<p>Hi all,
I recently finished my sophomore year in college at an expensive and selective private four-year university across the country from my hometown - NYU. Due to the current economy and my family situation, I worked 30-45 hours a week my second year and as such, my grades suffered (I now have a 3.3 and one W on my transcript). I feel that going to school so far away and so unequipped to deal with life in a big city was a mistake, and I am looking into transferring to a school in my home state of California. Though I only have a 3.3 at college, I have a steller high school transcript (4.0+ GPA, great SATs, 5's on AP exams) and extracurricular activities to add. Though it is too late to transfer in for the fall of 2009, I'm considering taking a year off from college and trying to transfer to a state school so that I can save money and live closer to home.</p>
<p>My question is, would taking a year off to apply to transfer (and obviously work to help my family) hurt my chances? Will my college GPA hinder my chances of getting into a good school (Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Claremont)? Given my current record, should I just start over at community college as a first year, take required courses for two years and try to transfer from there? I haven't excelled at collegiate life so far, but recent events have given me greater motivation and if I had a clean slate, I would be able to start fresh.</p>
<p>You can’t “start over” and ignore your transcript from the four-year university. </p>
<p>Secondly, the UCs generally will not even look at applications of students who have more than 86 - 90 semester units (check for exact number) of combined four-year and CC credits. You may just want to try applying with your 3.3 apps to avoid going over that maximum unit cap. (The UCs don’t take what they consider “senior” transfers, defined by students with more than that 86 - 90 cap.)</p>
<p>3.3 is an okay GPA for most things in life, but a little bit low for UC transfer. But it is not unheard of, depending on the major. You can go to the websites of many of the UCs and find detailed transfer admissions rates by <em>major</em>. I’ve seen these spreadsheets for UCI and UCLA. It really is a toss up whether or not a UC would take you… depends on too many factors outside of your control. Though definitely look up if your major is one of the highly competitive ones or not.</p>
<p>You probably will want to apply to a range of colleges and throw some safeties in as well. It will be an unpredictable transfer year because of budget cuts and changing patterns of enrollment because of the economy.</p>
<p>I think a 3.3 is respectable, just not flashy in terms of trying to transfer.</p>
<p>Btw, your HS GPA will practically be ignored in the transfer process. Your high school record will be a side note at best. </p>
<p>My personal opinion is that working for a year will NOT hurt you, bc especially in this economy, admissions officers would likely see that as a reality check for many students. Plus, if you do something interesting with your time, you can turn it into a bonus in terms of showing maturity and growth. </p>
<p>Annika</p>
<p>l0vedisaster - Well I’ve taken a year off before but not right after transferring. It was actually before going to community college. It really depends on how you feel about taking the year off in which you can lay that compelling info on your applications when applying. I think it will only hurt your chances if you didn’t spend your year off wisely such as being a couch-potato, playing WoW everyday, etc. Because I totally see where you are coming from about the family issues. I took that year off to self finance my education and to gain experience to see if my major was what I was looking for.</p>
<p>Your chances are not at all that good for Berkeley & UCLA because you’re considered an out of state student (NYU). And the UC’s tend to be extremely selective when it comes to out of state transfer students. For USC & Claremont, I would have to say you have to step it up on your GPA because those are great colleges that have a 3.5+ admit average.</p>
<p>Also your HS record will not play too much of an important role in transferring. UC’s don’t view upon it and USC doesn’t view it when you hit 30+ credits.</p>
<p>“Starting over” cannot be done. Although I’ve heard otherwise… I’m not going into that touchy topic. Anyways, starting over would just cost you more money and time. Aren’t you trying to help out your family?</p>
<p>Taking a year off to just work, help out your family, and figure out what you want to study and where sounds really good to me. Yes your GPA hasn’t been as good as you would have liked this past year, but you were indeed working close to full-time hours during that period. That also counts for something. You should stay in touch with your work supervisors so that you can use them as a reference when you need one.</p>
<p>If you contact the places that you are interested in now, even if it is late for fall admission, it may be possible to get a space second semester.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>