Hi everyone. I’m applying to various colleges in a couple of months, but I’m in a different position than other students. I am still technically a high school student who is slated to graduate in 2017. However, I’ve taken all of my classes at community colleges, and I’ve amassed 67 semester units across 4 CA community colleges with a total GPA of 3.59. If you only count transferable classes, it goes up to a little over 3.6. Right now I am working toward an Associate Degree for Transfer in Business Administration, which I’ll complete by the time I’ll get my high school diploma.
My local CSU is San Jose State, and they have the major I want, which is Business Admin with a concentration in Management Information Systems. I live in San Jose, so I can commute from my house, which makes SJSU an ideal option for cutting costs. However, I also think I can get a TAG to UC Davis or Santa Barbara, both of which are far more prestigious than SJSU. But if I go to either of these schools, the tuition cost goes up, and I’ll have to live on campus, which is another resource drain. UC Santa Cruz is also relatively close by, but I’ve heard a lot of negative things about it. What do you guys think? I’'l probably apply to all of them, but I’d still like to make plans ahead of time.
You realize that none of the UC’s offer the major or emphasis you want. If costs are a concern, then SJSU makes the most sense. If you run the net price calculators for the UC’s, you can see if they are affordable, you never know.
There is no reason not to apply to these UC’s as long as they are affordable and you would be happy attending without your preferred major. What about adding Cal Poly SLO to your list or another CSU such as Sac State, SFSU or SDSU which I believe has your major.
If I applied to the UC schools, I would probably pick an econ or similar major. And while I didn’t mention it in the previous post, I will also apply to a lot of CSUs as well.
Because you have not graduated from high school, you would apply as a frosh, not transfer, student (see http://calstate.edu/transfer/ for CSU; UC has similar rules). Your college courses would count as “honors” courses for the purpose of calculating UC/CSU-weighted GPA (see https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/gpa_calculator.asp ), though you would still have to provide SAT or ACT scores as well.
With that much transferable credit applicable to your major, your would have the option of graduating in fewer than 8 semesters (or 12 quarters) even if you enter as a frosh.
That’s what I thought, but when I spoke to my CC counselor, she said the CSUs all had different policies regarding high school status. I emailed SJSU (my preferred and local CSU), and they said that even though I would not have completed my high school degree at the time of application, I would still apply as a junior level student if I had completed at least 60 units of transferable coursework (which I have). However, I know that a lot of times college reps you talk to have wrong or conflicting information, so I plan to ask for more information. If it turns out you’re right, it would throw a wrench into my plans.
You might also want to make an appointment with an admission counselor at SJSU and take your transcript with you to the meeting to clarify your status. You’re correct that you may get conflicting answers. Save all written responses (even the contradictory ones) and names of those who you’ve spoken with to create a paper trail.
My understanding is that any courses completed as a HS student, even with concurrent enrollment, go on your HS transcript and would consider you as a freshman applicant. Select courses taken in HS would then qualify toward your undergrad requirements in the same way that AP or IB courses would. Your mileage may very…