end.</p>
<p>If grades are a problem, then you could consider withdrawing. They won’t be part of your GPA at the CSU, but will be part of your record I think. So if you transfer again, or go to grad school, and the school asks for a transcript from ever school you have attended, techincally that would be included.</p>
<p>Did you get permission from the original college,to take classes at the CC - in terms of getting credit?</p>
<p>I would talk to an academic advisor at the school where you are returning to see if the credits from the cc classes are useful, and whether, good grades or bad, they will be considered part of your record.</p>
<p>You dont have to report those CC courses to your CSU but that seems it would be a waste of $. Talk w your CC advisor ASAP. Most likely it is too late to drop or change those courses so then you need to see if you can get your CSU to give you credit for any of those courses. Good luck getting it ffigured out. Glad to hear things changed for the better financially.</p>
<p>Yes the grades are not really going to be that great, as I was overcome with excitement to be going back, and I stopped taking the classes seriously, thinking I wouldn’t have to report them. I never got permission to take these CC classes as I was originally going to continue at CC and finish then transfer to the local CSU. This all just confuses me because I feel as if I would not have to report any college I’ve ever gone to since, all of my college credits are at my original CSU that I attended. I am going to go and speak to advisors about this issue as soon as possible for sure though.</p>
<p>You enrolled at the CC. That transcript, good, bad, indifferent is now part of your permanent academic history, and you will have to order copies every time you apply for admission somewhere else or for a job that requires copies of all of your academic transcripts. Period.</p>
<p>The issues with your CSU are small potatoes in comparison. Monday find out if you can withdraw from your CC in such a way that no transcript is generated, i.e. so that it looks like you never ever registered or attended. If you can’t do that, find out if it is possible to withdraw from some (or all) of the classes so that you can concentrate your energy on pulling up the grades in the classes that can be rescued. One or two Ws and one or two decent grades will look better in the long run then a three bad grades for this semester.</p>
<p>Would the CC courses be applicable to breadth requirements for your current CSU? CSUs seem to have generally similar breadth requirements.</p>
<p>Thank you everybody with all of the information I really appreciate it. I guess to put it simply, since I am just going back to my original CSU, do I have to inform my original CSU that I took these CC classes? I am an honest person, and would do so if necessary, but I just for some reason cannot understand why I would need to do so and why it would matter if I am just going back. Why do these CC classes have to be a part of my transcript at my original CSU, wouldn’t it be my choice as to if I wanted to transfer these courses in?</p>
<p>Does your original CSU use grades from transferred-in courses in GPA calculation?</p>
<p>If not, then there is no real disadvantage to transferring the courses in, unless they are completely useless for any degree requirements (including general education requirements), and you anticipate running into a unit ceiling before you graduate.</p>
<p>Note that professional schools (e.g. law, medicine) want to see all grades from all colleges, regardless of what was transferred. The same applies if you want to transfer again; if either of these is a concern, be sure to do as well as you can in the courses.</p>
<p>Also understand that if you re-enroll at your CSU under false pretenses (ie, without reporting your CC courses) and the CSU later discovers this, the consequences are likely to be severe.</p>
<p>You really need to speak with the CSU, ASAP. The rule you mentioned, where you’re automatically allowed back, seemed to apply to situations where you’ve taken a semester “off”. A semester “elsewhere” is not necessarily the same thing.</p>
<p>There is a feeling that if I paid to take certain courses, and I don’t expect anybody to give me transfer credit for them, I should be free to just forget about them and not mention them. But if you look at college applications and enrollment forms, that’s not the position the colleges seem to take. You are generally obligated to report all college enrollments and their outcomes. It’s a matter of academic honesty, and it’s not necessarily just an honor system. There is a National Student Clearinghouse – see [National</a> Student Clearinghouse](<a href=“http://www.studentclearinghouse.org%5DNational”>http://www.studentclearinghouse.org) – that verifies and shares academic records. Your schools may participate. When you apply for readmission to the CSU, they may run your name through the NSC to verify that your enrollment history at other institutions is as you said. There may also be some California-based version of this, within the California public system.</p>
<p>A few extra credits will never hurt you. They might help in some way, by fulfilling some distribution requirement and giving you a little more freedom or flexibility in course selection, going forward. And you paid for them.</p>
<p>If it were me (or my kid) I’d rather come clean with the CSU about what had happened, have peace of mind that an untruth wouldn’t come back to haunt me later, and get the full benefit of the time and money spent in the fall of 2012, whatever that might be.</p>
<p>When faced with a dilemma, I often ask myself, what is the worst thing that could happen? It seems like the worst-case scenario here is that the CSU will say the “semester off” provision doesn’t apply because you went to school elsewhere, so you’re now a transfer student, and that your transfer application may be weak because of the grades at the CC this fall semester, and you may need to stay on at the CC for spring semester and get the CC grades up, to gain readmission at the CSU. As unpleasant as that may seem, it’s survivable. Call the CSU, and ask how it works. Maybe you can ask anonymously, if it makes you feel better.</p>
<p>You never have to do anything with that transcript, if you don’t want to. You were not enrolled in a program, as I understand it, and you didn’t transfer. You can, without penalty, forget it and move on. Nobody, and I mean nobody, cares about those classes.</p>
<p>Although I think you were a bit of an idiot to let your grades go . . . 
</p>
<p>Move on, and do well.</p>
<p>I am not sure colleges would use the clearinghouse to find out if a student attended an undeclared college. My guess would be that they would verify attendance that was reported. That said, I don’t advocate lying and am not aware that applications ask that you report everything you have done. You would need to make sure to read the fine print of whichever school you are applying to determine if you are required to make full disclosure.</p>
<p>I think the language colleges use (in applications, anyway, including transfers) is any colleges you have “attended.”</p>
<p>This is a little murky. In our family we actually dealt with a similar situation and my child withdrew from the community college, but that was just one course, an intro to drawing that she was taking for fun, and she got sick and was unable to attend for 3 weeks.</p>
<p>Still, to be safe, we made sure her record was clean for the future. It took a little doing, but we felt it was worth the effort.</p>
<p>I would definitely ask the advisor at CSU. Ask what the terminology “any colleges attended” means, for now and for the future. Does it include CC classes when you were not enrolled?</p>
<p>Thank you everyone else for your input so much. This has been a weird situation in the back of my mind, and yes I absolutely feel the same way about me being an idiot for letting the classes go, I just got so excited about being able to go back that I kind of got a momentary lapse of laziness I guess… I regret it. However, for some of the responses, I do not have to reapply to get back into my original CSU for anyone who was wondering about that. I literally just got my next semester’s enrollment registration date, and have actually already enrolled in 16 units there, so I did not have to reapply or anything, I am still enrolled and attending there even though I did take a semester off. It says in their academic policy that students may take a semester off no questions off and come back the next semester. I knew I wouldn’t have to report this transcript really until I applied to grad schools later on, as they ask for “all colleges attended,” it’s more just a matter of if this would come back to haunt me. Like when I do apply to grad schools, I would have to send in this transcript, but maybe have to explain this situation and hope they can give me the benefit of the doubt. This is all still a little confusing… Thanks again though everybody for the help!</p>
<p>I expect it will be a moot point by then. Go forth and study well at college, Grasshopper!</p>