Hi all,
I graduated from high school in 2005. I subsequently attended a state school in CA and attempted 4 semesters there. All 4 semesters were catastrophically bad, as I was suffering from severe untreated agoraphobia (my family didn’t believe in mental health issues, so it was basically ignored).
I dropped out in 2007 and actually pursued treatment, which, after several years, was successful. I then decided against returning to school and entered into a career in tech.
Fast forward to 2015 - I decide I actually do want to return to school to get a Bachelors. Instead of re-enrolling at the state school I had attended, I enrolled at a local community college. I have been attending this community college part-time for a few years and am going to be applying for transfer this year for entrance in the fall of next year.
I was, of course, hoping that I could leave my old life behind, but of course, all of your studentships must be reported to any school you’re applying to. At this point, I want to understand how my old records will be factored in and what reasonable expectations might be. I’m sure this is a fairly common situation.
Here are some stats:
GPA (community college): 4.0 over 60 quarter units
GPA (state school, 2005-2007): 0.79 over 16 semester units (47 attempted)
I am looking to go to school in California, but its unclear what I should aim for or how to incorporate my state school transcript into my projections. Some general questions:
- What schools should I be targeting in California? UCs, CSU? Or am I totally ineligible?
- How does my (over a decade old) record at the state school get factored into transfer assessments?
- Can I selectively exclude transfer credits from my state school record? (that is, I will obviously send them the full report, but not elect to transfer actual credits across and re-take them at community college?)
Thank you so much!
I would look into Columbia’s school of general studies, OP. Check it out here: https://gs.columbia.edu
It’s a fantastic program designed for non-traditional students. The only thing that can be iffy sometimes is the financial aid.
If you do go for California schools, I have to think that with your compelling story you have some shot at some solid UC’s like San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Riverside. Berkeley and UCLA might be a stretch, though.
Hi @Aspiringacademic, thanks for your reply. The Columbia option is pretty fascinating, I hadn’t heard of that. I’m looking into that now - is it the case that the transfer requirements are different to other schools, or are simply more considerate of ‘past failures’? I imagine being part of Columbia it still has fairly high entrance requirements. Financial aid is mostly a non-factor for me.
UCSB and UCSD would likely be great fits for me as well. I guess I will retain some hope!
@Aspiringacademic - secondarily, I notice that Columbia also wants high school transcripts. I had a 3.2 unweighted GPA in high school, does that make that much more difficult? Thanks again.
It doesn’t make it much more difficult, no. One of the things about columbia’s Gs program is that they’re very forgiving of gpa’s from long ago - just take a look at the gs thread and you can see that a lot of the students weren’t always great students, but did very well in recent coursework. I’d say you’re a perfect applicant for the program given your history.
As far as entrance requirements go, it’s a fairly competitive program, but the most important part of the application is a long, 2000 word essay. If you nail that you have a good shot.
Look around for Adult education programs at colleges. Many may require you to take a term as anon matriculating student before accepting you as a degree candidate but you won’t find much problem especially since funds are not a problem. From Harvard extension college as well as other highly selective schools that have such programs to local colleges with adult programs, you’ll find a lot of options
a remote possibility: Could you do a retro-active medical withdrawal from the first school? Show them you had a diagnosed condition at the time?
Or also in CA there seems to be “Academic Renewal” e.g., https://admissions.fullcoll.edu/grades/academic-renewal/
See if they have that at your old school.
Colleges want students that can succeed. You have shown that you can now succeed. I would contact some Cali schools and ask to talk to an admissions advisor about your situation.
Hi there @bopper! I did look into academic renewal, however the state school I attended does not consider work done at other schools. I’ve reached out to them for clarification but it looks like the time I’ve spent at community college isn’t applicable to a renewal at another school (renewal is considered if you’ve taken some number of credits with a minimum GPA at the same institution as far as I can see).
I have not looked into medical withdrawal. I will do that!
If you can get your overall college GPA over 2.0, then a non impacted major at a non impacted CSU should admit you (e.g. most majors at SFSU, CSUB, HSU, CSUCI, CSUDH, CSUStan). Some of the least impacted majors at other CSUs (particularly local ones – is SJSU your local CSU?) may be possibilities.
UCs evaluate holistically, so there is a possibility that your past poor record may be downgraded in importance compared to your recent record, especially if the reason is well documented to be no longer a problem. But it is hard to know for sure.
Another possibility is that readmission to your old UC or CSU could be easier than admission as a new transfer.
The transfer advisor at your CC has seen it all, and should be able to give you some help with this. Go meet with that person, and get their advice.
YO! you need to get academic renewal cleared at you state school ASAP my man! If you already applied for this year get on it right this second. I just applied to UCSD and UCSB with a TAG(transfer admission guarantee) I have a 3.8 and met all requirements i should 100% be accepted to UCSB right now (even my counselor at UCSB told me I would have been). I was not admitted to UCSD and and placed on the wait list at UCSB. I met with my counselor AT UCSB to figure out what was going on and he said I had some grades form 6 years ago bring my GPA down to 2.9. So you can kiss you 4.0 out the window unless you go and get that cleared up. I now have very slim odds of getting into school this fall because my past came back to haunt me, I might have to wait another year until i can get into school (you have to apply about a year in advance for the semester you want to take, if you didn’t already apply for this fall you can only apply for fall 2020 now). Don’t listen to anyone telling you they actually look at your application and see improvement. As a transfer student they probably wont look at your application until after you get admitted everything is a numbers game based off GPA. Once you have that bad stuff cleared up off your GPA you should be money if you have all other requirements (major, units, etc…). I’m trying to get academical renewal done this week so I can update my transcripts at UCSB in time for wait list decision. I can appeal at UCSD once my transcripts are updated but my main hope now is to get off the wait list at UCSB. Take care of it now don’t wait like me, im going thought a lot of loops and its horrible.
also they told me the only other option other than academical renewal is to retake all the classes that you failed.
@ucbalumnus That’s not true anyone with eyes could have seen the 6 year gap in my transcript, the major improvements, and my gpa without the bad grades. I even filled them in on what happen in the text boxes provided. Truth is we are accepted based off of GPA and meeting requirements, we are picked by a computer.
UC’s are very numbers driven. Hard to overcome the past record for them. Take a look at these which cater to people with real lives who have turned things around:
Brown-RUE
Yale-Eli Whitney
Tufts-REAL
Columba-GS (be warned financial aid is terrible)
and for online:
Penn-LPS
hi @professorchez, I looked into academic renewal and unfortunately my previous institution will not recognize my current work because it’s from a different school. My only bet is to effectively attempt to re-take failed classes at my new institution, but it’s not clear exactly how that works. I’m waiting for feedback from the evaluators at my current college.
I’m obviously super intrigued by the few suggestions to look into Columbia GS and the like, but I’m just a tad skeptical. These are ivy league universities, and there’s no copy on their websites that suggests they’re designed for ‘reformed’ students. At best, they appear to be geared towards older students with gaps in their education. I’ll continue to look into them, but at the moment it looks like my only real hopes are going back into the CSUs.
@arguewithplato If they wont take work form your current school I believe you have to re take them at the school where you failed.I looked into ivy league universities transfers and it doesn’t seem to happen much. I don’t know about Columbia GS tho. Private schools like USC and Stanford accept more transfers than the ivy league schools. If graduate school is your goal see how you do at a 4 year and shoot for a good graduate school.