My first post, hopefully it goes here

[mrs.b]

I'm a name recognition kind of person, too, so I had the same hesitation as you when sitting in your seat at first. Since I did ultimately want a graduate degree, though, I looked around, talked to some people, and realized that once you get a graduate degree, the undergrad school becomes near-invisible. The name on the highest level of education is what will ultimately matter, so my undergrad's name was just a stepping stone to get to my ultimate destination. With that in mind, I decided to go the cheapest and fastst way - making certain my short list of grad schools' admissions requirements were met - and that pointed me at TESC because I needed a lot of graded courses to take to pull my GPA up (heh, it had a long way to go from where I started) - and the Comprehensive Tuition was the most cost-effective means.

That may not be the case for you, but sit back and put pen to paper, listing your ultimate goals. Is San Diego State U's graduate program your sole goal as a final destination? Are there others that are interesting to you? Write out the admissions requirements of every school that you might want to consider when undergrad is done. Then decide if San Diego Mesa and San Diego State U's undergrad are your only options to meet those requirements, and look around and see if some other undergrad programs would fit the bill cheaper and/or faster. Taking the time now to put some thought into your final goals and destinations will likely save you some time and effort later. You might stay where you are, but there may be other options - not just one of the Big 3 - that will suit your interim needs better.