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通常，转学的学生都会面对被当做选择了一条轻松出路这样的尴尬情况。通过参加社区大学并转到四年制大学，学生们绕过了可怕的SAT、ACT和AP考试。并且，社区大学的学生可以无视高中的平均绩点，开始新的学习。这对于那些在高中表现不太好的学生来说是非常有吸引力的。这是一个重建GPA的机会。此外，申请社区大学也没什么障碍，通过有一个不要求个人陈述的简单程序即可轻松申请。基于这些原因，一些直接进入四年制大学的学生认为，转学的学生并不是优秀的学生。
然而，这些假设是经不起推敲的，对转学的学生也是不公平的。为什么有人选择在社区大学学习而不是直接去读四年制大学，这有很多原因。这就是为什么我想介绍我3年前的一个实习生，特蕾莎，她帮助我为我的一个前客户建立了一个“社区大学转学”的平台，目标是帮助那些从一流大学毕业，希望通过社区大学转学申请的中国学生。
她的故事是这样的：
作为一名高中高年级学生(美国的12年级)，特蕾莎被各种中等层次的大学录取，但特蕾莎选择参加一所社区大学，因为她相信这样可以降低成本，让她有机会上一流大学。在分析了她的个人情况之后，特蕾莎意识到，如果她从一所社区大学转过来，她将能够以零学生债务的情况获得学位毕业，更不用说从名牌大学毕业了。对于一些美国学生来说，他们可能选择一所社区大学可能仅仅是因为它离家更近。又例如，她有一个朋友，没有选择四年制的大学因为他在一个科技初创公司工作，只能晚上去上课。总的来说，社区大学是一个更具吸引力的选择，原因有很多，就像我刚刚举例的那些。此外，在大学的头两年里，学生们都在参加必要的课程;直到后两年，学生们才开始更多地关注他们的专业。因此，对于那些不确定自己想要学习什么的学生来说，社区大学是一种不错的选择。最重要的是，它为学生提供了选择适合自己专业的机会。所以总的来说，出于很多原因，社区学院是一个有吸引力的选择。
虽然她在一所社区大学上的两年学是卓有成效的,能够参加学生会,能够在非营利组织的实习,可以做兼职工作,甚至出国留学,这些都不是在转学之后能做到的,特蕾莎就是一个很好的例子，社区大学和四年制大学差异是很明显的。两年后，特蕾莎转到了加州大学伯克利分校(我的母校;特蕾莎现在已经毕业了，现在是校友，就像我一样)。在伯克利，特蕾莎与著名的教授们进行了交流，这些教授发明了拯救生命的技术，在克林顿政府的领导下，他们在白宫工作，并获得了诺贝尔和平奖。与社区大学不同，四年制大学有财力资助国际研究，让图书馆每天24小时开放，并与其他主要学术机构有着密切合作。四年制大学所提供的资源是一所社区大学所无法比拟的。四年制大学提供更多的实习机会，有声望的奖学金，以及学生们帮助教授进行下一个研究项目的机会，没错，这也正是让社区大学学生为之奋斗的原因！
尽管如此，如果不是因为社区大学的教育系统，特蕾莎很确定她不会有“跳板”让她进入世界上最好的公立大学伯克利分校，因为尽管四年制大学可以让她产生巨大的改变，但社区大学确实改变了她的生活。
你会问中国学生怎么样?事实上社区大学更有意义,因为当他们仍然是被归类为一个国际学生,他们已经有两年在社区大学环境中学习的基础,这意味着为这些学生在所制定的招生条件中，不需要把中国的成绩转化成美国成绩，因此学生可以自动提高指数从而得到顶尖大学录取机会。这对于那些在高中时期可能表现不太好的学生来说很有利，他们仍然拥有进入美国顶尖大学的必要潜力——把这看作是一个美妙的“第二次机会”。
最终，没有人会关心你第一年上的是什么学校，但是每个人都关心你从哪个学校毕业。就像我和我的客户一样，在推动社区大学转学系统的过程中，在2017年也就是现在，很多公司都在支持这种简单的进入美国顶尖大学的方法。
——————以下来自Andy老师英文原稿——————
Often, transfer students are faced with the stigma of choosing the easy way out. By attending community colleges and transferring to four year institutions, students bypass the infamous SAT, ACT, and AP exams. Furthermore, community college students can forgo their high school GPA and start fresh and new. This is extremely appealing for students who did not do well in high school. It is an opportunity to rebuild their GPA. Additionally, there are no hurdles when it comes to applying for community colleges. There is a simple application that does not ask for personal statements. For these reasons, some students who directly go into a four year university assume that transfer students are not high achieving students.
However, these assumptions are inaccurate and unfair towards transfer students. There are many reasons why someone would choose to study at a community college instead of going directly to a four year institution. This is why I’d like to describe an intern I had 3 years ago, Teresa, who helped me build a “community college transfer” platform for one of my ex-clients, targeting Chinese students that were looking to graduate from a top university via a community college.
This is her story:
As a high school senior (12th grade), Teresa was accepted into various mid-tier universities, but Teresa chose to attend a community college because she believed it would be able to reduce costs and give her a higher chance of attending a top university. After analyzing her costs, Teresa realized that if Teresa transferred from a community college, Teresa would be able to graduate with a bachelor degree with zero student debt, not to mention coming out from a prestigious university brand. For a number of American students, they may choose a community college because it was closer to home. For example, she had a friend who didn’t go to a four year institution because he was working full time at a tech start-up and wanted to only take classes in the evenings. Overall, there are many reasons why community college is a more attractive option. Furthermore, during the first two years of college, students are enrolling in prerequisite classes; it is not until the last two years that students focus more on their majors. Therefore, a community college is an option for students who are not sure what they want to study. The best part about this is that it provides students with the opportunity to explore possible majors. Overall, there are many reasons why community college is an attractive option.
Although her two years at a community college was fruitful, and Teresa was able to take part in student government, intern for a non-profit organization, work part time, and even study abroad, it was not after transferring did Teresa realize the differences in resources between a community college and a four year institution. After two years, Teresa transferred to the University of California, Berkeley (my alma-mater; she has graduated by now and is now an alumni, just like myself). At Berkeley, Teresa was interacting with incredible professors who have invented life saving technologies worked in the White House under President Clinton’s administration, and won Nobel Peace prizes. Unlike a community college, four year universities have financial resources to fund international research, keep libraries open 24 hours a day, and have affiliations with other leading academic institutions. The resources available at a four year universities is incomparable to a community college. Four year institutions offer more internship opportunities, prestigious fellowships, and opportunities for students to assist professors on their next research projects, but that’s what makes it so appealing for community college students to strive for!
Nonetheless, if it weren’t for the community college system, Teresa was very certain that she would not have the springboard to catapult her into the best public university in the world, Berkeley, because it truly changed her life in spite of the vast differences a four-year institution can offer.
What about Chinese students you ask? The same applies here, and in fact community colleges make even more sense because while they would still be classified as an international student, they would already have had two years of fundamentals in a community college environment, which meant admissions criteria for those students would not be as arbitrary since there would be no need to convert Chinese grades into American guidelines, automatically raising chances exponentially to become admitted into a top university. This is great for students that may not have performed as well during high school, but still possess the necessary potential to enter a top American university - think of this as a wonderful second chance.
At the end of the day, nobody cares which school you attended in your first year, but everyone cares about what school you graduated from. It’s unsurprising that as much as my client and I were pioneers in pushing the community college transfer system back in the day, as of 2017 there are numerous companies endorsing this easy method of entering top American universities.
Andy的简介：
- Multicultural and multilingual: Grew up and lived in a number of countries, American-born Chinese -（Third Culture Kid）多文化和多语言:在多个国家成长和居住；美籍华人-典型第三文化人士(TCK)
- Leader in empowering corporate training and recruitment professionals with assessment methodologies and project-based learning andragogy为企业培训和招聘人士提供领先评估体系和游戏化的项目式学习的职场教学法的领袖
- Decade of experience in education and training, and expert in China十年以上的学生教育和企业培训的经验:并被很多本土和国外人士称为“中国通”
- Regular community event organizer with expertise in workplace gamification for employees定期社区活动的组织者:游戏化员工体系的主题
- UC Berkeley Alumni Club Ex-Leader and Recruitment Ambassador毕业于世界名校加州伯克利大学并担任校友俱乐部前任负责人和前任招生大使
- Third-party Interviewer for College Admissions美国第三方面试官(很多大学现在需要学生在提交申请书与第三方机构进行面试)
- Helped build a number of college admissions counseling departments负责搭建多个海外升学指导中心
- Unlike most “education experts”, personally attended more than a dozen schools growing up and personally went through the AP, IB, British, Singaporean and Hong Kong education systems相比其他所谓的“教育专家”，从小上过十几所学校，亲自体验过AP、IB、英国、新加坡和香港的教育制度
- Recently, created China’s first bilingual entrepreneurial and innovation educational events organization: Center for Youth Business Facilitation
在这一两年间，建立了中国第一个双语创新创业学习的活动平台: CYBF创习国际交流中心