I’m a California high school senior who didn’t take school that seriously my first two years, and as a result have a 3.0/3.1 gpa with a 1310 (1600 scale) on my SAT and a 31 on my ACT. I applied to Poly Pomona, CSU Fullerton, Long Beach, San Marcos, SDSU, University of San Diego and LMU. I’m not saying those are bad schools, but I personally believe that there are better schools for me that I could of gotten into if I tried harder my freshmen and sophomore year. I’ve been considering going to community college to get a “fresh start” to show the student I am now and possibly get into a “better” college. I know there are automatic admission programs to UC Davis and Irvine, but is it realistic to transfer from a CC to a high end selective school like the Claremont colleges, USC, or even the not guaranteed UC’s like LA and SD? Thank you for your time.
Yes, a California CC is an excellent option if you are not happy with schools you have applied to and/or been accepted.
Last year around 16,000 applicants transferred from California community colleges to the UC’s.
If you work hard and have a competitive GPA, complete all the required GE and transfer courses, have some major related EC’s and good personal insight essays, many of the UC’s are possible.
Below is a link that shows the UC Transfer GPA by major for each campus.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major
Again there are not guarantees other than TAG for the 6 UC campuses but definitely worth pursuing.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/tag-matrix.pdf
Yes, people who do well in community colleges may have a larger selection of possible colleges to transfer to than they may have had a frosh applicants with 3.0-ish HS GPA. However, not all colleges (particularly private ones) accept that many transfer students.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major can give you an idea of how well you need to do in community college to transfer to the various majors at the various UCs.
UCLA has a TAP program that offers a preference (but not a guarantee) for applicants to the College of L&S at UCLA. So if a nearby CC has that it’s worth considering.
That said, think carefully over the differences between being at a college for 4 years and being a transfer. It isn’t like you wave a diploma from most “better” schools and opportunities show up that you never would have from a CSU, especially when the better school is not some place like Stanford or Harvard.
What you learn in school depends on how hard your work, not the name on the doorway. Job and grad school opportunities will depend on whether you get internships, get to know profs for strong letters of rec, take part in research (as applicable). And there is the social milieu. Living at home and attending a CC is not the same as living away from home at college. By the time you transfer a lot of kids will already have made a core group of friends and it may be harder to build your own set, depending on how outgoing you are.
I’m not saying don’t go the CC route, I’m saying think carefully about how the experience can/will be different and decide if its right for you.
Yes, I would read about opportunities to transfer to schools like the Claremont Colleges, because they are, as mentioned above, some schools do not take a lot of transfer students. I know, for example, that Harvey Mudd takes few. I understand that is because few people leave. I guess you could say that transfer rates are exactly conversely related to retention rates. (Not sure if I got that right.) If most students stay, few spots open up. Seriously, I would look into the schools you may want to transfer to before deciding.
Oh, and another thing, consider an honors program at community college. They offer small classes, and other enrichment opportunities, and they have special help with admissions to several private schools, including Pomona College.
@MRob20 - first, you take it for granted that will get into these “not good” schools like USD and LMU, but your 3.1 GPA is unlikely to get you admission, as they have become quite a bit more competitive. Second, to echo others, CC can be a good option, but you need to plan carefully as you will not be the only one with this plan and there are quite limited places for transfers at many institutions, particularly the LACs.