Student fees aren’t the only things on the rise – as of this fall, UC Davis admitted its largest number of transfer students, accepting a total of 2,237 new students.
The 15.9 percent increase, compared with last fall’s smaller number of 1,930 students, is a direct result of the UC Board of Regents’ decision to increase transfer student admissions. In January, UC President Mark Yudof addressed the steady decrease of students who are ready to transfer after community college, with only 40 percent of students successfully making the transition to a higher education institution.
“Expanding the opportunity for a four year education is a critical need for California,” Yudof stated in a press release at the January meeting. “This is an area where modest investment can reap large dividends. We have solid data that transfer students who enter UC in their junior year perform very well relative to students who enter in the freshman year. If we can increase our transfer rates by a few percentage points per year, the cumulative outcome over a 10-year period would be monumental.”
In following this plan to place more emphasis on higher education for community college students, the UC Davis admissions office has implemented multiple resources to better inform students of the required prerequisites for admission to the UC system.
Carrie Soldati, currently enrolled at Diablo Valley Community College, was guaranteed admission to UC Davis for Fall 2010 through a program known as TAG, or Transfer Admission Guarantee.
According to the UC Davis admissions website, TAG is a formal, written agreement that outlines the courses students must complete and the grade point average they must earn before transferring from a community college. Provided that students complete the terms of the agreement and apply for admission during the open filing period, admission to UC Davis is guaranteed. The TAG program has been established at all 110 community colleges in California.
“The TAG resource really benefited me in the long run,” Soldati said. “It laid out the requirements I needed to complete to get into Davis, which helped me to formulate a plan and guarantee admission for the school of my choice.”
Yet transferring from community college, as reflected in the state’s latest annual accountability report for community colleges, has oftentimes been a challenge for many students waylaid by procedural obstacles. Differing admission requirements at each of the universities complicates the transfer process, where students struggle to complete the required coursework that satisfies admission standards for multiple schools.
“I found that once I had taken all the classes I needed, my options for which school I could attend were pretty limited,” said junior transfer student Gaby Lion.
“Each school has different requirements, and by the time I was done with mine, Davis was my only option” she said. “I never took Geometric Calculus, and that course was a prerequisite for most UC’s except for Davis. The process was a little frustrating, but all the UC’s are good schools so I was happy to get into any of them.”
Despite some confusion and complication in the transfer process, UC Davis is planning to continue increasing the proportion of transfer students in the entering class to 35 percent by fall 2020. Students interested in transferring to UC Davis can visit the admissions home page at admissions.ucdavis.edu.
REBECCA SHRAGGE can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
