You u really necessary have to make striaght A with preqs?

I don't think there is any requirement.  Actually, I transferred from University of Louisiana.  Most people start off from the community colleges to get a direct transfer to the Universities.  The only thing they required from me was to take uToefl (can't remember, but it was You of H's localised toefl) since I graduated from an international school. 

Some colleges might require some standards.  For instance, college of medicine, law and other colleges of special discipline.  Overall, you can get into the university world easily.