<p>I'm an international student from Taiwan. Through my last summer camp in UC Berkeley, I decided that this is the place, where I want to spend my four years university life. Unfortunately, I don't have a great SAT score that meet UC Berkeley's requirement. I'm thinking to spend about two years in CC before applying to UC Berkeley - College of Engineering as a transfer student. My major in UC Berkeley will be Mechanical Engineering.</p>
<p>Right now, I had done a few researchs on college that I'm going to apply, such as De Anza Community College and Foothill Community College.</p>
<p>In order to come up with a solution about which school I should apply to, please help me and provide me some suggestions about CC that have a strong engineering major to assist me on transferring to UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>*Feel free to name more CC that you think will be a good place to me.</p>
<p>Community colleges don’t specialize in majors, it’s only advantageous if they have transfer agreements with Berkeley so it becomes easier to get in.</p>
<p>mrandall is pretty much right. I will say though that I go to Foothill and I think it’s a great school. There’s lots of online classes too. If you want to talk to an amazing counselor there, make an appointment with LeeAnn Emanuel. She’s as nice as counselors come. And if you have any questions about Foothill let me know. Good luck.</p>
<p>Check out the transfer rates from each CC to UC Berkeley, usually the ones with higher transfer rates have the courses that Berkeley wants before transfer. You can also see if certain schools have agreements with Berkeley on Assist.org and pick which school to go from there.</p>
<p>Take a look at your major on assist.org. I don’t know how MechE is, but some Berkeley majors (specifically EECS) are really hard to find pre-reqs for at CC. So, wherever you go, make sure you’ve got the right coursework.</p>
<p>As for the school itself… it might be worth looking into tuition. Foothill’s OoS tuition seemed ridiculous, though I’m not sure if other CCCs are any better. But if you can find one that won’t be $10,000 a year for CC classes, that’d be a plus. Oh, and remember that you might have to pay OoS tuition at Berkeley, about $30,000 per year ontop of normal fees I think? You might be able to get residency, but that’s pretty hard to do… unless your parents move here too or you’re completely independent.</p>
<p>Oh, and Foothill/De Anza might not be the best option for Berkeley… especially for technical majors. They’re pretty much the only CCs on the quarter system (3 terms per year), and Berkeley is on semesters (2 terms per year). Quarter systems divide their sequences differently (ie 4 calc classes instead of 3) which usually means you’re stuck taking extra classes to cover the same material. Oh, and then you have to change from quarters to semester, which is just generally a bit messy. So, wouldn’t recommend Foothill/De Anza if you’re set on Berkeley. You should also have a backup UC or two in mind, btw… Berkeley admissions are never a sure thing, especially CoE.</p>