What universities should I aim for? 2.6 GPA from Brazilian School, US resident.

College Search & Selection
1

Hello everyone, hope you’re all doing great! I’ll try to keep everything simple:

About me:

-Brazilian credentials
-Around 2.6 GPA (from 2.0 in my freshman to 3.7 in my senior), equal to the 40% in my school(this is an estimation)
-Haven’t taken SAT/ACT, but would probably take around 4-6 months to get a 1500 on SAT, not sure about ACT
-No extracurriculars yet, besides my story and work experience: started working with my dad at the age of 12, at the age of 16 my father gave me the opportunity to administrate his company and, if I was successful in meeting expectations, would help me pay to live and study in the US in the future. At the age of 20 I moved to Florida.
-Haven’t started anything after high school besides self-studying.
-Portuguese/Spanish/Italian descendant
-Male
-Brazilian
-Permanent Resident(therefore not an International Student)

What I’m looking for:

-A good Psychology major, followed by research or clinical(will decide after)
-Rankings. I want to get into the most prestigious school in my major that I can

-Finances are not a problem(I’ve being taking care of this for years with my parents)

What my research says to me

-The best option is probably go to a CC and then move to a #30-50 uni that is transfer friendly. I’m afraid that I may need to focus on one specific university, since transferring credits from one state to another can be annoying and confusing

-Moving to CA, going to a CC and attending to UCLA or UC Berkeley seem to be a great option, but I’m afraid the both universities will not be the right fit for me. The difficulty of scheduling classes, combined with the “stress culture” and lack of connections with the teacher concern me. I function better in a more stable environment.

-UVA’s Guaranteed Transfer seems to be also a very interesting option, probably the best actually, but, from what I’ve seen, there are a lot of frat parties, something I deeply dislike. Another con is that, even though I think will not happen, I am not sure that I will never get a C in English Classes(which makes the Guaranteed Transfer impossible), Lastly, I don’t know and do not know how to get information about how good UVA’s psychology major is. I want to be able to enrich my extracurriculars when I transfer to make sure I get into a good uni for my masters.

I need guidance in general, I don’t know what’s the optimal path. What bothers me the most is how hard it seems to make sure your classes from the CC will transfer to 10-20 different universities you’re applying to.

Thank you in advance!

2

If you are living in Florida, why not look for Florida options?

The best way to make sure CC credits transfer, is to take them in the same state you transfer to.

Psychology is a major that every college has…if you want to be a psychologist it will be your grad school that is important. If you just want it as a “general” major, then it won’t matter that much.

3

Thanks for the response! There are four problems with living in Florida :

One: I’ve being here for less than a year, no connections, I won’t lose anything from moving.
Two: UF is far away from home, so a trip would be inevitable.
Three: UF seems to be underwhelming academically from what I’ve researched. Take this with a grain of salt however, I am not 100% sure about it.
Four(but not really): I see no reason to stay here. It would take just one to two months to move, plus all this time would still be well spent in my English studies.

Yeah, I figured that transferring in-state would be easier, but I don’t know what university to apply to. I’m afraid that, for example, I move to NY with the intentions to transfer from a CC to NYU,don’t get accepted, and end up having to transfer to a worse uni with credits that will be thrown into the abyss. That’s why Transfer Guaranteed programs are so attractive to me, it provides safety.

And other question that I have: wouldn’t a reputable university be a big factor when applying to a top grad school?

Again, my experience is limited, so I don’t know if it is as risky as I think.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

4

Why choose Florida CC=> UF

One: All of your credits transfer. UF also gives a “preference” to in-state students (residents).

Two: UF is a top 10 public university. I have no idea where you found that UF is “underwhelming academically”, but it has a strong STEM program, especially in the life sciences.

Three: UF has a large, competitive Psychology program. They have three different bachelor programs (see below). Last year they graduated 34 PhDs. UF graduates go on to grad school at UCLA, UC-Berkeley, MIT, etc.

Four: UF is very “transfer student” friendly. About a quarter of all undergraduates are transfer students. Most undergraduates live off campus, and it’s not very “clicky”. It also has about 1,000 clubs, student groups, etc.
With some effort, it’s not hard to build up a group of friends.

Five: UF has a large Hispanic population, including students from Central and South America.

Downsides…

One: UF is competitive. Note the recommendation to have B’s or better on your first attempt at these critical tracking classes. You really can’t afford a C or to drop a class.

Two: We still haven’t found a quarterback…

I would recommend that you check out UF’s graduation survey results. Pick your major (Psychology) and review the results. Remember, this survey is done before graduation (so folks are still waiting on job offers, or graduate school acceptances). The 3rd tab (Outcomes & Experiences) has some of the most useful info.

https://career.ufl.edu/student-outcomes/

5

It makes sense that if you’re not attached to Florida, you might want to go ahead and make a move before you start college. You apparently have the resources to choose where you want to be, so there’s no reason to make that choice based on inertia, especially when you don’t qualify for the terrific scholarships that top students from FL high schools get in the FL public system.

However, I think your assessments of what target schools are “good” is rather naive and perhaps a little elitist. U of Florida is a top flagship university. There is nothing underwhelming whatsoever about its academic quality or reputation. I do not believe that an undergraduate psych major coming out of NYU would have any advantage in applying to grad programs over a UF grad with a comparable academic record, GRE, etc.

Now, if you said you wanted a smaller and more personalized college experience, and that was why the FL publics (and UC’s) did not appeal, I would be completely sympathetic with that point of view. It’s just… I’m not sure how NYU, with 26K undergraduates, epitomizes that goal. I think it’s true that a large private U like NYU will tend to offer smaller classes and less competition-for-resources in the first two years of college than a similarly-sized public U like UF or UCLA can provide, given that NYU is bringing in far more tuition money per student. But you’d be doing your first two years in community college anyway, and upper-division classes get smaller everywhere, private or public. Now, if you just want to be in New York City, that’s a different matter. But personally, if I wanted to get the most bang for my transfer buck in the state of NY, I’d aim for either Binghamton or Cornell, which accepts hundreds of community college transfers each year. Other great SUNYs to aim for would be Buffalo, Stony Brook, and Geneseo (LAC) There is great depth in the SUNY system; campuses you’ve probably never heard of would still give you perfectly fine preparation for grad school.

And then there are many excellent private U’s in New York as well (not that you have to transfer from a NY CC to get into these, but as you say, familiarity between the systems makes it slightly easier). URochester, Fordham, Syracuse, Vassar, Union, Skidmore (which has a particularly cool undergrad psych program IMO https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/majors/paths.php )

Another nice thing about New York is that quite a few of the Upstate community colleges have on-campus housing, or private dormitories near campus.

The downside in aiming for small LAC’s is that many of them take very few transfers - sometimes zero in a given year. My daughter’s LAC just accepted some transfers this year, after returning application fees for the previous 2-3 years because they decided not to even read transfer applications. Plus, if/when you do get into a small LAC, you don’t have a large cohort of other transfers entering with you.

Anyway. My question would be, why was your HS GPA so low, and has something changed such that you can reasonably anticipate doing better in college? Projecting realistically is important, because you will need a solid GPA in your first two years to transfer to a competitive school.

If you need substantial work on your English and have money to spend, another possibility to consider is a Pathway program for international students, which would funnel you directly into a four-year university. These programs are advertised primarily for English remediation, but they take students whose stats aren’t competitive for regular admission as well. https://internationalpathways.northeastern.edu/about/ I am not aware that having your residency would be a barrier to enrolling in such a program, although I don’t know for sure. If you’re looking for a great urban university (as your interest in NYU would suggest), Northeastern would be an excellent choice. Entering Boston University through the College of General Studies might be an option too.

As you say, California has tons of options too; and you certainly don’t have to go to Berkeley or UCLA to get a strong undergrad psych education. You could go to Cabrillo College - the community college near UC Santa Cruz - and transfer seamlessly to UCSC, which is smaller and more personalized than UCB/UCLA. Or go from Irvine Valley College to UC Irvine. Santa Barbara City College to UCSB. Or, of course, mix-and-match… but if you want to have continuity within one community, you can do that. Also, many, many students from the CSU schools continue on to grad programs. You could get an excellent undergraduate psych foundation at many if not most of the CSU’s. (And CSU’s do give transfer preference to students from CC’s within a zone that’s local to their campuses.) Also consider USC as a transfer destination if you can get the GPA. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-usc-transfers-20170605-story.html

At any rate… you really could go anywhere you like, especially since you don’t seem to be price-sensitive… but the larger states like NY and CA do offer a wider range of in-state options.

6

Get your HS records from Brazil formally evaluated by WES or an equivalent organization (https://www.wes.org/) your GPA might not be as bad as you think.

Every state has some kind of guaranteed transfer/articulation agreement for at least some majors with the public universities in that state. You can choose the state you want to study in based on that. You also can just stay where you are, focus on mastering Academic English and on keeping up your GPA, then transfer from your local CC to just about anywhere in the US.

What is your local CC? Miami Dade has an excellent national reputation. If that is where you would need to start studying, it would not be a bad thing.

Grad school admission is not particularly dependent on where you finish your degree. Rather it is dependent on how you finish. If you have excellent grades, a good GRE score, and excellent letters of recommendation from your professors, you will have lots of good options for grad school.

Lastly, if you don’t want to go to frat parties, just don’t go. No one can force you to do that. Hang out at the library or in the lab and you will meet other people who share your interests.

7

Before anything, thank you all for the aid. I really need some guidanece when it comes to my “college path”, almost all the info that I gathered to date is from random places of the internet. It is really hard coming from a straight forward system as Brazil’s, where there are only 3-5 decent colleges to aim for, combined with having only one set schedule of classes for your major, without the possibility of personalization. I’m trying to learn everything as soon as possible so I can start with a solid idea of what are my optimal paths.

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@Gator88NE
My assumptions are from rankings and from what I’ve gathered in the recent weeks, I remember reading someone talking about UF on a post from another site: “Average university, but respected around here”. I’ve absorbed information from not very reputable sources a lot of times, so my idea of the scene in general is very distorted and erronic
Why UF though? Is UF really my best option? Is it better than UCD or UVA for exemple? How do I go beyond the rankings?
I haven’t started my studies in CC yet, so I’m free to moving, I don’t have credits anywhere.

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@aquapt

I agree 100% with you: my view is not the best one. As I said above, my opinion is based on random posts and rankings, I don’t know how to go beyond that, I couldn’t even find a reliable source that indicated me the best psychology schools. All I could find were people outlining how the UCs are very strong when it comes to psych and a top50 related to degrees.
Having a deep view is really important to me, since I imagine that living in a university where you major is one of the strongest points and where you have research/practice oportunities is key. One of my fears is getting into a uni where I’m limited to the academics and have no way to establish connections.
Brazilian academics in strong private schools are very different: GPA doesn’t matter there, so, depending on the school, the tests will be so hard that the top 5% has a 80/100. That’s not an excuse for my case though: my school had a medium difficulty, and I was at the top 50-55% in the first years with an average of 55/100 in test(I just researched a little bit more, and it seems that 60% in US is considered D, scary stuff). I started working very early to be able to live in the US and, when high school came, I started spending 5-8 hours of my day at my job. It wasn’t because of lack of interest or discipline, but because I needed to do that If I wanted to fullfill my goal.
I don’t really have any affection for NY, I only consider it because of it’s ok ranking and high transfer rate(you can see that my knowledge about the top just isn’t there). The only things that I want are: classes that I can establish connections with the teaches(so I imagine that classes with 500-700 students wouldn’t work, I may be wrong here), no absurd difficulty when it comes to scheduling classes(which may not be as bad for me since I will come for a CC), no desolate places(I’m not saying that I want NY or CA because their demographics are so high, I just don’t want to go the colleges that are located in very small towns with little connections or in the fields), safety (doesn’t need to be the safest place in the world, but not having to worry about getting mugged would be enough) and, most importantly, a very solid psychology program with good connections. Since I do not have the grades and ECs to be picky, I will have to deal with some aspects that I don’t like about certain institutions, but that’s ok.
My goal now is to improve my English(that is terrible, as you can see by my writing), get a 3.8-4.0 GPA in college, hopefully be able to enrich my resume with more credits and harder classes and try to establish a connection with the field in general, so I can grab opportunities. My only worry is that I do not meet expectations and end up not transfering to the colleges that I want to be in(not even safeties), since I have no clue how rigorous the courses are. I’ve lived all my life in a system that 80/100 in a test is top 5%, so I imagine that it is probably all psychological.
Do you have any opinion about UVA? Or better, any idea how to find about UVA’s psych major quality? The guaranteed transfer really attracts me, but I’m worried because I don’t know how they are in the field

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@happymomof1
This link will be very, very usefull. Thank you very much.
Miami Dade College is really close to home, I almost started going there when I moved, but since I’m not sure what uni I’m going to, I decided to take a step back and decided with caution.
Yeah, grad schools seem to really look at your goals and about your work as an individual, it’s very interesting. I guess this is a reason to move to a place with connections, to make sure you have good influences in college.

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Again, thank you very much, I really value the advices <3

8

Miami Dade has a good national reputation. It is consistently ranked as one of the top, if not the very top community college. Go talk with the admissions office. Find out how soon you would be considered to be a local resident for tuition and fees purposes. Meet with the Transfer Advisor, and get specific advice about transferring from there to the Florida universities and to universities in other states. Meet with the career office about your longer-range goals. Even if you decide to move and study somewhere else, you will learn a lot from conversing with the team at Miami Dade.

Unless your parents truly are able to commit to paying the full costs of out-of-state tuition and fees for all four years, you want to think very carefully about studying in a different state from where your parents live. In some states it is not possible to establish residency on your own until you meet certain requirements (24 years old, married, US military veteran, etc.). In some states it is possible. In some states the rules are different for community colleges than for 4-year public colleges and universities. So check all of that out too.

@aquapt has made a good suggestion about identifying places that would offer provisional admission to you provided that you start out in their intensive English program. Lots of places do that. You also could consider enrolling at an ELS Language Center or other similar program that has provisional admission agreements with multiple colleges and universities. The ELS Language Center in the Miami area is located on the campus of Barry University. You could visit them and hear their sales pitch.

9

You should have taken the SAT/ACT by now, so you better hurry or you will have a VERY hard time making the cut off times. Rapido muito rapido garoto. Time is of the essence.

10

@happymomof1

I will definitely check them out. I knew that there were some extra costs with living out-of-state, but I would have never imagined that complications could get to this degree. I will research more about the intensive English program, it seems very attractive to me.

Would you mind telling where you know Miami Dade College from? After a very typical superficial “Top Florida Community Colleges” I could not find them in any ranking.

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@padrede3

I believe that taking the test or even studying for it is a poor choice at the moment. Ill give you some reasons:
One: I looks like SAT/ACT will be irrelevant. The universities that I plan to go to do not consider these scores since I’m transferring from a CC
Two: I will do poorly in the math section because I’m not used to the format. I am used to doing very difficult exercises in a long period of time, not easy ones quickly without even thinking. I would not only take hundreds of hours to adapt to the new style, but also take even more thousands reading the books to get familiar with the patterns and exercises.
Three: My English is terrible. I will score poorly in all sections besides math.
Four: If it ends up being crucial I will study for it. Preparation for the exam takes time, and I think that this time would be better spent learning English

But hey, I may be 100% wrong. Take everything that I say with a grain of salt.

11

What I see is someone with a 2.6 GPA in his own country, hasn’t taken the SAT/ACT to see where he fits in with US college students, is slow at math and English is teerrible, but then wants to go to only top colleges in the US.

That is not a plan for success.

How will you pay for college?
Pick a state school that is affordable and takes transfers from Community college. Do well in community college and transfer. You may need to take some developmental english courses. That is a plan for success.

12

@ShineK - I teach ESL at a community college in Maryland. Miami Dade has a strong national reputation, along with the two year campuses of City College in NYC, Thompson Cortland CC in New York, Montgomery College in Maryland, Northern Virginia Community College in Virginia, Kirkwood in Iowa, and others. Miami Dade is not a bad place to start by any means.

Your written English is very strong. If your speaking skills are in that range as well, there is a decent chance that just one semester of intensive English will get you ready for regular classes. Depending on where you would study, you might be eligible for some academic classes right now. Go see the counselors at Miami Dade, the placement team at ELS/Barry University, and the intensive English programs at U of Miami and Florida International U in Miami. If you move quickly, you could be in class this fall, and ready to start academic classes in January. Here are links for you to check out.
http://www.vivecampus.com/fiu/english/english-language-program-fiu-miami-florida-international-university-esl.php
https://iep.dcie.miami.edu/
http://www.mdc.edu/iac/academic-departments/english-fo-academic-purposes.aspx
https://www.els.edu/en/find-els-language-centers/us/fl/miami

13

@bopper
Yeah, that’s what I figured, I was just making sure because I’m not used to the system and could may be missing something, but no. CC is the way to go!
The money I made from working combined with the help from my parents is enough from college to PhD.

@happymomof1
Glad to hear that but, sadly, my speaking English is considerably worse because of lack of practice. I learned English through listening, reading and writing, but not through speaking. I’m not used to the “speed”, there is no way of learning without going out and training.

Thank you very much for the links, will go to a Miami Dade to make sure that my English is enough. If it is not, will try the English programs.

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FU seems like very good choice for psychology, thank you for enlightening me!

14

Taking placement tests at Miami Dade sounds like a great first step. I’m sure they have ESL placement, as they do here in CA. Getting started there doesn’t preclude relocating. If you’re really interested in the CA system, you could take a trip out here some time in the next year and check out the options in terms of locale and CC-to-CSU and CC-to-UC pathways. If you decided to make the leap, your college-level Miami Dade classes would transfer, and the remedial classes would count for placement. But you might as well get started where you are, and then if it’s going well, the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle may well prevail!