Planning to Transfer for High School Student

Transfer Students
1

Hello,
I am currently a high school junior, and I am starting to attempt to plan for college. I am taking some college classes for credit through local community colleges (Corning Community College and Genesee Community College), and I plan to have at least 45 college credits by the time I finish high school. I plan to get an associate’s degree through GCC and then transfer to a different university to get a bachelor’s degree. My plan is to be a communications or journalism major. I have some questions for anyone who would like to answer them. I’m still learning how the whole college process works, so please bare with me… Any tips specifically on the SUNY system of schools would be appreciated!

  1. How does everyone plan what college courses they need to take before they go to community college? This is my biggest question/concern. It seems like every college has slightly different general education requirements, so how are you supposed to plan your classes if you don't know what college you want to transfer to yet?
  2. GCC has a basic Liberal Arts degree and then they have a specific Communications and Media Arts A.S. degree. Which one should I take if I want to be a communications major? It seems like I would want to take the specific communication degree, but I have found colleges that only allow 5 major classes to be transferred over. However, this Communication and Media Arts A.S. has more than 5 major classes. Would it make more sense to take a basic Liberal Arts program to get the general education and elective courses out of the way and then take the majority of my core classes when I transfer to a different university?

These are my major questions. I’m kind of freaking out about planning which courses I should take. I really have no idea which college I’m going to transfer to (other than that it will likely be a SUNY school), and I’m worried about taking all the wrong classes and losing the chance to transfer them. So, again, any tips for a high school student who is planning to transfer in the future would be greatly appreciated.

2

GCC should have a Transfer Advisor. Find out who that person is, and spend some time with them sorting out the best transfer plan for yourself. Remember, even if not all of your coursework at the CC replaces specific coursework at a target 4-year institution, it still may cover other general requirements. Also, sometimes the AA or AS degree is accepted as fulfilling all of the gen eds even if there isn’t a one-to-one match.

Don’t forget to consider the option of applying to colleges as a freshman applicant. Often that will result in better financial aid packages. Many students who have a lot of dual-enrollment credits like you decide to apply as freshmen just for that reason. Then after they have enrolled, when their CC credits are evaluated and transferred they might have sophomore or junior status and can finish in fewer than four years.