"Hey BS, quit wacking off to your own psuedo-intelligent posts. To reiterate, for the JUCO people on this thread, I do not care about JUCO and think it is a joke and a waste of time."
- BMOC, the latest "Let's Run" village idiot.
A Backdoor Route To a Dream College --- Top Schools Establish Links With Community Colleges; From Miami-Dade to Yale
By Anne Marie Chaker
1,464 words
26 June 2003
The Wall Street Journal
D1
English
(Copyright (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
SUZANNE MILLER HAD good grades at her all-girls high school in Los Angeles, but knew they wouldn't be enough to get her into a top University of California campus. So, she made an unusual strategic move, leaving high school a year early and enrolling at a local two-year college. The payoff? Next fall, she'll be transferring to UCLA.
As the fight to get into a top university intensifies, community colleges are emerging as a surprising backdoor route to admission. Long maligned as places for students who can't cut it at a more-rigorous campus, two-year colleges in a number of states are becoming official feeder schools to highly competitive public universities. Others are raising their academic standards, making it less of a leap for elite universities to consider their graduates when they apply for transfers.
Miami-Dade College in Florida, for instance, last year started an honors program for high-school seniors with SAT scores of at least 1,200 or a grade point average of at least 3.7. A couple graduates have already been accepted to Columbia, and one each to Yale and Georgetown.
A number of community colleges are striking agreements with top universities to make transferring easier. At Blinn College in Brenham, Texas, some students are guaranteed admission to Texas A&M University if they meet certain grades. Some universities promise to give transfer applications extra attention. The University of Virginia says it gives less weight to the high-school transcripts of applicants who complete two years at a community college.
These ties serve the needs of both schools. For community colleges, getting more students into brand-name universities raises their profile. For universities, transfers help fill enrollment and revenue gaps left by students who drop out or take a year abroad.
In some cases, applications from local community-college students are actually accepted at a higher rate than those from high schoolers. Some 33% of applicants to UC Berkeley from California community colleges were accepted last fall, compared with only 26% of in-state high-school applicants.
In Virginia, Piedmont Virginia Community College is becoming known as a destination for students who didn't get accepted to the University of Virginia the first time around. In the past two academic years, over 60% of Piedmont applicants were accepted -- higher than the approximately 50% of applicants who get in as freshmen from in-state, and the about 20% of out-of-state applicants who are accepted.
Admissions Guidance
The community colleges also provide admissions guidance. Last year, as Molly Reed was getting her applications together, her counselor at Piedmont Virginia Community College called in a UVA dean to talk Ms. Reed and other students through the process. Ms. Reed, who didn't apply to UVA from high school (she feared that her SAT scores were too low) will be attending UVA in the fall.
All of this comes at a time when it is trickier than ever to get into a top university out of high school, mostly because of a huge spike in applications. While the Ivies have always been extremely competitive -- and are getting even more so -- flagship state schools such as Ohio State University and UCLA are also getting much more selective. At the same time, enrollments at community colleges have bulged in recent years as families have been drawn by the lower tuition.
Some universities explicitly tell students who didn't make the admissions cut to try again after attending a community college. Texas A&M in College Station, for instance, has begun offering an alternative to waitlisted students who don't end up getting in: Attend Blinn College, a two-year school, while also taking classes at A&M. Students on the "Blinn Team" are automatically admitted to A&M if they have a B average in their classes at both institutions at the end of two years. This year, 1,200 students asked to be on the team, 71% more than requests from last year.
Some states -- California, for instance -- have long had such arrangements in place. But to accommodate a growing number of high-school graduates, it is now setting even higher targets. The University of California system is hoping to increase by 50% the number of transfer students from California community colleges by the 2005-06 school year.
In some states, the backdoor route also includes second-tier campuses of flagship universities. Ohio State University, for instance, now asks students what their second-choice campus would be if they didn't get into the main campus in Columbus. Students who finish a full-courseload year on a regional campus with at least a C average are then guaranteed admission to the main campus. That has contributed to the increase in campus changes to Columbus -- 1,266 students made the switch in 2002-03, up 18% from the year before.
Still, the perceived stigma of going to a community college can sometimes get in the way. "It's a hard sell at first, to convince parents that their kids won't be walking around with a big B on their heads," says Frank Ashley, director of admissions at Texas A&M. Indeed, the student experience is often very different between a two- and four-year schools. Virtually all students at community colleges are commuters, leaving campus life short on clubs, sports and other extracurricular activities. And many of the students are more interested in getting enough credits for a particular license or job.
But at the very least, the growing clout of community colleges gives some students a new way to approach application season. Now, instead of settling for a more obscure four-year school or taking a year off to reapply, they may be able to take the community-college detour. Students interested in the community-college option should ask for statistics on how easy it is to transfer, and find out how well community-college transfers do compared with students already enrolled.
"The truth is, there are a lot of people who really want to be Buckeyes," says Martha Garland, vice provost at Ohio State. "If they're doing well, we want them here."
---
A Second Chance
Many community colleges and second-tier campuses, with their far
lower tuition fees, are becoming feeder schools to top universities.
If you couldn't get into . . . University of California; Los Angeles;
$3,800*
Try . . . Santa Monica College; Santa Monica, Calif.; $400*
Why: Santa Monica College transferred 557 students to UCLA in
2001-02, 31% more than the year before.
If you couldn't get into . . . University of Virginia;
Charlottesville, Va.; $6,000
Try . . . Piedmont Virginia Community College; Charlottesville, Va.;
$1,400
Why: In the last two academic years, over 60% of Piedmont students
who applied to UVA got in. That's higher than the typical acceptance
rate of about 50% for freshman in-state applicants.
If you couldn't get into . . . University of Michigan; Ann Arbor;
$7,600 for freshmen*
Try . . . Washtenaw Community College; Ann Arbor, Mich; $1,500
in-district; $2,500 in-state
Why: Since 2000, about 10 students a year have been admitted to
University of Michigan from Washtenaw's M-Ties program.
If you couldn't get into . . . Georgia Institute of Technology;
Atlanta; $3,200
Try . . . Miami-Dade College; Miami; $1,100
Why: Students with at least a 3.0 grade point average in the
pre-engineering program, as well as solid grades in math and science,
have a good chance of getting into Georgia Tech.
If you couldn't get into . . . Texas A&M; College Station, Texas;
2,100*
Try . . . Blinn College; Brenham, Texas; $1,200 in-district; $1,600
in-state
Why: Students can attend Blinn college while also taking classes at
A&M. Those who have a B average at both institutions at the end of two
years are admitted to A&M.
If you couldn't get into . . . Ohio State University; (Columbus
campus); $6,500 (most majors)
Try . . . The university's regional campuses at Lima, Mansfield,
Marion and Newark; $4,200 for freshmen
Why: Students who finish a full-courseload year on a regional campus
with at least a C average are guaranteed admission to the main campus.
If you couldn't get into . . . University of California; Berkeley;
$4,600*
Try . . . Diablo Valley College; Pleasant Hill, Calif.; $400*
Why: Since 1996, over 1,000 Diablo Valley students have been admitted
to Berkeley, far outpacing other community colleges in the state. Try .
. .
Note: Figures are for 2003-04 in-state students, and are approximate.
*Tuition hasn't been officially set.