<p>Because there is largely a sentiment that community college is a place for remedial education, I thought it would be both motivating and encouraging for people who have transferred or are in the process of transferring to higher more prestigious education to share small testaments or anecdotes of their journey.</p>
<p>You can share basically why you chose to go to community college and obstacles you faced etc. Also share, if it applies to you, where you have transferred to or where you are transferring.</p>
<p>I will give my own brief example:</p>
<p>Tomorrow I will be moving out to Santa Monica to attend Santa Monica College. I have just finished graduating high school a week ago. My entire high school career was tumultuous with its ups and downs. For example, my sophomore year I received a 1.0 GPA but my junior year I had a 3.0 GPA. By the end of my career my GPA was about 2.0. At school I would pay attention, but when I got home I wouldn't even open my backpack; I had no work ethic and I knew I just was not applying myself. I had received a 1930 on my SAT, passed 3 AP tests, and was accepted to some CSU's but I always wanted to go to UCLA or UC Berkeley. I have always been overshadowed by my brother and sister who attended Duke University and USC. It doesn't help that my family is Korean either - a culture that highly regards education. I feel that with a clean slate and the capacity to accept my high school failure I will be able to do a lot better at community college.</p>
<p>Well i graduated in '07…in high school i had a overall 2.0 gpa…went to a comm college on the east coast, worked my butt off and now have a 3.7 gpa, received my associates in business and am in the process of transfering…
i feel like u should not have to compare urself, everyone has there own pace they go with.
Just as u said, like u…i would not even care to open my backpack, even though i knew i would have to attend summer school if i didnt get my grades up high enough.
Im verrrrry, verrrry happy that i attended comm. college and now plan to transfer to a 4year institute.
hope this helps and good luck!</p>
<p>Potter, you are in a great position. Your high school is now in the past. You need not worry about that anymore. The position you are in now allows you to explore many more opportunity’s, and you should use all of your resources now to propel yourself toward your intended college.
First,if you wish to transfer to University of Berkeley, UCLA or even USC, you can. Its that simple. You. Can. But, you want to pay attention.
You have already started yourself on a good path by looking into the possibilities early.
If you want to be accepted into Berkeley or UCLA, i would suggest you first start to soak up as much information online as possible. Go to Assist.org and you can map out a two year schedule if you desired which would allow you to transfer. See if your school has TAP, research, research, and push.hard. If you work hard, you will get to whatever school you want. It just takes motivation and determination. </p>
<p>Im very familiar with the Berkeley Campus so if you want more information then PM me sometime and ill try to get back asap. Trust me, being accepted is not as difficult as people think. Any idea on major?</p>
<p>Yeah the main difference between now and high school was that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know I was supposed to be taking AP courses and didn’t know what classes to take. Luckily I learned from my mistake and am planning ahead now. I think this is the reason why students do better in community college.</p>
<p>I plan to major in Political Science and then maybe go to law school. I haven’t actually been to Berkeley yet but I get the feeling I will like it. I have seen pictures of San Francisco and it looks very appealing.</p>
<p>i feel we were in the very same boat haha. i went through highschool with a slew of terrible problems… i graduated HS with a 3.1? maybe 3.0… can’t remember, but needless to say, it wasn’t at all attractive… in fact, i remember the day, very clearly, when i sat down in my guidance counselor’s office and she (being the snotty lady she was) told me to my face i wouldnt ever amount to much. where you come from a very demanding educational family, i come from a very top notch school, where EVERY kid goes to a 4 year (because their family can afford it, and they all have the grades to go) and if you don’t ::gasp::, the whole town knows it and looks down on you… even the snooty moms in the office gave me crap for applying to ONLY a county college…</p>
<p>ANYWAY, im rambling… my point is that, i realized i wanted a lot more for myself, settled my butt down in all the honors classes at my 2 year school i could, got a 3.7 gpa and just got accepted to Cornell’s ILR School, which is a pretty prestigious school, if i say so myself :P</p>
<p>so there you have it… never let anyone (especially those condescending shmucks from your HS) tell you you CANT do something.</p>
<p>if you want it bad enough, you’ll get it. just keep your eye on the prizeee</p>
<p>In high school I had achieved a 2.4 GPA very embarrassing. So I went to a community college and told myself I better shape myself up If I want to end up in a university far away from home. So I did just that, I transferred to Florida State with a 3.4 GPA. To others that may not be a very prestigious school but to me my goals were achieved and now I’m leaving my home city to go 8 hours away. I am satisfied and even my father is a bit obsessed with FSU anytime they send some information about FSU my father jumps up to read about it because he never had the opportunity to enjoy college because he was taking care of his mother who was dieng at the time. I’m very happy.</p>
<p>This is a brilliant thread !
I’m attending a cc right now. I got a 3.83 GPA in HS and got in some decent colleges. But for several reasons, my only choice is community college. At first, I’m quite frustrated with that idea but I believe in the long run, it will be the best choice for me and my family.
Please keep sharing your stories …They really inspire me to work hard, have a high goal and being optimistic. </p>
<p>PS: any international student transfer story ?</p>
<p>wow, so many familiar stories. I had not necessarily struggled in HS, but I was never truly challenged nor motivated to get in position to get a decent scholarship to attend a 4 yr school. My situation has basically been this: my efc always tends to be in the 30,000 area, so financial aid is for the most part out of the question. My parents give me a home to live in, which I am very thankful for, but have not taken responsibility for my college education. </p>
<p>I recently graduated from my local CC in the honors program with no debt and received a full tuition scholarship to a private and competitive university. My proudest accomplishment is funding my entire education without going a penny into debt.</p>
<p>I’m starting CC this fall. I graduated high school with a 3.1 GPA, scored 1530 on the SAT both times I took it, had decent extracurriculars and was even president of a club, took 4 honors courses and was in concurrent enrollment through SFSU’s Step to College Program. I got into SFSU and UC Merced. I didn’t want to settle and go to either schools, although my family all wanted me to go to SFSU because my sister was already there. I realized too late in high school that it’s not just honors classes that will get you into a good college, which my freshman year-impression was. I applied to UCD and Cal just to try, but I already knew what my chances were.</p>
<p>I didn’t work hard enough to merit acceptance to schools I wanted to go to: Cal, UCLA, USC among others. I felt CC was the best choice for me if I wanted to go to a school I was going to be happy at.</p>
<p>Right now I’m signed up for all my CC classes and I will be coming into college with 6 units from concurrent enrollment and hopefully a few other credits from my honors classes.</p>
<p>Some of my friends & family think my decision is wrong and “stupid” but I think it’ll be a second chance of sorts. I know I’ll have to work hard to really get to where I want to be, but I’ve matured and know what I need to do and where I want to go.</p>
<p>Good luck on your journey–it will be hard but worth it in the end.</p>
<p>“I recently graduated from my local CC in the honors program with no debt and received a full tuition scholarship to a private and competitive university.”</p>
<p>What school?? Doesn’t do anybody any good if they have to guess about what transfers have accomplished. </p>
<p>“My proudest accomplishment is funding my entire education without going a penny into debt.”</p>
<p>It helps when you live with your parents. Try it when you don’t- it’s a helluva lot harder to do.</p>
<p>Bait&Switch - it was TCU, I am sometimes vague for privacy reasons, sorry.</p>
<p>Yes, living with my parents helps. I’m fortunate to have had the option. TCU is a bit of a drive but to me it’s worth saving the 10k/year in room, board and the other personal expenses that come with living on campus.</p>
<p>I just picked up my high school transcripts recently from 11 years ago. My final HS GPA was 0.686. Needless to say, I didn’t graduate and had to finish my diploma in night school.</p>
<p>Now I have just finished my first Full Time year at CC. I am an Honor Student, in my school’s Honors Core, a member of Phi Theta Kappa, and have a 3.9 GPA with 30 semester units done.</p>
<p>Cost of school is cheap as hell, but the costs of living are what is killing me. I put myself in debt a few grand by deciding to go full time and not work (I have a part time position 5-15 hours a week) but because I am an older student (29 this summer) I want to get it done as soon as possible. So the debt is just something I have to deal with, but it is a small price to pay for how happy I am in school.</p>
<p>I am going to be a TAP certified transfer student to either Berkeley or UCLA or another school of that level. I will be working in the fields of education (ironic I know) as a teachers, professor, counselor, and psychologist. I hope to be a key player in education reform and research creativity in youth.</p>
<p>I was told I would grow up to be a garbage man for failing out of HS. Look at me now *****es!</p>
<p>Potter, I know how you feel. My high school career has been a failure until my senior year. During the first three years, I would slack off and have fun rather than study. My overall GPA was around 2.5 by the time my junior year ended. My attitude started to change after I met a few old friends of mine last summer. They motivated me to do better in school. With their encouragement, I was able to shoot my GPA up to a 3.0 by the end of my senior year. It goes to show that anything is possible with a little bit of hard work and motivation. </p>
<p>Just so you know, I graduated from high school yesterday. I’m going to attend Pasadena City College on Monday. I have my eyes set out on some nursing schools, specifically in CSULB and CSULA. If the nursing thing doesn’t work out, I’ll switch my major and most likely transfer to a UC.</p>
<p>My HS GPA is a 1.7! So it’ll be community college for me for the next two years; I’m already taking summer classes.</p>
<p>I want to transfer to an Ivy or another school of similar caliber. It’s extremely unlikely, but I know that dreaming this big will keep me motivated.</p>
<p>Bait and Switch, that thread doesn’t prove or say anything. I would really recommend calling the school you want to apply to and ask yourself.</p>
<p>Here is my (un)successful CC transfer story. </p>
<p>I was a less than average student in high school. I passed by the skim of my teeth to appease my parents (3.025 graduating GPA, higher than what a lot of you had but I literally came to school to sleep) and did not attend graduation. I missed 60 plus days my senior year. I scored a 1740 on my SATs after a night of drinking with my friends (came in still buzzed and hung over). </p>
<p>During my senior year and months afterwards I did a lot of growing up because some events that occurred in my life that I could fill about 20 threads with. I decided I really wanted to do something with my life and thought that if I applied myself in community college, I could make up for my lost time. I spent the next year completing all sixty units required to transfer in 1 year (with only 2 APs transferring or 6 units). My first semester I received two B’s, one in Calculus 1 and Physics by literally 1 question away from the A. I wasn’t used to actually paying attention and working in school which made my first semester in college extremely difficult (17 unit workload, in school for 6 hours 2 days and 8 hours 2 days). I found myself needing to get up and walk in order not to fall asleep and not being able to focus at all as well as keeping up with my old habits.</p>
<p>I learned “the system” and the rest of my semesters went great and I received all A’s otherwise (my next semester was a 19 unit workload with fairly difficult courses). This meant my cumulative CC GPA was a 3.83. I wanted to other things to make myself stand out as a truly unique candidate so I joined the Marines (along with MANY other reasons including wanting a future in politics) and was going to ship following summer after CC and return to school in the Fall to school and go to officer candidate school in the next summer and graduate and enter the Marines as an officer.</p>
<p>I only applied to one school UCLA (Biz Econ) to which I was invited to participate in the Regents Scholarship which is awarded solely on merit to the top 1.5% of applicants (450 out of 15,000). I didn’t apply to Berk because I didn’t realize that only the Business Administration major required the breadth requirements and that Econ accepted IGETC.</p>
<p>Two weeks after everyone else received their admission mine is still pending.</p>
<p>A few days later, I’m denied. I completed TAP, had stellar essays, had A LOT OF EC and awards.</p>
<p>I now have a DEP discharge on my record (my program required that I be enrolled in a 4 year university or be a regular marine which meant I could be shipped anytime), will take a few hard math classes in the fall and try to apply to U of C.</p>
<p>I have a very interesting story that has led to my success:</p>
<p>My junior year of high school i was contemplating dropping out of high school because i missed a month straight and was borderline getting kicked out.</p>
<p>Then being 5 credits short of being a senior, i had to take an extra class just to hardly graduate. I graduated with a 2.0 GPA and 1300/2400 SAT.</p>
<p>My first semester i was still struggling as i found myself getting a “D” in Elementary Algebra ( Its tough to get a D in such a low remedial course too)</p>
<p>Then, after having a 2.7 in CCC i decided that i had to get my act together. Since then I have gotten 8 A’s and 2 B’s, all in the past two semesters, and even receiving an “A” in Statistics!! </p>
<p>So i am now applying to some schools for Spring 2010 and others for Fall 2010…I have been accepted to ASU and they offered me a 9,000$ grant for having such good grades!</p>
<p>but i am not settling quite yet, i need to be accepted to UCLA to complete my dream!</p>