Hello everyone. I’m a full-time student at Ohlone College (Fremont, California) and I have been enrolling in this school for almost 2 years (I started from Jan 2017). Suddenly, one of my relatives wants me to transfer to De Anza College which she believes is better than my school and has cheaper tuition. and then transfer to San Jose State University after. I always prefer cheap tuition, but I’m not sure if I should transfer because I’ve been here for 2 years and I almost finish all my major related classes that SJSU requires. I have only 6 more classes to go after this Fall semester (which will take me another year because 3 of them are physic classes but 1 of them is a prerequisite class to the other twol).
Those two are both community colleges near my area, and I’ve heard that if I transfer, my GPA (currently is 4.0) may not be carried over and I may lose some credits. I’m not sure but it seems like these two colleges provide very different classes regarding to my major (Computer Science). Therefore, If I’m not wrong, all my major classes’ credits may not be accepted and transferred at the other school which means I cannot continue my degree, but have to start over again.
Can someone confirm this is true? Here are the two links that show the required classes in Computer Science major for SJSU of the two colleges.
Ohlone: http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/artic/OHLONE/course-to-course.html
De Anza: http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/artic/DEANZA/template-22.html
When you apply to transfer, all previous college courses and grades from all colleges will be used for admission and to match up with requirements at the four year school. The main issue is that if you switch part way through a sequence like math or physics, the courses at different colleges may not line up properly. This can be more of a problem when one is on the semester system and the other is on the quarter system.
If one college is missing a specific course, you can still take that course at a different college.
I don’t think that it makes much sense to transfer twice. I would stay where you are to finish up what you need to transfer to San Jose State, and then transfer there (one transfer only).
Yes, anytime you transfer from one school to another you might lose some credits. As others suggested, you should stay in your current school and transfer to SJSU afterwards. There is no apparent advantage between Ohlone and De Anza, they are all CCCs.
Looks like both Ohlone and De Anza have full coverage of SJSU CS prerequisites:
http://www.assist.org/web-assist/reportOnly.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&rinst=left&EM=1&sia=OHLONE&ia=OHLONE&ria=SJSU&oia=SJSU&ay=17-18&aay=16-17&dora=COMPSCI
http://www.assist.org/web-assist/reportOnly.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&rinst=left&EM=1&sia=DAC&ia=DAC&ria=SJSU&oia=SJSU&ay=17-18&aay=16-17&dora=COMPSCI
They also have mostly one to one mapping of courses, despite Ohlone being on semesters and De Anza being on quarters. However, for transferring to SJSU, there does not seem to be a significant advantage to switching to De Anza, unless actual course availability at Ohlone is worse than the catalog listings. Switching to De Anza would mean dealing with two different colleges for your academic records.
If there are other UCs or CSUs that you may consider, use http://www.assist.org to check whether there is any advantage of one college over the other in terms of covering the prerequisites at those UCs or CSUs. If it is just one course, you could take just that one course at another nearby college while still staying at Ohlone.
Tuition should be the same at each community college. It may appear to be cheaper per unit at De Anza, but De Anza quarter units are 2/3 of the semester units used at Ohlone and SJSU (i.e. 45 quarter units per academic year = 30 semester units per academic year).
Thanks everyone! Now I can explain to my relative that i’m better to stay at my current school!
Ucbalumjus thank you for your cool info!
Note that SJSU does have a local area admission preference for De Anza and other community colleges in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, but it appears inapplicable to the OP, who is unlikely to have a majority of units from De Anza even if s/he transfers there now. Also, it also appears to apply only to a second choice major, and the OP’s 4.0 college GPA exceeds the thresholds for all majors at SJSU (see the link in #6).
I get it, it is abnormal for a student to transfer so suddenly when the majority of of her units at the old college, and since I have not taken any of the 3 physic classes, they may think I’m trying to avoid taking those classes at my college. Thank you a lot for your info, ucbalumnus! You are a great help!