Sung Kim says his high school friends laughed at him when they found out he was going to a community college.
“They thought it was supposed to be a place for retards, so I felt like one,” he says.
Kim graduated from North Garland High School in Garland with a 3.7 GPA. At Richland Community College in Dallas, he maintained a 4.0 GPA but says he had to work hard for it. Eventually, he transferred to SMU where he graduated with a major in advertising.
Kim is one of 325 students that transfer to SMU annually. Officials say these students arrive well prepared.
Ginger Oravsky, associate director of admissions at SMU, says that the idea that all community college students are not good enough to attend a standard four-year university is not true. Rehana Nayyer, an admissions counselor at SMU, adds that not all students go to community colleges because they weren’t able to get into other universities or colleges.
“Most of the transfer students that apply, they are well-rounded,” says Oravsky.
There are various reasons why students decide to transfer. Some take a year off to travel before starting college. Sometimes it is because of bad grades in high school, Oravsky says. But most of the time, it is financial reasons.
Clayton Waas is a sophomore cinematography major at Richland. A graduate of Richardson High School, he says it was convenient for him to attend the nearby community college. He is currently taking his basic courses to save some money. While he says Richland is a good school to get a start at, he would like to transfer to the University of North Texas or the University of Texas at Dallas next year.
“I suppose they have quite a bit of money,” he says of people who look down on community college students.
According to the Dallas County Community College District’s Web site, a three-hour class costs $117 or $39 per credit hour for Dallas area residents. For out-of-county residents, the rate is $72 per credit hour.
At SMU, tuition for an undergraduate student taking 12 to 18 hours is $12,700, as of spring 2007. Taking a 12 hour load at a community college would equal $468.
Kim, a recent SMU graduate, decided to attend Richland because he did not know what he wanted to major in. Kim says he did not want to spend thousands on general courses such as English and history when the same class costs significantly less at a community college.
Kim transferred to SMU after two years at Richland, which is typical, according to Oravsky. He originally wanted to apply to the University of North Texas when he heard from a music professor about a scholarship at SMU for transfer students.
The Dallas County Community College District Honor Scholarship is available to any transfer student in the Dallas area. Regardless of the name, the scholarship for half of tuition is available to anyone transferring to SMU. Any student who has at least 50 transfer hours and a 3.7 GPA receives the scholarship automatically.
Another scholarship pays full tuition. The Community College Scholarship is only available to students from Dallas, Collin and Tarrant County Community Colleges. It is applicable only in the fall semester, and the student must turn in a separate scholarship application along with a transfer application. In June, 25 eligible students with at least a 3.7 GPA are selected for interviews and 10 of them are given the scholarship.
Kim submitted the required material for the Community College Scholarship and was selected as a finalist. However, because he was unable to make the interview, he received the DCCCD scholarship.
To transfer to SMU, a student must have a 2.7 minimum GPA on transfer credits. He or she then must submit an application, essay, resume, and college and high school transcripts. If the student has fewer than 30 credit hours, he or she must also provide an ACT or SAT score. Oravsky says that all students who apply are automatically considered for the scholarship if they qualify.
Oravsky says that the transfers do at least as well as students who start out at SMU. Several students have done better in Cox because they have already taken their core business courses.
Some students who transfer are a part of Phi Theta Kappa, an international honor society at two-year colleges that requires at least a 3.0 GPA, Oravsky says.
Nayyer says that the students are not predominately Caucasian and are usually more diverse. Sometimes they are not U.S. citizens.
“The transfer students bring ethnicity, diversity and a lot of culture to our campus,” Oravsky says.
About 800 transfer students apply in the summer and fall, and 325 are admitted. In the spring, around 125 students apply. Hopefully, Oravsky says, the number of fall applicants will soon grow to 1,000.
“That way we can be more exclusive in choosing students,” she says.
Qualifications for transfer students are also rising. In 2000, a student had to have a GPA of at least 2.5 to apply. Now, it is 2.7, and the numbers may rise to 2.9 and then a 3.0 in the near future, say officials.
Students who transfer are often more mature, Oravsky says. They have already proven themselves academically at the community college. And some of them are adults in their 50s and 60s.
Most of these students graduate on time, and do not stay in college more than five semesters. Oravsky says they are driven, and are much more motivated.
“Most of these students are working at the same time while trying to get their degree. They’re more serious about their studies,” Oravsky says.
Although SMU classes were harder overall, Kim says there were classes at the community college that were also challenging.
Certain aspects of Richland were better than SMU, Kim says. As an advertising major, Kim says the multimedia program at Richland was amazing, and he can’t imagine taking such a class at SMU.
The computers, music equipment and language labs were also much better at Richland, he adds.
“Community college is an amazing place where you can learn amazing things at an affordable price,” Kim says.
