Transferring to a Community College?

I’m currently a first semester sophomore at a ~top 20 university. I’ve been looking to transfer for a while now, but recently I’ve started to consider transferring to a California Community College for my second semester sophomore year. The school that I’m at now is extremely expensive and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want to graduate from this university. So it only seems logical to go to a community college.

I’ve emailed a counselor at UC Berkeley and she told me that even if I transfer to the community college I won’t be considered a “true” community college student, and therefore won’t help my application. My question is will going to a CC for one semester negatively impact my application to other four year private universities? Would it be wiser just to stay at the school that I’m at?

If it’s too expensive where you are, could you take a semester off while you’re applying to new schools?

Multiple transfers are not ideal. If you can’t afford your current private college, why are you looking for another? Because you can’t go to Berkeley? Public schools may be your best price option.

@AroundHere I can afford my current private college. But it seems pointless to spend another $35k when I know that I don’t want to graduate from here. It’s not really about whether I can afford it or not, but if it’s a good use of the money. I’m coming to realize I should have applied to transfer in the last round, but it’s too late for that now.

Also to clarify, since I made a typo, what the UC Berkeley counselor told me means that transferring to a community college would not help my application. Not that it would hurt it.

To get priority as a Community college to UC transfer, you need 30 or more units completed at the community college. I believe this is what the UCB counselor meant. Since the majority of your units will be from a private 4 year university, you would get lower transfer priority so one semester at a CC makes little difference.

@Gumbymom that’s what I think she meant as well! My real question is: will going to a CC for one semester hurt my chances when I apply to private schools?

Each private university will have their own transfer policy so you would need to each school separately.

If you were to transfer into a private college, you will expect to pay just as much as where you are now, unless you want to a no ranking school, because there will be no merit scholarship money for a Jr. Transfer for any “top” schools.

@artloversplus this is not about money

@artloversplus my point was more so why not save a semester’s tuition if i can

Why don’t you just take second semester off completely? Unless you have a bunch of probably transferrable one semester course that you could pick up at the CC, or you have a whole new major that you need to catch up on and can do so quickly at the CC.

“my point was more so why not save a semester’s tuition if i can”

OP
Not sure that is a good idea in your stage of college career.

Transfer to a CCC just for a semester to save a few bucks will have some back fires.

  1. You will not get the benefit of a CCC advantage to be able to transferred to a top UC
  2. Without that advantage you might not be able to enter the High UCs, ie UCB, UCLA or UCSD
  3. You are risking to make multiple transfers which will be looked down upon with other private schools.
  4. You are bond to lose credits if you make that ultimate transfer whether it is UC or otherwise.
  5. If you take a gap semester, you still need to make up the credits to graduate. Which will ended up costly and time consuming.

IMHO, you should try to transfer to a University of your desire directly from your current college whenever you can. But make sure you can transfer all your credits. If so, you can maximize your savings.

Personally, at one time, I was looking into a transfer to Babson or Wake Forest, but found out that I will lose a lot of credits, essentially I will be in for at least one semester to maximum of one year behind. I hope you check that out first before dip in.