Transferring to a Four-Year College
Article Type: Quick and Dirty

Should You Consider Transferring?

A mountain of reasons exists why you might consider spending your first two years in college at a community college, and then transfer to a four-year school to earn a Bachelor’s degree. What are some of them? College Costs are daunting, and maybe you aren’t made of money and are looking to save some serious bucks. Perhaps you are the student who could have done better in high school, but are now ready to Beef Up Your Transcript by hitting the books and rocking a 4.0 in order to get into the college of your dreams. Or, you aren’t sure what you want to major in, and don’t want to spend your first two years (and tens of thousands of dollars) trying to figure it out.

Your reason doesn’t really matter much. The important point is that you do it right. Let’s talk critical steps to make sure this works.

Key Steps

First, be very clear on your plan. What kind of Four-Year College are you eventually looking to attend? The more specific you can be the better — having an actual school in mind is great.  If you aren’t even close to this step, why not Generate a Big List of schools and then Narrow Down Your List? Why, you ask? Because you are going to need to know the entrance requirements and whether or not your four-year dream school accepts the credits you are going to earn at community college.

Don’t have a specific college in mind? Try this: go to the community college of your choosing and ask them if they have any transfer relationships with four-year institutions. Some community colleges will have a pool of four-year schools they work with, and have programs designed specifically for students taking this track. If this is the case, sign up for the school transfer program; it’ll make your life much easier in the long run.

You’ll also need to know what the minimum grades or GPA are for the school you want to transfer to. Don’t be the student who goes to two years of community college with a 3.0 and finds out a 3.5 is required to get into the University of Awesome.

Finally, when you actually make the big transfer, pat yourself on the back. You saved some serious cash, with hope raised your GPA a bit, had a smooth transition into the rigor of college, and (here’s the sweet part) a Bachelor’s degree from a full four-year university.

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