Over the past few years UC Davis has received a dramatic increase in applicants, fueled this year by prospective transfer students.
For fall 2011, a total 13,554 transfer applications were received, more than a 20 percent increase from the previous year. This growth demonstrates the university’s as well as the UC system’s goal to increase the number of transfers from community college.
“The reason to do it is because it is a good avenue for students,” said Lora Jo Bossio, associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs. “Having this route to a UC education, which is a phenomenal education, is going to be a huge asset to students moving forward.”
Bossio said that the university does not choose to increase transfer enrollment for monetary reasons.
UC Davis actively pursues community college students through both the Transfer Opportunity Program (TOP) and Transfer Admission Guarantees (TAG). TOP is a program between UC Davis and 18 different California community colleges, where UC Davis’ admissions staff visits the participating colleges to advise prospective students. TAG is a contract between the university and a community college student for guaranteed admission. The student must have a minimum grade point average, which depends on the student’s major, and a completion of required courses. UC Davis ratified 5,400 TAG agreements for fall 2011 – over an 80 percent increase from last year’s 2,900.
“If a student meets the TAG, we do accept them, and the way [admissions] limits this is by only accepting applicants within a certain time frame,” said Mary Dubitzky, a senior admissions staff member.
Joyce Lee, honors coordinator and counselor at Skyline Community College, said roughly 80 students were granted guaranteed admission through TAG this year – a significant jump from past years.
“With the implementation of the system-wide online TAG this year, many more students applied for TAG than ever before,” she said. “The admissions process can be stressful, so having a TAG is a great relief for most students.”
The system-wide effort to increase the amount of transfers was reinvigorated several years ago when UC President Mark Yudof reinforced UC’s commitment to transfer students and looked into major obstacles students at community colleges were facing, Bossio said.
Overall, the system has received a 7.3 percent increase in transfer applicants. Other UCs that noted considerable increases were UC Riverside with a 31.2 percent increase and UC Merced with a 22.4 percent increase.
UC Davis has yet to determine an admission target for next fall. However, last year 4,501 first-year students and 2,756 transfers were enrolled.
JASPREET BAHIA can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
