I’m currently 20 yrs old and have not been to/applied to a college yet. During my final year in high school I got severe depression and anxiety so I had to drop out. I always did pretty good in hs and had a 3.9 gpa with decent co-curricular activities. I’ve spent a few years trying to get my shit together and this year I finally got my GED and SAT done. My SAT score was 1910 which was okay but definitely not good enough to get into the schools I’ve been hoping to get in.
I can’t decide what I should do. Apply to a community college and work hard there then transfer to a university, apply for other universities instead of the ones I’ve been aiming for, or retake the SAT and try to get a good enough score for the schools that I’m hoping to get in.
If you area better performer in class than on standardized tests, then CC might be a better option for you. After two full years, your test scores won’t matter much for transferring. You have to weigh whether you will be able to improve your SAT sufficiently against waiting another semester or year to start college.
Community college is awesome! It gives you time to take classes in a variety of fields without paying a ton of $$. The teaching level is also pretty high, so you have a little more time to build college confidence before launching into a top University.
I went to three different community colleges (so I could try out living in different parts of California) before going to UC Berkeley where I breezed through straight A’s and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
I LOVED my community college experience and urge my students to go there when starting off college immediately doesn’t make sense.
You can test out your anxiety level (which can skyrocket in college) and better prepare yourself for the challenge of a more rigorous institution.
Many of my cc classes were just as hard (though different in style, of course) as some UCB classes. I would definitely recommend you take at least one semester before deciding if you’ll stay at cc or go to Uni.
Some universities (like UCB) don’t even look at SAT scores. So you have a lot of win-win scenarios going for you at cc.
If you have more questions I’m happy to answer them.
What I am hearing @fluffybread123 is you don’t feel your grades etc are strong enough to get you to the universities to which you want to go. If you are a CA resident, I would urge you to go to a CCC and then you can most probably transfer to Berkeley or UCLA. If you are out of state, I can’t help you, but would urge you to look at all transfer options (perhaps transferring as a sophomore to some privates). The key is to not necessarily settle for next best if you really have dreams and think you can swing it. Now, having said that, scholarships will be more limited as a sophomore or junior.