I’m going to be a little vague on some details here. I apologize in advance, but I’m a little uncomfortable with online boards I suppose. At the moment, I don’t have many people to turn to on this and my academic advisor(s) are giving me conflicting information.
I attend one of the top community colleges in Massachusetts. Next semester, I’m going to finish my associates. I was originally planning on transferring into a Psychology program for the Fall of 2017. I have about 9 schools on my list, with my safety being UMass Amherst and my reach being University of Michigan Ann Arbor. All the others out of state and in between those two schools in terms of acceptance rates.
I had a bit of a shaky start at community college. Long story short, toxic friendships, a poor home life, and work put me in the biggest depression of my life. Fortunately, I was able to pull myself together. My GPA at the end of this semester will be a 3.1-3.2. But at the rate I’m going, my GPA at the end of next semester will be a 3.4 or possibly higher.
I was originally planning on transferring in the Fall of 2017, but now I think I’m going to transfer in the Spring so schools see that 3.4-3.5 and an upward trend. The question is whether I should take classes next Fall or not. Considering I will have completed my associates, the money I spend on the semester would pretty much just be spent on having more potential credits to transfer into whatever school I end up going to.
Thing is, I’d like to save as many credits as possible for the school I go to. I think I’d be getting more value out of my college education that way. I’m happy that I landed at this community college, but I feel like every class I take here I’d probably be getting more value from a four-year university. Not to mention, I’m fed up of this school and my lifestyle at this point. The place is very depressing to be around and I have to support myself financially by working part time. Doing both school and work is very stressful for that reason. I break even the whole way through without saving any money. I don’t mind doing it for another semester, but I really dread having to do it for a whole year.
It’s not really the school part that’s stressful. For me, not knowing whether I will be able to pay rent each month is what gets me. I’ve really hit my stride with school now and am having a blast doing my classes. But when I’m doing school, it takes away from being able to work. A little more background, I moved out of my parents’ house in order to escape from the abusive relationship I had with them. They will support my living situation when I’ve transferred, but they expect me to support myself if I don’t want to live under their roof while I’m still in community college. While I could move back in with them and solve the problem, the psychological toll would be too great to be as productive as I want to be.
If I were to be doing something else for the Fall semester, would that be ok in the eyes of admissions? Or is it really important for colleges to see that I’m not taking a break from school? If you need more details to give me advice, please let me know.