Community colleges (Torrance, Pasadena, Berkeley: transferring to, schools, universities)

[DudeFromEurope]

Hi,

I was wondering if you could tell me which one of these two community colleges is better? Feel free to also recommend others.
Also, how easy (or hard) is it to get in? Please note that I'm an international student. This year I didn't do that good in school, so my GPA should be around 2.4+ (I'm going to receive my diploma in the upcoming days), I've written a fairly good essay, I think, and I should be able to get a good TOEFL score. So what are my chances?
And I also might transfer to a 4 year university. (Not sure if it's worth the money.. I will be a graphic design major. What do you think?)

Anyways, thanks for all the answers in advance.

Peace,

Edit: Whoops, I forgot to tell you which colleges I have chosen. Anyways, they are Santa Monica College & El Camino College.

[LizzyNola]

Check out WLAC!

[Island_OnThe_Land]

The community colleges in California are a good deal. Low cost education with relatively good professors. I don't know how it works for international students. For Calfornia residents the only requirement to be accepted is to be 18 yrs or older. So I am sure it's not too difficult to get into the system coming from another country.

Santa Monica has perhaps the best reputation among the LA area "community" colleges. That said, there is really NOT much of a difference among the many community colleges. If you work hard you can transfer into a good university. If you are going to live closer to El Camino College you might as well take classes there.

Some other community colleges in LA area: LA Community College (near Hollywood), Pasadena Community College (in Pasadena), West LA College (West LA), and East LA College (East LA), and LA Pierce College (in Woodland Hills).

Good luck.

[cowman809]

Smc!
Smc!
Smc!

[iluvcj]

Community college is an excellent and cheap way to get to a four year university. I just graduated from my local community college in san pablo ca in the bay area and we had 2 students transferring to Stanford and about 20 students going to UC Berkeley, a couple of them were going to USC and UCLA.

[DudeFromEurope]

Thanks for all the replies!
I checked out the other schools as well, but I'll probably stick to Santa Monica, because they offer dormitory-style housing to first year international students. :P I imagine that way I'll be able to meet new people faster.

Oh, iluvcj, congrats!

[s0nginmyheart]

I've gone to both SMC and ELCO, and though I only had a stint at SMC, I definitely suggest it over ELCO.

Moderator cut: language
I would say that the quality of education was fairly the same Moderator cut: at the two schools. Keep in mind that a handful of community college teachers do teach at other schools and universities.

El Camino is definitely a "commuter school", which means that students go there and leave. They don't stay to "hang out" on campus. And the ones that do stay... give you reason to leave. My experience at SMC felt more university-like for a community college, and people actually stayed on campus to hang out after class. I'm not sure if this still holds true today, but when I was there, SMC had the better transfer rate to universities (particularly UCLA). Santa Monica also has more things to do, while (that part of) Torrance does not.

I would also recommend checking out Pasadena City College...

Hope this helps!