Back to CC worth it?

Transfer Students
1

Hi guys, right now I’m currently a student at Cal Poly Slo but I’ve recently been heavily considering transferring out. Although financial concerns are my primary reasoning (long story short congested public-school-registration screwed me out of a full schedule and therefore I’m hesitant to pay full tuition) I also have considered transferring to a school closer to a larger city. Superficially it looks like going back to community college would be the most logical decision considering I could take the exact same classes that I would’ve taken at poly at a fraction of the cost, but I am determined to graduate from a four year university. During my freshman year my 3.0 GPA was primarily due to my immaturity (living on my own for the first time I dropped the ball on homework assignments) and I’m worried that going back home would more or less allow me to run away from my problems. I feel that I’m stuck on the verge of a big decision and I’d really appreciate help to my questions.

  1. Hypothetically if I were to transfer back to a CC what would be the process of transferring to a UC instead of back to Cal Poly look like (one or two years at the CC…how many years till graduation from a 4 year university)?
  2. Assuming I plan to transfer back out of the CC what are my chances of getting into a UC such as UCBerkeley or UCLA (I’m confident that my GPA would rise both at CP and a CC but I also understand there is some sort of priority into UC’s through California community colleges)?
  3. What benefits do you see in staying at cal poly that I would miss out on at a CC?

Thanks for your help!

2

Contact the CC you would be attending, and ask these questions. Lots of students do exactly what you are proposing here.

3

Yours is a fairly common scenario.

You would get priority admission consideration at all UC’s coming from a California CC.
You could also investigate a TAG, which would be filed in September of the prior admission year. There are a couple of TAG exceptions. Davis, for example, would require three semesters of CC to be eligible, but most would qualify with only two.

I agree with happymom1. Contact and meet with the Transfer office at the CC you plan to attend. They can give you all of the facts and figures.

4

Here’s this UC TAG matrix for 17/18 admission cycle:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/tag-matrix.pdf