Need some advice from those who are curretly or have ever been transfer students

[j0lly]

How important is it to graduate schools that I come from a big institution?

I am attending a fairly decent community college in Portland, OR. I am majoring in CIS (Computer Information Systems) and eventually plan to transfer my credits to a four year university. I have completed approximately 60 credits of course work relevent to my major.

My background is a little different as I did not attend high school in the U.S and hence do not have the various extra curricular activites that some universities demand. I have not taken the SAT exams either. With these factors, I would think that my chances of getting admission in a very big institution as a transfer student are fairly slim. I do not want to start volunteering at Goodwill just so I could put it down on my application. I do not want to take the SAT's because I doubt if it will do my any good at this point.

I am definately planning on getting my Masters after my BSc. I am planning to transfer my credits to OIT (Oregon Institute of Technology) to finish up my BSc. and want to make the graduate transition from there. OIT is not very big but the IT/IS program is pretty good. I would like to know how important is it to the graduate schools that I come from a big institution such as USC, CalTech, UofPenn etc.

Any insight/advice from those who have transfered their credits would be greatly appreciated. I am going to speak with the head of the Technology Dept. of OIT next week and I want to be prepared.

Thanks.

 

[rahvin]

When you transfer colleges the college often doesn't give a rats ass about HS stuff that they put freshman through. They are concerned with one thing generally, your GPA. You should contact the school (the college in particular) you want to transfer to though IMMEDIATELY, they will have a list of graduation requirements for the major you want and a list of what classes transfer (and what they transfer as) and what ones don't. If you didn't have this sheet when you started you are probably gonna end up retaking a class or two. As far as Graduate school, I can't offer much advice, GRE (did I get the right test?) scores are pretty important though.