Here is my dilema. I have been waitlisted at UCI for Fall 2015 as a psych major and I have been rejected by all other UC’s. I’ve been accepted to USF – but now I’m seriously doubting the quality of education there and I am regretting not applying to UCR, which I would have probably been accepted too and since it’s a UC (with active research and strong faculty), I eould feel less apprehensive about SIR’ing there.
So anyway, my dilema is:
My GPA is a 3.2 at De Anza College, but my major gpa is much higher.
Should I accept my offer for USF (University of San Francisco – beautiful campus and location, but is it really a good school?)
Or, should I do another year at De Anza and submit a TAG for UC Davis, reapply to Irvine (with an upward grade trend), and add in an App to UCR?
I need some advice as I’m not sure USF will provide me with the opportunities I want in terms of grad school. I’m sure I would love beging a student there, but I question their curriculum and their lack of math and science requirments and research labs. It seems as though USF has no active reaearch going on in the Psych department and that is troubling for me because I want to use undergrad as an opportunity to “springboard” into a prestigous PhD program.
edit I just realized USF does have some faculty reaearch labs – they do make it hard to find them though, and they say “only exceptional students may have the chance to work as RA’s” which is making me nervous because I knkw that RA experience will be key to my grad school app and that I’m going to need to be in a lab constantly as soon as I transfer so that I can build up a strong grad scool portfolio.