Help for future transfer student Seattle

Darkgildedsnap
Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:38:04 +0000

So, I’ve had very little luck so far finding a college that has three crucial things:


Preferably a good Arabic department; I want to study Arabic, and not all schools have a Mideast department at all, let alone an actually good one
A chance of admission; Plenty of top schools have great Arabic programs, of course, but I don’t have a chance to get into most of them. Here are my stats:


GPA: 3.63
SAT: Math: 600 Critical reading: 670 Writing: 750
ACT: 26

Ivy League, Georgetown, and Middlebury are pretty out of my league with my High School stats.


Affordability; For example, U Texas at Austin has a great Arabic program, and I could probably get in, but the cost for out of staters is $38,000 a year for tuition alone. Basically, I need to find a place that’s affordable.


I’m applying to a few colleges (like CUNY Hunter and U Arizona) as backup, but for various reasons (lack of success finding schools as well as missing deadlines) I’m thinking I’ll have to do my first year of college here in Seattle, and then transfer next year. Hopefully that way I can save money, and bring my GPA up a lot, so I can have a chance at some of the better schools.

So my question is, if I’m going to transfer later, what’s the best school for me to go to next year? My first thought was Seattle Central CC, because it’s cheap, and I’m going to be just getting basic ed requirements done for my first year, anyway. But after visiting the building (not an official visit), I really didn’t like it, and I don’t know if I want to go there.

So, assuming I can get into UW, would it be better to go there? The thing is, since this would be my first year of college, I’d be just getting basic requirements out of the way, and UW would be a more expensive way to get what I might be able to get out of CC anyway. On the other hand, UW has Arabic and other courses that I might be able to get a head start on.

So does anyone have any advice about this? And in particular, I want to know: is it better, if I’m going to transfer to, say, Georgetown, that my first year is a state school like UW? Will this give me a better chance of being accepted than if my first year was at a CC?