I spent to years at community after high school and didn’t get accepted as a transfer student into any of the good public colleges I applied to. Is this normal, or does it mean I screwed up even worse than people who go to lackluster colleges straight out of high school?
First of all, life is not a race. I know some people who have been very successful, and lots of people who have been successful in their own way. As far as I know, none of them have taken the shortest or most direct path to become successful. Instead, people try a bit of this and a bit of that. Eventually we find the right path for us.
I think that I saw an earlier post from you asking about whether a 3.2 GPA is sufficient to transfer to a “prestigious” university such as UC Berkeley or UCLA. I do not think that I responded at the time. Several things come to mind. One is just no, a 3.2 GPA is not likely to get you into these two schools. The second thing that comes to mind is that there really is no need to attend a university on the level of UC Berkeley or UCLA. The vast majority of people either attend a different (and lower ranked) university, or do not attend university at all. The vast majority of people do just fine anyway.
I am not sure what you mean by a “lackluster college”. There are at least many hundreds and perhaps more like thousands of very good colleges and universities. Every one of these schools helps many students find their own path in life.
Let me give you an example that is important to me. A number of years ago I had a heart attack when I happened to be close to a university that is ranked somewhere lower than 100 in the US. I was rushed to the emergency room at a nearby hospital (actually to the cardiac catheter facility). Very rapidly they figured out the problem and inserted one stent, stopped the heart attack, checked that everything else was fine, and then showed me a really cool video of how my heart had been pumping both before and after they put in the stent (it was a lot better after). Then I got to spend two days being helped by nurses and other medical professionals, many of whom had graduated from that local university. It did not matter than they graduated from a “lackluster university”. What mattered was that they were helping patients, in my case in a very important way (I was later told that there is no remaining damage at all from the heart attack).
Suppose that you graduate from a school ranked in the 100 to 200 range, and then help to save someone’s life, and do it so rapidly and efficiently that they end up with no long term damage at all. Will your patients care that you graduated from a school ranked lower than 100? Instead, do your patients care that they come through this feeling strong, and breeze through cardiac rehab and get better? Something similar could be said for a civil engineer who helps design a home owner’s new septic system after the old one failed, or an IT specialist who fixes a laptop problem, or a dental assistant who helps a dentist fix a sore tooth, or any one of millions of professionals who help people in other ways.
And a few years back I had a problem with my well. The guy who helped me out probably had never attended university. He still had a solid career and was a huge help to me personally.
The last thing that occurs to me is that if you give us more information then we can give you more useful information.
And if you didn’t get accepted to any universities that you applied to, then you might not have applied to the right universities. With more information we can suggest other schools for you to consider, or you can talk to the transfer advisors at your community college and see what they suggest.
And having something go wrong is indeed “normal” for all of us. We learn from this and do better next time.
6 Likes
It means you didn’t build your list properly - nothing more or less.
1 Like
What does this mean? What is a lackluster college? Perhaps if you are focused only on T20 schools, considering lower-ranked schools - the lackluster ones, I assume? - beneath you, then my speculation is that you may have overshot in your applications. Perhaps reevaluate what you are looking for in a college and recalibrate. Going to a college outside the T20 is not screwing up. Taking the attitude of “T20 or bust,” however, just might be. But this can be easily remedied if you adjust your sights and rebuild your list.
1 Like
Where did you apply to transfer? Did you work with the transfer advisor at your community college to craft a list where you had a good chance of acceptance?
It seems to me that the only mistake you made was that perhaps you just aimed too high and had no good possibilities for admissions on your application list.
I’m linking your other thread here for context. You are getting the same answers here.
This is important.
To OP: You are fine because there are many schools to which you can transfer and you probably have little or no student loan debt.
We don’t know where you applied.
With some additional information, if you want suggestions for your next application round, let us know. We would need to know potential major, location preferences, and your annual budget for college costs.
And maybe your state of residence…
2 Likes
This other thread suggests that the OP has a 3.2 college GPA and targeted UCLA, UCB, UCSD, UCD, and UCSB for transfer:
No apparent mention of major. But the more realistic UC options to apply to with a 3.2 college GPA would have been UCM, UCR, and UCSC.
3 Likes
Or perhaps one or more of the CSUs.
3 Likes
Most majors at most CSUs should be easy to get into with a 3.2 college GPA and specified courses completed. But an applicant who applies only to CPSLO or CS at SJSU may not get any admission.
2 Likes
I think your only issue is considering colleges that are probably the ones you should have transferred into as lackluster and not realizing that is where you would be accepted. People who go to college have not screwed up. To say that someone screwed up because they went to a college appropriate for them is pretty snobbish, and also given that you didn’t get accepted into the other schools, pretty hypocritical! Reassess your list and find a school that is right for you and how you’ve done so far.
3 Likes
I’m sorry, but at the very least you’ve screwed up in framing the question itself, without providing any details of your stats and target colleges.
3 Likes