<p>If you don’t like your options when acceptances come out, CC is a fine option. No, it won’t guarantee you your favorite school, but if you meet the TAG requirements you’ll be guaranteed one of the UCs. And let’s face it, you weren’t guaranteed acceptance to any schools straight out of high school either (except CC, I guess).</p>
<p>For me CC was a second chance. I did pretty badly in high school, then went the CC route. I ended up with a 3.9 after my first year, which was a pretty big difference after a couple failed classes back in high school. There’s a couple big differences between HS and CC. The first is that you’ll have a choice in what you take, and it’s a lot easier to do well in classes you enjoy, or ones in your major. The second is that the grading shifts to being heavily based on exams and big papers. Back in HS there was a lot more busy work, and smaller assignments to keep you on track, if your classes have a participation grade at all it won’t be worth much. For some students that makes it easier to succeed, for others it kills their GPA.</p>
<p>As for what you can complete in 2 years, that depends on you and your major. I don’t have the chem ones memorized, but check assist.org to see what’s expected. How many classes are there for pre-reqs, and how many does your CC require for IGETC? And figure out which ones you can skip with AP credit. I didn’t bother with IGETC when I was in CC, assist said it wasn’t recommend for my major, and the Engineering GE requirements turned out to be fewer classes than I’d have needed at CC. If assist says IGETC isn’t recommended, it usually means there’s enough room for the remaining GE requirements in your schedule after transferring anyways.</p>