The University of California guarantees admissions to transfer students

The University of California has released its first ever system wide admissions guarantee for qualified transfer applicants. The new policy guarantees admission to one of three UC colleges, if they are not accepted. These universities include UC Merced, UC Riverside, and UC Santa Cruz.

In order to qualify Applicants must complete specific coursework and maintain a certain GPA.

Michele Siqueiros, the president of The Campaign for College Opportunity, was critical of the changes on behalf of the University of Southern California. She believes that the UC System has much work to do to change how transfer students are admitted into the network of universities.

Siqueiros: Well, I think it’s important that the University of California is figuring out a better way to improve the transfer pathway for students. I think that’s what’s being demanded by the governor and the legislature. Unfortunately, I think that it is not enough.

She went on to explain how the new policy impacts students. Her main concern is that applicants will have too many choices to choose from. It may h ave the tendency to further complicate the college application process; even though it’s intention was to simplify it.

Siqueiros: And I think our concern is that if you layer on another pathway, right, that essentially you’re providing a long list of menu options for community college students to try and figure out. We should make it as simple as possible.

Later, Siqueiros argued for a different policy. Her policy simplified the terms and conditions for guaranteed transfer ad missions, and also wants to extend it to beyond three individual campuses. She believes that streamlining the process will be better not just for the universities, but for students as well.

Siqueiros: Hey, you need to do A, B, and C, and if you do those things and get these particular grades, you will have a spot at the University of California. So that’s important. I think that that guaranteed needs to extend across the University of California, not just to three particular campuses

The new proposal would not require campuses to accept students that they do not have room for, but nonetheless, school like UCLA and UC San Diego may experience a new influx of applications now that this policy is enacted.

For Annenberg Media, I’m Zain Khan.