My son is interested in applying to Ivy League and other top schools as a community college transfer. He is attending a California CC and is also planning to apply to UC Berkeley, LA, and San Diego. His preference, however, would be to attend college in the east so we can move closer to family.
In order to complete the necessary requirements for the UC schools, he will end up with excess units (more than 2-years worth of credit), which is not a problem with the UC schools but apparently is a problem with Ivy League schools, most (or maybe all) of whom will not consider a transfer student with more than 2 years of college – even if all of the credits are lower division. He has taken a few extra courses along the way and was also planning to complete a computer science certificate at the CC.
We had assumed that excess lower division units were not a problem, since they would not put a student above beginning junior standing, but my son emailed some of the schools, who basically said a student would not be considered with more than two years of credits.
Does anyone have any suggestions? It is virtually impossible for him to meet the standards for transfer to the UCs without messing up his chances with other schools he is interested in.
Transferring to the top schools these days is virtually impossible from a CC. If he is an instate student the UC’s are his best bet but his grades must be near perfect. The UC’s unlike the top colleges will not factor in his SAT scores.
You will have to keep talking to admissions at each school. For schools that are seeking students (as opposed to those in the business of turning 9 out of 10 away), there may be a maximum number of transfer credits allowed, but that doesn’t mean your transcript can’t have more courses than that. You would just lose some credits during the transfer process.
Stanford historically admits a substantial percentage of transfers from community colleges (64% for fall 2016), but its total number of transfer students is typically only a few dozen per year (39 total for fall 2016, and probably many of them with non-traditional backgrounds): http://news.stanford.edu/2016/09/19/new-undergraduate-students/
Thank you for your reply, SAY. He is aware of the acceptance rates for the schools he is interested in and that the UCs do not consider SAT scores. He currently has a 4.0. What we are trying to figure out is how he can keep options open for Ivy League schools and UCs, when the UCs require at least 60 credits and major prereqs completed for transfer, and the Ivy League schools require that no more than 60 credits be completed before being eligible to be considered. It seems impossible at this point for him to do both.
Thank you, thumper1, for your reply. He is aware that Ivy League transfer acceptance rates are very low and is certainly not counting on being accepted by one of them. He does, however, want to give it a try, so I am certainly not going to discourage him from trying. He will, of course, apply to less competitive colleges too.
Thank you, AroundHere, for your reply. Actually, from what we are learning, it appears that with some of the colleges he is considering, it is not just a matter of losing credits; it sounds like they will not even consider someone who has more than two years-worth of credits – even if the person does not expect all of the credits to be applied.
Many of the CC transfers from NYS CC’s are part of the already established articulation agreements that Cornell has with many of the SUNY/CUNY Schools.
These students are transferring after completing an associates degree for which Cornell has also specified the coursework needed.
Cornell is also the only Ivy that gives guaranteed transfers for students not picked up in the freshman round. They recommend that they start their freshman year else where, maintain a certain GPA and then come sophomore year.
You also do not know how many students are transferring into Cornell from HEOP/EOP, SEEK and CD plans fron other NYS public and private schools.
If you look at the schools with the largest number of transfer students, it is heavily skewed toward the three land grant colleges at Cornell, where NYS students are charged a lower in-state tuition rate.
I am not sure about each Ivy school, but there are quite a few prestigious colleges that say they actively encouage the best CC students to apply. I know Brown does, at least. Your son is going to have to accept that if he gets into an Ivy League school, there will be quite a few credits that won’t transfer over.
As far as continuing to pursue the UC transfer option, he could take a break. Stop CC classes and apply for next Fall to Ivy schools. If he doesn’t get in, he can resume CC classes, maybe apply as a spring transfer to UC.
@Lindagaf , the problem is that Op’s has too many CC classes(probably more than 64), which are pushing him into Junior standing. He needs to move on to a 4 year school and complete a degree. If he is getting financial aid, if he continues with CC, he will run out of aid
it sounds like your son needs to make a CHOICE. He cannot do both things.
If the schools say they will not accept students with more than two years of credits…you need to believe them.
These schools have PLENTY of applicants who don’t need an exception made to the rules they have created…and they have reasons for making these decisions.
It sounds like you think there might be a way for your son to take the excess credits…and also apply to,colleges that won’t allow that many credits. That’s notmgoing to happen.
Time to move on from that idea. Either he:
Takes the extra credits he thinks he needs to get into the UCs and applies to a variety of those.
OR
He takes the lesser amount of courses...and applies to those Ivies.
What I don’t understand is why he has to take SOOOOO many credits to transfer to the UCs.
ETA…if he has already taken TOO many credits to be a viable candidate for the Ivies to consider at all…he should not waste his time…or money applying.
@magdak Emphasis on the “some.” If he wants to move to New England he’ll have to look at the schools where he his application is welcome. Probably lower down in the rankings.
@thumper1 If a student starts by taking random classes (exploring interests), then focuses on a transfer degree, or changes from one transfer program to another, it’s pretty easy to have a few classes left to finish your transfer requirements while already having more than enough total credits. My kid just wanted to add a few classes for fun and interests (public speaking, etc). I know another kid she went to school with who has a passion for ASL who has way more sign languages classes than fit in an astronomy transfer plan.
Well, which schools were telling you there would be an issue? Along my transfer journey, it seemed as though none of the schools I’m applying to had a credit “limit” so to speak. They just had a maximum amount of transferable units (somewhere around 50% of the total required for a degree)
Looks like, out of the Ivy League schools, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and Penn do disallow transfers with more than 2 years of college credit (based on their web sites), but Cornell, Columbia, and Brown do not list such a restriction (though they may have restrictions on transfer credit or require at least 2 years’ worth of course work after transfer). Princeton currently does not admit transfer students, although it may in the future.
For comparison, UCs cap lower division transfer credit (including all community college course work) at 70 semester units (105 quarter units), which is slightly more than the 60 semester units (90 quarter units) that 2 years normally is for students who want to graduate in 8 semesters. This applies both for applicant eligibility and transfer credit. However, all transferred courses can count for subject credit.