Instead of an expensive private school or a crowded state school, senior Jessica Gapoff decided to get her general education at a community college: Foothill Junior College.

Gapoff is just one of 315 seniors who will be attending college next fall. Twenty-three percent of seniors survyed plan on attending a community college, city college, or junior college.
“No one cares where you get your general education,” Gapoff said. “It’s a lot cheaper than a UC or private and I can still get the same tools I will need later on.”
However, Taylor Hansen, senior, felt that state budget cuts would have little impact on his college enrollment decisions.
“I was choosing between Cal Poly SLO and University of California Santa Barbara and I realized that the universities in California will probably get hit by the budget cuts the least,” Hansen said. “I wanted to be in a place where I could learn what I wanted and still have a good time.”
Although 32.5 percent of the seniors that will be attending college in California will be enrolled in a UC, many seniors said that the limited availability of courses at some UCs was a deterrent.
“I wanted to be able to finish college in four years and not take meaningless classes because I couldn’t get into my required ones,” senior Davis Bentley said.
Natalie Levy, who will attend Lewis and Clark College in Oregon next fall, had similar feelings about the demand for certain colleges.
“A lot of private schools and universities have so many students and can’t allow a hugely packed classroom,” said Levy. “I want to be able to get into the classes I want after my general education, and I want to be able to do it in a timely fashion.”
Ninety-eight seniors are planning on attending private colleges next year, with 31 of those students attending schools in California.
“I’m sure a lot of people would say that a UC or private is too expensive or too hard to get into, but a really large amount of kids are attending even with the budget cuts,” Bentley said.
Many members of the graduating class relied on sports to gain acceptance into their top college choices. Sports like crew, baseball, girls’ soccer, and girls’ swimming, and girls’ volleyball were some of the most commonly recruited sports of this year’s senior class.
“I chose Lewis and Clark mostly because I was recruited for their soccer team,” said Levy. “I liked the campus and their programs, but I wanted to be there originally because of the team.”
Bentley, who also chose his college based on athletics, felt that it definitely helped with the admissions process.
“It’s just one more thing that you can tell colleges to make yourself more marketable,” said Bentley, who will ride for the Mountain Biking team at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo next fall.