Liberal Arts?!?! Frustration

HeyItsNick
Sun, 03 Jan 2016 23:09:00 +0000

The point of the SAT/ACT is to test your reading, writing, and math skills. It gives colleges an idea of how you will perform in their school - for example, more prestigious schools usually have students who score higher in the ACT/SAT indicating that they can handle their curriculum in contrast to those who have lower scores. Whether or not this system is accurate, I have no idea but that is how it is. Even if you score high, it does not offset your GPA. It’d raise questions about your work-ethic which is why community college could be beneficial because you could show that you have changed your ways.

Like you, I have not had the best grades and community college is my default option. I understand the want to attend an actual 4 year university but for some of us, community college may be the better route. I am sure that you could find some schools that would accept you with your GPA and a good SAT/ACT score but I’d doubt that they would be prestigious institutions and if you are looking for that prestige, community college will be better for you.

If you take a gap year, it will likely only delay your entry into a community college. Chances are that if you couldn’t get accepted in the Spring of 2016, you won’t be accepted in the Spring of 2017. But if you seriously do not want to attend a community college, the decision is yours.

Community College is a do-over, basically. If you score a good GPA, you can transfer to a good and well-respected college. I am more familiar with UC/CSU transfer (since I’m Californian) but I do know that Cornell University, an Ivy-League institution, has a habit of accepting a lot of New York transfer students. Maybe someone more familiar with transfer options in NY can help you.

The 2+4 plan is bad because you’d be wasting two years and money at community college. Now that I think about it, a gap year may not be a bad thing for you if you are using it to figure out what you’d like to do with your life (taking internships, shadowing, etc) but I am not sure if you are planning on doing that or using it as a chance to get into a 4 year university. Prior to finishing community college, you should really have a major decided and the pre-reqs completed. I am not sure how it is in New York but in California, almost all of the schools do not accepted undecided transfer students therefore meaning that all transfer students need their major decided prior to matriculation.