I went to a 4 year university years and years ago in new york and flunked out with a real bad gpa. joined the airforce, and now thinking about going back to college and attending a local community college while being stationed here in California. I came across the tag program which mentions that I need a 3.4 gpa for all uc transferable courses. I have no problems maintaining above a 3.4 gpa at this community college ;current gpa is 4.0. However i’m worried that my mistakes of my future is here to haunt me. So What exactly does ‘uc transferable courses’ mean’ would that include my old gpa from my old school In new York or would they give me another chance and just look at my ccc gpa?
You should meet with a transfer counselor at your local community college. They will probably be willing to meet with you even if you aren’t yet a student. Also look on the bulletin board because UC counselors regularly visit CC campuses and perhaps you can meet with them.
One of the challenges you face is determining which of those classes are transferable but coming from a four year it’s likely that many of them if not all will be. You can find more on the UC website but generally transferable courses are going to be anything non-vocational or something like a PE class.
To improve your GPA you can repeat the courses and get a better grade assuming you got a D or an F in those classes. See http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/q-and-a/repeating/index.html. Of course an issue may be that your interests have changed and those classes are no longer relevant.
One long shot is to contact your previous school and ask if there is anyway to retroactively withdraw from the last semester or otherwise remove those grades from your record. Some schools offer academic renewal. Even if the chances are slim you’ll never know unless you ask. Read the recent threads in this forum and someone was successful in doing that.
Yours is not a simple case and you really would benefit by working with a counselor in person
I am almost certain those old grades will be calculated into your GPA and if they are UC-transferable, you will not be eligible for TAG if you are below the GPA minimum – unless you can get Academic Renewal. It would be mayhem for them to arbitrarily be making exceptions, and frankly wouldn’t be fair to others and violates their own rules. There is no exception for old grades noted anywhere in TAG. You need to go online to your old college and see what their policy is and if they even offer AR. Sometimes it goes by Grade Forgiveness, or similar. If they offer it and you fit their criteria, you can likely get rid of the offending grades by September.
It’s one thing for each UC to decide at its discretion to overlook old coursework from years back, but in terms of calculating the GPA when you apply for TAG those grades, if UC-transferable, will be factored in because they’re on your transcripts. A down and dirty way to determine UC-transferability on the cuff is to determine if they are general courses: Intro to Psych, American History, Music Appreciation, etc. – those usually all transfer. Any math course from Int Algebra or below are not transferable as they are below college level. Vocational are not transferable (Intro to graphic design, Photoshop, auto mechanics, etc).
Your best course of action is to contact your old college for AR and UC TAG admissions for feedback. Maybe I am wrong. Anyway, keep in mind even if you can’t TAG, if your current GPA after starting over is high, regular admissions will likely overlook the past grades. Not getting TAG is not the end of the world if you’re a strong candidate.