I little background of myself
**I was accepted to West Point with SAT of 2100 and GPA of 4.4. I played Tennis, Track, and CC in high school, while my activities involved bunch of community services and an officer in a Interact club.
Completing basic training and finally starting my first year in West Point, I was very motivated to work as hard as I could in the first semester. However, at the end of the semester, I was disappointed with ending up having a couple of C's in my transcript. That's where it all fell apart. starting next semester I felt less motivated to do works, and I became distracted by games. Slowly my gpa dropped down to around 2.3 at the end of second semester of second year, and the academy expelled me for receiving an F on a class. Their decision was that looking at the grades from my high school and now, maybe West Point environment does not suite me.
I know that this isn't the case because truthfully, I believe the reason for failing is that I got caught up in a video game, playing 6-8 hours a weekday and all day during weekend. If I was given another chance, I promised myself that I wouldn't play that game again.
West Point, thankfully, actually gave me a chance. They call it "separation with the right to reexamination", which is that if I pass the final exam of the class I failed after 2 months of studying, West Point will consider accepting me if I reapply. So, I took the offer, passed the test, and got accepted to the academy the following year.
One of the requirement I had to fulfill after coming back is that I had to pass APFT (army physical fitness test). However, coming back to West Point, I failed the running portion of it. I never expected it because running was my forte.**
Right now I am having a very hard time deciding what may be my most important decision of my life. I am saying this because I already made so many bad decision in my college career that this may be my last chance to recover from it. My eventual goal is to transfer to a different college and join the ROTC. However, I am having trouble deciding which college to join. I have come up with two plans:
1) Immediately transfer to a different college. I have searched a few colleges and there are not many colleges that I can transfer just because my GPA is too low. I am not sure having spent two years at West Point is a good enough to make a leeway either. The most important factor is that many colleges have annual deadline to application instead of rolling admission. I found one college that I may possibly get into: Cal Poly Pomona.
CPP has quarter admission (meaning I can get in winter I believe) and their GPA limit is 2.0. If I take the summer class at community college to change my West Point grades from F and D's to A, I think I have a fair chance at transferring there. I need an honest opinion on my chance of getting there.
2) Take a year at community college and go to UC's. I was thinking of talking to counselors at UCs and consider applying to UCs after a year at CCC. My concern is that I don't know if it is possible to do this knowing how much I can raise my GPA in a year and possibly overloading my credit (I have over 60 credit already from West Point). I would really love it if I can get into Berkeley/LA/SD, but I feel like I am taking chances, and I would rather not risk applying after spending a year if my chances are low. I am not sure if I can even get into for lower UCs. Keep in mind that my intended major is chemical engineering. I actually know military science teacher at Berkeley and hope that puts me into some sort of advantage. My bet is that I can convince the admission through personal statement and a year of activity that although I made mistakes, I have changed into a better person.
Which path should I take? Try to transfer to CPP or take a year at CCC and apply UCs?
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