Hello, I’m looking for some advice - I am at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento and completed 27.5 units with a 3.7 GPA, with 15 more set for the fall. My high school GPA was a 3.4, and I have a decent list of extracurriculars ( Student Assistant while at CRC, internship with Positive Coaching Alliance, job shadow with USA Rugby, Social Media Coordinator for Total Health and Fitness Sacramento).
One potential route I a looking at is transferring for the Spring semester; I have applied to Pepperdine and Minnesota so far. My high school grades aren’t exceptional, so I didn’t think I should apply to top tier schools.
My other option is to stay at CRC for the Spring as well (hopefully raising my GPA to 3.8), and apply to more prestigious institutions I really like, such as Michigan and USC. At that point I will have completed enough units that it will likely outweigh the shortcomings of my high school transcript. 15 units each semester would bring my total to 57.5, which would hopefully outweigh the shortcomings of my high school transcript in the eyes of the admissions office.
Any input is appreciated, thanks for reading!
You need to first check the transfer requirements for each of the universities you hope to transfer to and apply. Many prestigious have limited transfer availability, as far as spots/spaces for transfers.
Can you afford these schools? USC is very pricey. Transfer students get very limited funding, if anything.
Once you attend a CC, your grades and EC’s at your high school aren’t really used by the universities.
I’m going to assume you’ve thought about tuition and and the messy financial consequences of transferring.
If you’re shooting for better schools with a mediocre / bad high school GPA, I recommend that you apply when you have more units (i.e. applying after your sophomore year). Don’t worry, if you keep up that excellent GPA, you’ll have an upward trend (low high school GPA —> high college GPA), which admissions officers love seeing.
However, I think you should shoot for USC and Michigan the first time around. See what happens. Though USC and Michigan are top schools, they aren’t very selective with transfer students (USC accepted 27.35% of transfer students last fall, and UMichigan accepted 38.79%, while Pepperdine accepted 38.88%!)
Thanks for the insight.
Applying to UCLA and UCSB would be another option for me but unfortunately I had to take a math class in my first semester that is not transferable, so I will end up 3 units short on transferable units for UCs and CSUs. Would be much more cost effective. I am in the process of trying to find a way to somehow squeak those three units into my schedule for the Spring.
With the required 60 units, couldn’t you take the other 3 over the summer?