Didn’t get into UC Santa Barbara? New program aims to bring in more transfer students

The University of California’s new program for transfer students is aimed at high school students who applied to the system as freshmen, but did not get admitted.

The three-year pilot program seeks to bring in more transfer students from within California and has already sent out invitations to 3,700 recent high school graduates to join the program in the fall.

“This program was offered to a select group of students who were not offered admission to UC as a freshman applicant,” said Lisa Przekop, Executive Director of Admissions at UC Santa Barbara, “We believe these students have potential to be successful at UC as a transfer student.”

The Dual Admissions Program is offered to California high school students that applied for a UC school as freshmen but were not admitted. Whether they were missing transferable coursework or their high school did not offer the required classes, those students are still offered an alternative path to admission to their school of choice.

This new program will build on the Transfer Admissions Guarantee (TAG) program that is still currently being offered but will have added benefits such as additional guidance from a UC advisor, access to UC libraries and waiver of UC application fees.

“I didn’t apply to universities in high school because I already knew I was going to TAG to a UC,” said Leah Elliot, a fourth-year UCSB student. “I would have done the Dual Admissions if it was offered when I went to community college.”

The Transfer Admissions Guarantee program, known as TAG, is a UC program established in 2018 that allows guaranteed admission for California residents who met GPA requirements prior to transferring to one of six participating UC schools, for select majors.

“I couldn’t TAG because of my major so the application process was hard,” said Jessica Moses, a third-year chemical engineering major at UC San Diego.

TAG and Dual Admissions don’t guarantee admission to all UC campuses and majors. Three schools are excluded from the programs and the majors that are offered vary on a school-by-school basis.

UCSB boasts a 58% admission rate for transfer applicants and an estimated 90% of those students go on to earn a degree, so the additional help from the applicant’s school of choice ensures that students receive as much guidance as possible as on their path towards their degree.

In fall of 2022, UCSB admitted 25.9% of freshman applicants (28,701 of 111,000 people) and 58% of transfer student applicants (10,228 of 17,610 people). And 93% of the admitted transfer students were from California community colleges.

Dual Admissions is now up and running and all 116 California community colleges have been trained on the program, according to the University of California.

UCSB campus officials said they have the capacity to accommodate more transfer students and the program is meant to streamline the transfer process.

Ernesto Centeno Araujo is a Noozhawk contributing writer and a student at UC Santa Barbara.