hello everyone. i was waitlisted by my dream school and i am a biochem major. i am having trouble deciding between these two options. i am thinking of either transferring from RCC to UCSD, preferably in one year. however i know that classes can get impacted so one year would be pretty difficult. i also realize that UCR has tons of opportunities. they also have a genetics PhD program which i am interested in. however if i want to transfer to UCSD it would be harder compared to community college.
Do you want a two or four year college experience - bcuz I don’t think you can transfer at one year but maybe I’m misreading,
“To be eligible for transfer admission, you must complete a minimum of 60 UC-transferable semester (90 quarter) units by the end of spring term prior to fall admission.”
Ok - you didn’t get rejected by your dream college. You got rejected by a college. There is no dream. All have bad roomies or profs or food or you name it.
You can do everything you want from Riverside. So if you want a four year experience, it’s great.
If you want to save money, go elsewhere and not live the college life, then go CC. That’s fine too.
Good luck.
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you can transfer after one year as long as you complete the requirements. you just have to be junior STANDING not a junior
Ok then if u are.
Get past the ucsd or bust bcuz you could get turned down in transfer.
But if you don’t want Riverside AND you don’t want a traditional four year experience, then go to cc.
Good luck.
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I believe UCR was constructing a shared housing with RCC, North District 2. If it is ready for fall 2025, you could have something like a 4 year college experience, still attend RCC and keep your options open.
Completing this many units in a year depends on class availability and you will need to check if it is possible.
Why is Riverside so much worse than San Diego, that you’d go through all of this additional instability? You’ve already noted that Riverside has attractive grad programs in your area of interest. I’d focus on being a top undergrad there and getting great research opportunities with the faculty in that program.
Transferring in one year is tough, because the application period is so early in the year. So sure, maybe you can grind out all of your lower-division classes in one year; but how much of that will be on record at the time your application is being evaluated?
It just sounds like an awful lot of stress and hassle to me, when that energy could be going toward hitting the ground running at Riverside, building relationships with profs and getting involved in research instead of chasing a transfer acceptance. JMHO.
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it’s just that although riverside has tons of opportunities, san diego has more. especially since san diego is home to a lot of biotech companies
It sounds like you are potentially interested in some form of graduate school. To me this makes sense for a biochemistry major.
One option to at least consider is to get your bachelor’s at UCR, and then consider UCSD for a graduate degree. At least for those students who get any graduate degree, it is very common for a student to get a bachelors degree at one university and then get a graduate degree at a different university.
To me the risk of starting at community college planning to transfer to a specific university is that you might not get accepted. There is also some cost in changing schools half way through getting a bachelor’s degree, such as it being more difficult to get to know your professors. I would expect that you could most likely make it work either way however.
i was also thinking about this just now! however i am concerned about getting into grad school. if i don’t go to ucsd for undergrad, would it be harder to get in for grad? would it be easier to get into grad school at the same institution you went for undergrad?
Not necessarily. It can also be the opposite - some grad programs prefer not to admit their own undergrads; they prefer that students “cross-pollinate” at different institutions. If there’s a specific grad program you’re interested in, it’s worth inquiring about their philosophy on this point. Most of the time, I think it doesn’t really matter; what you did as an undergrad will matter far more than where you went, as long as you’re coming from a reputable program (which UCR definitely is).
If there are particular research groups of interest, maybe look into where the grad students in those groups did their undergrad. You might be surprised!
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Generally no.
If you look at the graduate students at pretty nearly any highly ranked graduate program, you will find that they come from a huge number of different undergraduate universities. Some schools list their graduate students on-line, and list where each student got any prior degrees – usually just a bachelor’s degree but sometimes both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In any case where I have been able to find a list, the very large majority of students got their bachelor’s degree somewhere different compared to where they are getting their doctorate. For students who get all of a bachelor’s degree, and a masters, and a PhD, sometimes the master’s degree is at the same university as one of the other two degrees, but sometimes all three degrees are from different schools, and in most cases the last graduate degree is from a different university compared to where the student got their bachelor’s degree. I had the same experience when I was in graduate school – the other students in the same program had come from all over the place. My wife and both daughters had the same experience also (and the four of us all went to graduate school somewhere different compared to where we got our bachelor’s degree).
It seems that graduate admissions encourages this. At a minimum graduate admissions at nearly any university seem to be open to accepting incoming students from other universities and colleges. I think that there may also be a desire to avoid a situation where a school develops an isolated culture. Accepting incoming students, and incoming faculty, from a wide range of schools helps with cross-pollinating of ideas.
One implication of this is that graduate programs will be accepting many, many students who they do not know personally. They need to rely on letters of reference, and may in some cases call your references and talk to them on the phone. Getting to know your professors will be important when you apply to graduate programs. Getting to know your professors can also make it easier to get involved in research, and the resulting experience will also be valuable when applying to graduate programs. Spending four years at the same university for your bachelor’s degree might make it easier to get to know your professors.
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is it easier to get along with professors at ucr compared to ucsd? i heard ucr does have smaller class sizes
If you want to save money, and have a better chance to get into UCSD, go CC and do well, have exceptional extra curriculars, and apply to UCSD in your first or second year. However, know there is no guarantee that you will get in and you might miss out on the “college” experience.
If you don’t care about money as much, and want to experience a four year college, go to UCR and enjoy your time, learn and do well and expect to be there all four years. However, apply to UCSD after likely two if you’re not satisfied or if you still want to go to UCSD. By that time, you may decide to stay at UCR.
Although there’s likely less transfers from UC to UC, than CC to UC, it does happen. You just have to be more exceptional than others and get a little lucky! But either way, you cannot expect to get in. It’s never guaranteed either way.
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