UC Davis or Occidental? Also, any chances of transferring out?

State Forums
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<p>Hi, so I basically utterly failed at getting into any good college for 2014-2015. My two choices are UC Davis and Occidental College. Right now my plan is to take a gap year at Davis, and spend that year going to a California Community College so I can transfer out into UC Berkeley or something (I know they get priority). If something goes wrong, at least I'll still have Davis to fall back to, since it's at least a decent university (sorry I don't mean to sound like a whiny biatch but I really don't want to go there). Does Davis even let you do that?
Also, I know that you usually need to spend two years at a CCC before transferring, but my friend tells me that if you have like 800s on SATs (I have two 800s on Critical Reading and the Math II subject test, plus 2270 total on SAT I; also a 36 on ACT Reading and 35 ACT overall) and good AP exam scores (I've passed all four I've taken so far with a 5 in Calculus AB; going to take six more exams in a month), you can make it out in one year. Either way, I'd like to spend as little time as possible at a CCC. Going to one at all makes me feel like all my work over four years of high school have been a complete waste :P
Or, if a CCC is a bad idea, I could use that gap year to take another year of high school at Phillips Exeter or something. That school's graduates go on to a lot of Ivy Leagues. Would taking five years of high school be a good idea?
And my last option would be to just go to Davis and transfer to Berkeley ASAP, but I know that's extremely hard. But it's possible; should I skip the CCC and try to transfer from Davis? How?</p>

<p>So what should I do? I'm stuck and rather desperate to go to a place like Cal. Please don't judge me but I really don't like any of the schools I've been accepted to. Last question: If all the transferring fails, which school would be better, UC Davis or Occidental?</p>

<p>Thank you SO much for reading all that. I need all the help I can get for this life decision.</p>

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<p>Davis and Occidental are both well respected schools. Davis is better known. </p>

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<p>Whats your major? </p>

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<p>Even if you do all of the planning for Cal, you still may not get in. What then? Cal rejects a lot of students. You have to plan for that. They also tend to take more kids from the community college than from transfers. </p>

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<p>If you really have no plans to stay at UC Davis or Occidental, I would go the CC route and get exceptional grades so you can transfer into UCB. There is nothing wrong with either school, so if you are willing to take a chance, you may find you may not want to transfer after a year or so. What is your intended major?? If it is STEM major, I would say UC Davis…</p>

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<p>In terms of prestige, Davis is better than Occidental.</p>

<p>Your plan sounds kind of dicey to me. I’ve read that you can’t take a gap year and take CC classes, because when you start taking college classes after HS graduation, you can no longer enter somewhere else as a freshman. So you’d lose your admitted status at Davis and you’d have to take your chances as a transfer. If the transfer pool is more competitive next year, you might not even get into Davis, let alone Cal.</p>

<p>Next, I would find a much better authority than “my friend tells me” for your belief that you can transfer after only 1 year of CC. I’ve never heard of SAT scores replacing college credits. Maybe this was some special arrangement at one particular CC. Find out how many credits you would have to take at the CC you’re thinking of attending.</p>

<p>If it turns out you have to take 2 years at CC, does that still look better than matriculating at Davis this fall?</p>

<p>Davis and Cal are not that different. What is it you hate about Davis so much? Have you visited? And have you visited Cal, to find out if it’s worth going through all this for?</p>