Hello, I will be attended Penn State starting Fall 2016, but after being rejected admission at every UC campus I applied to, I am still very driven to attend a UC school.
To transfer, I need 60 credits which is said to be equivalent to 2 years worth of university, but because I’m getting my A-level results in August, I am given 28 credits (provided i get 3 C’s where my predicted grades are A*AA, so I am guaranteed to get those 28 credits, even if I do terribly in my exams my senior year of high school), allowing me do do 32 credits during my freshman year at Penn State, giving me 60 credits at the end of my freshman year. In order to transfer, do I have to have finished my sophomore year from the university I transfer out of? Or do I just need to 60 credits to be eligible to transfer? Thanks!
Will all the units from Penn be UC transferable? Why not start at a CA CCC and then try to transfer as a Sophomore if you will have 60 units by end of Spring 2017? You will have priority vs transferring from Penn if the UC’s are your goal.
Did you complete the A-G requirements?
If you didn’t do you VPA or “F” requirement, any credits that are transferable won’t help you get admitted unless that requirement was completed.
OOS costs for California public schools are very expensive and remember that there is no financial aid for OOS.
PSU is cheaper for international students but only by a few thousand. Still pretty dang expensive.
Why so set on UCs?
I agree with @Gumbymom; UC’s are very particular in what they will accept as transfer units especially if there is no articulation agreement with Penn State. They take Jr level transfers.
@bodangles is correct^, what’s the obsession with the UC’s? You won’t get a penny of aid or scholarships from the UCs.
If you’re very driven, your best path to a UC is by attending a California CC where course articulations are clear. Your 28 credits and your future 32 Penn State credits may not be fully acceptable to the UC system.
Read and post here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers
UCs give credits for A-levels provided that you get BBB, which again, is certainly a guarantee based off my grades and marks, so I assume they would be transferable, since A-levels are given credits the same way as AP and IB credits are given. That being said, would I need to complete sophomore year in Penn State?
I attended a British curriculum high school and the A-G requirements are fulfilled with the classes and qualifications I have (GCSE and AS-level).
@“aunt bea”, I am very much thankful that not getting financial aid or scholarships isn’t an issue for me/my family. The “obsession” with UCs is that attending a UC school (specifically UCLA, UCB, or UCSB) has just been a dream of mine since a young age. I love the location, and the academia in those universities are held with high regard across a lot of places around the world.
The UC’s have specific major requirements and vary from UC to UC. You would need to see if the Penn State courses articulate to all the UC’s you plan to apply so you do not waste the year.
Look here for UCLA, particularly Fall 2014 where they provide stats from Penn State applicants and stats for Chem E majors but no additional breakdowns.
Generally, OOS acceptance runs much lower than CA CC acceptance rates.
http://www.admission.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof.htm
Again your best path is via a California CC.
@10s4life AP credits do count depending on your scores and may differ between campuses. There are several successful 1 year transfers to the UCs who have used AP credits. Since it looks like you just have a couple of APs, you would be a half-quarter ahead.
@needofadvice if you do stay at Penn State, and you want to be a more competitive UC transfer applicant, you’ll have to have a better GPA than Fall 2015 accepted students and take more lower division units. However, you’ll run into unit caps with Penn State courses so you’d have to be careful. My D had over 75 semester units of UC transferable CA CC courses, which was very similar to her fellow students. So you should target more than the minimum of 60 units. Unfortunately, Admissions at UCLA may not help you determine articulations if you are not a student there. I don’t know anything about A-levels.
The trend over the last 2 years seems that UCs are accepting less OOS/internationals and they want more competitive OOS/Internationals so not only should you have stellar GPA, ECs, abundance of units, etc, you’re looking at less than ~15% acceptance while CA CC applicants have about 30% acceptance. If you were not accepted as a freshman (stats show approx 20%+ acceptance rate), then your chances are lower being accepted as an OOS transfer.
@10s4life in another thread you posted you were using 2 APs for credits and I didn’t see any others. 40 units would be closer to 3 quarters when you use 15 units per quarter as an average measure (min 180 units to graduate, spread over 12 quarters). With all those extra units, you’ll be poised to register earlier than your peers taking the same classes.
Good luck at UCLA – I really enjoyed visiting my old hangouts while my D attended!
Right, thanks for everything, all of you, it’s greatly appreciated 
I’ll see if the courses I gain credits for in Penn State are transferable once I speak to an adviser etc… in Penn State, I know my chances at a UC as a transfer will be smaller attending Penn State but it’s still worth a try when I try to apply to about 4/5 of them.
Worst case scenario I just finish my degree at Penn State, which I’m content with doing.