Preparing to transfer to a four-year university can be one of the most stressful and taxing endeavors a college student will undertake during their undergraduate tenure. It’s critical to employ the services of Skyline’s counseling department, which can help inform students to make educated decisions when they plan to transfer. If students aren’t proactive in keeping up with all the constant revisions in requirements for their chosen schools and study fields, undergraduates may find themselves in very unpleasant situations.

One of the most important things to do is to visit a counselor every semester and develop a Student Educational Plan (SEP), which will map out a student projected class schedule semester by semester.

“We would really like to try to get more students in to see counselors on a regular basis and develop SEP’s to make sure they’re meeting their goals without wasting time or taking courses they don’t need,” says Jennifer Hughes, dean of counseling at Skyline College. “We’re finding that many of our students are not getting counseling, and we hear later that maybe they’re in the wrong class or taking too many units than they should for the number of hours that they’re working.”

Seeing a counselor has become critical for students academically, because the acceptance requirements for most four-year colleges has been in flux recently due to major financial cutbacks, which has made getting into a CSU or UC college alot more competitive. It’s important to choose a university where undergrads feel they’re competitive, according to Linda Rosa Corazon, transfer center coordinator. Just because students may be eligible to enroll doesn’t guarantee them that they’ll be accepted. The grade point average for eligibility to the CSU system is 2.4.

“50 percent of students that get into Berkeley have a 3.5 or higher GPA,” says Corazon.

    What’s even more confusing is that each university is adopting unique admission standards and regulations as they struggle to deal with the influx of admissions and cutbacks in their own ways.

The constantly changing unit requirements can be a nightmare to manage. Cal State Hayward changed their unit requirements from 56 units to 60 units, and then back to 56 units last semester alone.

“It was like ping-pong, back and forth, and we had to try to keep abreast of that information to appropriately advise students,” says Hughes. “A student doesn’t have access to that information unless they really dig for it. But, it’s available at a counselor’s fingertip. How can students be expect to keep track of 23 CSU’s, which ones want 56 units and which ones want 50?”

Many schools are tightening up their restrictions allowing students to apply only during a ever-decreasing admissions time period, and instituting specific semester periods for the completion of required units, which leads to countless uninformed students waiting up to a entire year to apply to their primary universities.

“In the past some schools, like San Francisco State, you could almost apply up to the last minute, and on a space available basis, they would take students in, but no longer,” says Hughes. “Even places like State are becoming more and more impacted, so it’s really important for a student to file during that priority period and also check with us to determine which schools still have open admissions beyond that filing period.”

Transferring students also tend to focus on getting into their chosen universities and completely forget that there’s a separate set of requirements for entering into their chosen major. This second set of requirements doesn’t show up on many of the tools students use, such as the CSU’s General Education Requirement form, Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum form (IGETC), or the Project Assist database. A transferring student who has met all the acceptance requirements may be refused because they weren’t aware of additional courses needed to qualify for their major.

“I found out, for my major, I had to take two elective art courses,” said Jan Salazar, a Skyline College art major who is transferring to SF State. “If they didn’t inform me, I would probably be stuck here another semester”.

Additionally, Students should be aware that Skyline College has developed transfer agreements with many four-year universities, including UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, and UCLA. Also, UC Davis has a representative at Skyline every Tuesday to help answer any question students might have.

With a veritable maze of fluctuating restrictions, it’s important that Skyline students take advantage of the programs available. In addition to the counseling center, the transfer center offers transfer workshops on the weekends, which help applicants with their applications and personal statements, and the center also maintains an online presence at Skyline’s web page.

“We really try to connect students with a counselor, so if transfer is their goal, they can start from the beginning of their educational experience with us, so they can really plan and pick the courses appropriately,” said Hughes. 

Things to know:Skyline College Transfer Opportunity Center http://www.smccd.net/accounts/skyline/sts/tc.html

UC Davis TOP representative, Coleman Billingslea, is here every Tuesday from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. for student appointments. Sign up in Rm. 2227 or call (650) 738-4232.