I’m a prospective non-traditional student in my late twenties. In my later teenage years and early twenties, I was a hardcore drug addict, and dropped out of six years of college with a final GPA of 1.2.
I’ve been sober for one year and a day, and I’m training to become a CNA to move and work in California for a year to start over at community college and then transfer into a four-year institution. I was a competitive student in high school (3.9/32 ACT), so I’m decently confident that I could achieve something close to a 4.0 if I went back to school as an adult. I know exactly what programs I’d like to transfer into (UCLA’s Geography and Environmental Science being my top choice), and how I would want to use my education after graduation.
I hear vague aphorisms about UC’s appreciating “upward trends” a lot, but it seems like it would require one hell of an upswing in my case to be competitive with students of similar aptitudes who don’t have elongated histories of extreme degeneracy. Would my “story” actually give me edge, or would my abysmal track record and transcripts from my former schools ultimately be stumbling block to gaining admission to a UC?
First, congratulations on your sobriety! I have so much respect for you, congratulations!!
Now, you can replace old D/F grades with equivalent CC grades. Where did you first go to school? If it was a 4 year you may need to be wary of the unit caps. If they were all lower division classes, you should be fine.
UCs do like upward trends, and you have the opportunity to explain in 2 personal statements and the additional comments (however, you should not use the additional comments as a 3rd essay).
Here is UCLA’s publication showing average GPA. You should aim for about there.
https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof14_mjr.htm#FI
Also look into CCs that participate in UCLA’s TAP program: http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/tap/schools.htm
TAP isn’t guaranteed admission, but it does give you a boost in decisions.
Also, look into some TAG programs as a back up. I think Davis has a really good ES program.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/transfer/guarantee/
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/tag-matrix.pdf
If you can show strong grades and can convey that your drug use is behind you, I think you have a really good shot!
This is a good tool to use for GPA calculations, planning, and submiting a TAG (if you decide to):
https://uctap.universityofcalifornia.edu/students/index.cfm
Absolutely.
You have a great story and you will have the opportunity to very clearly show them how low you once were and how remarkably you’ve changed your ways; academically, as a person, etc.
Obviously it won’t be easy, but your background and story, as well as your tragedy and triumphs I think will make you really interesting to these schools.
Most importantly, congratulations!
I double agree with luckie and brian. You have what it takes and the UCs do indeed love second acts. Repeat some of the courses where you got C- or lower but better yet, see if you can get Academic Renewal for as much as possible, so you can start fresh. Different colleges have different rules re AR. Some let you pick and choose up to a certain number of units, some will just wipe out entire terms. Some won’t do it at all unless you follow some undoable rules. I would say step 1 is to find out if any courses can be erased through AR. If they allow you to cherry pick, leave the basic ones that can easily be repeated - work it out alongside an advisor.
Then just start over, baby!! B-)
If this was already said, sorry, I just skimmed above…
Also, if you end up with a couple of Ds or Fs from way back when that you can’t get rid of no matter what, the UCs will usually be forgiving when a lot of years have passed. Just have a strong new GPA.