Hi, I have a question that I can’t find anywhere else, so I decided I’d ask it here. UCSD is my dream school (I live in San Diego), but I don’t have the grades to get in. I really would hate to go to a community college but I know that UCs let community college transfers really easily. I was wondering if it’s required to transfer from a community college or if I could do the same transfer program from another in-state school, like SDSU, USD, UCSC, or Cal Poly SLO.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. I posted this same thread in another section with no views, thought i’d try something else
It depends on what major and how you perform academically. I dont know what “i dont have the grades to get in” really is in detail. If you are going to perform better in a community college, lets say over 3.90 gpa, you will get a chance. If you are going to perform the same way as in high school, you would end up “dont have the grades to get in” no matter what school you go to. Also, you significantly know that CCC students get the first priority, so I dont know why you still have the dilemma. However, not “easily” as you said. We get the priority because they know earning an A in a CC is nothing like earning an A in highschool, and they know that most of the CCC students have determined their major and not gonna switch around as freshmen, and lastly, they know that CC students have to transfer to somewhere, a UC or a Calstate student can stay at their college if they cant get in.
P/S: You seem to underestimate CCC by saying you would hate to go to a CC. I dont agree with this, not only because i was a CC student, but also because a lot of my friends have successfully transferred to Cal, LA or SLO.
You would have a better chance with a CCC to UCSD transfer. CCC courses that articulate to UCSD would be listed on assist.org. Many of the Cal State courses do not articulate well to UC’s plus CCC transfers get priority.
Also note that if you do not have the grades for UCSD, SDSU and Cal Poly SLO may not be viable options either. Both are competitive schools so there are no guarantees even if you are local.
no offense but if UCSD is your “dream school” why would you ever waste tons of money attending some other expensive school SDSU, USD, UCSC, or Cal Poly SLO for 2 years before transferring?
i know of students from SDSU, CSU San Marcos, and UCSD who end up taking their science classes at community college because it’s just too full and the labs are so bad that they prefer to take them at a CCC. at CC you get 24 people in a lab versus possibly 200. yes, for a LAB. it’s ridiculous. SDSU’s laboratory classrooms are really old and bad, and a lot of students prefer to go take them at a community college where they actually get to learn.
you’ll save so much more money, get smaller class sizes, get higher quality education. many of the professors at CC also teach at the local universities so the quality of teaching is by no means bad. that and many professors at CC actually want to teach. professors at universities might end up being grad students or people who are just there for the research, but don’t care at all about teaching. meanwhile professors at community college’s main focus is always to teach. you get to know your professors more personally than if you were just 1 of 300 students in a lecture.
i sat in on my friend’s calc class at UCSD and it was just such a horrible method of teaching compared to what i got at community college. you can’t teach calc from a power point. that’s what they did at UCSD. students didn’t really ask questions because the class was just so large. meanwhile at CC if you have a question as the professor is solving something you can speak up and get an answer immediately, versus at UCSD where it was just whatever you saw on the powerpoint. the professor didn’t even solve out the problems by hand on the chalk board or white board or projector or anything, it was literally all just text on a powerpoint slide. that is no way to learn math. seriously, imaging typing out an equation on word with just plain text. it’s horrid. a lot of it was memorization too. they didn’t attempt to derive it and show you /why/ something worked the way it did. it was awful and i felt really bad for the students there that had to learn in such poor conditions.
anyways, the first 2 years are the same anywhere you go, and at CC you get higher quality and lower cost, and you’ll most likely get admitted to your top choice versus just trying to do well at some other 4 year because you’re “too above” going to community college.
Okay so the reason I want to go to UCSD is because I know I want to do architecture. Money isn’t a concern in colleges for my family, so I’d rather go to a university all 4 years
haha— wow kid. You really need to refocus your priorities.
A CCC will be a lot better for transfer— UC schools are primed to take in CCC transfers. You will be a lot more likely to meet requirements than another state school.
Also, it’s nice your family has money, but usually how people keep money is they don’t waste it.
@badgradesgooduni your path is fine. Everyone has their own way and they can all work. Some people simply don’t want a CCC and that’s OK. No need for negative comments. Just make sure you use assist.org, match the GE/IGETC path with CSU courses and also match your major coursework as best as possible with those listed on assist. (Choose any CCC on assist.) If you have a strong GPA you should be fine. Also, I assume architecture is based on a portfolio, which has huge weight.
haha yeah-- didn’t mean to come off harsh— not like you’re doing anything wrong by wanting to go to a state school.
Just speaking from experience-- Being comfortable financially isn’t permanent. You’d be amazed at how fast things can change, especially if someone gets sick. So don’t be too frivolous is all. If there IS a reason you actually like the school, then by all means go. But if you just wanna go to ANY university over ANY CC then, yeah-- Make sure you’re doing stuff with transferring in mind if that’s what you wanna do. CC’s are better with helping kids with transfer, Universities kinda expect you to stay there once you go. There won’t be as many resources to you, and you will have to stay on top of which classes transfer. But it certainly can be done either way you choose!
Good luck!
All of you guys have told the person the exact same thing I told, I dont know how manifest it has to be. We have explicitly stated that CCC gains the priority over other institutions, it is just simple as that. However, he/she still insists on going to a 4 year school, theres nothing wrong with this, but then it also means that you already have your answer, why bother opening a thread to ask? To be honest, GET OVER YOURSELF, nothing is wrong with going to a CCC, I know that a lot of kids would choose UCR over CCC just because they dont want to be laughed at, which is really childish, nobody would look down on you. You have to plan for the long run. If you can transfer to Cal or UCLA (not saying you want to go to these), you can look down on the ones that got accepted to less prestigious UCs and once looked down on you.
Here is the conclusion, I dont think anymore explaination is needed :
If you want to go to UCSD, pick a CCC, do good and get the transfer priority after 2 years or 3.
If you think your “reputation” is more important, and if you consider the transfer priority that UCs hand to CCC students is trivial, then go to a Cal State or UC that you were accepted.
Wow. I’ve noticed a harshness in a lot of your posts for some time now, @andrewjchang. I mostly skip
over your comments. You get super-annoyed if people are nervous or if they don’t seem to go along with your mindset. Everyone up here is doing the best they can and have different needs and priorities that might not align with yours. Your negative assessment of a total stranger (above) is not needed.
People from CSUs get in all the time. Respect others decisions without being rude or snide.
Okay: Everyone from now on, once andrewjchang posts on a thread the thread is done. All that needs to be said has been said. All other opinions are redundant. This is an official announcement.
Once again. I apologize for my recent harsh comments. I didnt think thoroughly before I posted. From now on, I will try to be more thoughtful. Sorry guys.
@andrewjchang your comments are definitely appreciated and I don’t take any offense to them. I opened the thread because I was hopeful that transferring from University to University wouldn’t be any different from transferring from CCC to UC. CC was really a worst case scenario for me, because I am a kid and reputation is important to me. I want to be able to prove to the people around me that I didn’t mess around in school, because I didn’t; I’ll still graduate with around a 3.4 and 9 APs.
And to everyone who replied to my thread, thanks for clearing this up for me. If I can transfer from a school like UCSC to UCSD I would definitely choose that over CC to UC.