Transfer Pact Lures Students to UCSD

Steve Allen believes he probably could have gone to UC San Diego as a transfer student, based on his straight-A academic record at Mesa College, part of the San Diego Community College system.

But Allen, now a literature major at UCSD’s Muir College, doubts that he would have even applied to the prestigious campus without benefit of a guaranteed admissions arrangement between the university and the community college district.

Allen, who bounced from job to job between high school graduation in 1973 and renewed study at Mesa in 1986, is one of the first students to take advantage of the growing TAG (Transfer Admission Guarantee) program.

Established in June 1987, it guarantees admission as a junior to UCSD for any community college student satisfying UCSD academic requirements for the freshman and sophomore years at one of the three San Diego community college campuses.

“I don’t want to sound like a recruiter, but the program really works,” said Allen, now in Costa Rica studying Spanish as part of the UC Education Abroad program.

Students take a prescribed general-education sequence of 56 units in calculus, writing, foreign language, natural sciences and humanities, and maintain a 2.4 (C+) average.

Now in its third year, the agreement is beginning to produce large numbers of eligible community college transfers, and applications for next fall have tripled over 1989.

UCSD has extended it to the county’s other community college districts--Southwestern, Grossmont-Cuyamaca, MiraCosta and Palomar--and next month plans to sign up the Saddleback Community College District in Orange County. Depending on future numbers, the TAG route could become the only way to transfer to UCSD as an upperclassman.

The program gives breathing room to students who qualify for UCSD out of high school but prefer to start out with a less intense academic environment so they can mature academically and socially. TAG equally gives a second chance to those students who failed to meet UC admissions requirements during high school. Students sign a contract with UCSD to become eligible under TAG.

Allen said that, before he heard about TAG, “I was primarily interested in going to San Diego State because I didn’t really know about UCSD. What TAG did for me was to simplify things, to tell me exactly what I would have to study and what would be transferable to UCSD later, no questions asked.

“As a community college student, the last thing you want to do is to take a course and find out later that you can’t transfer it.”

Other UC campuses have followed with similar arrangements, as a way to clarify and expand on the state Master Plan for Higher Education. That plan envisions many high school graduates enrolling at community colleges for their first two years and then transferring to one of the eight undergraduate UC campuses or one of the 19 California State University campuses.

“I think it’s more psychological for students than anything else,” said Ronald J. Bowker, UCSD registrar and admissions officer, pointing out that a guarantee, rather than simply a high priority for transfer that qualified community college students traditionally have received, can eliminate uncertainties about their future course of studies.

“It’s not hard to market at all,” said Patricia Nunn, academic counselor at City College. “For the many students not eligible to attend UCSD out of high school, they come with the idea that they will not be eligible forever. . . . Now with the guarantee, it does help them psychologically to go forward.”

Bowker and his counterparts at the community colleges are following keenly the development of the TAG program because the growing number of students signing contracts, given the limited number of junior transfers that UCSD can admit each year, could result in TAG students being the only transfer students allowed to enter the university.

The program also is increasing the number of biology, calculus and other core academic classes offered at the community colleges, especially at night and on weekends, and has proven a positive push for those campus instructors as well, said Mesa College counselor Clare Hunter, who helped design the first TAG agreements.

Neither UCSD nor community college administrators have a good feel yet for how many of the more than 1,300 students with contracts will end up studying on the La Jolla campus.

Out of 197 contracts signed by students who planned to finish community college and enter UCSD last fall, 143 students actually filed applications to UCSD, 109 were admitted as having met the TAG academic requirements and 58 registered. Out of 65 agreements for entering UCSD’s winter quarter last month, 49 students filed applications, 40 were admitted and 37 accepted. And, for the spring quarter this year, 49 have been accepted out of 161 who originally signed contracts.

The numbers are likely to take a big jump beginning next fall. Three hundred thirty-five students have applied for admission in the fall of 1990 out of 602 agreements signed earlier with that target date, Bowker said.

“You see why we are so interested, because if a great majority of those who sign agreements do end up coming, we will not have room for very many intercampus transfers from other UCs as well as from other California four-year institutions, let alone those from out-of-state schools,” Bowker said.

Counselors have found that many students are unable to fulfill their contracts in the two-year period called for, and UCSD has granted a large number of extensions.

“I think that some students find that they can’t get the particular courses they need at the time the want, or they postpone taking a course right away that they might feel they won’t do well in,” Mesa College counselor Hunter said.

Also, many students attending community college must work full- or part-time while studying, which causes them to take more time in finishing the required courses. Others find the academic requirements too daunting and lower their sights.

Twin sisters Teresa and Veronica Alzona have delayed their transfers to UCSD until next fall--their original plans were to enter in the fall of 1989--because of their part-time work and some personal considerations. Both graduated from Mira Mesa High School lacking the needed credits to attend UCSD but now are near completion of the TAG course sequence.

“If we hadn’t had TAG, I think we might be scared about not having the right courses, or the grades,” Veronica said. “And we have a friend already at UCSD as a result (of TAG), and she’s doing real well--she got there faster because she didn’t have to work at a job.”

Bowker also suspects that some TAG-eligible transfers end up attending SDSU because some of its majors, such as its business courses, appear to offer a more immediate path to employment than UCSD, where many students go on to graduate study. Satisfactory completion of the TAG academic requirements qualifies a student for priority admission to San Diego State as well, although there is no guarantee agreement.

“Having taught a business course at Mesa for 12 years, I also find that many students do work full-time, and UCSD doesn’t really offer much for a student who wants to study part time or take evening courses,” Bowker said. “You can’t get a degree going here in the evening as you can at State, and our fee structure doesn’t cater to part-time students as it does there.”

Olga Rivera qualified for UC admission out of high school but felt more comfortable attending community college first. Although she continues to take the prescribed set of TAG courses at City College, she has decided to attend San Diego State next fall because it offers a business major.

“I am taking accelerated classes, and I feel that community college is better for the basics, to get a feel for things,” said Rivera, a single parent with a 5-month-old daughter.

Those students who have transfered to UCSD are doing satisfactorily, administrators say, although the campus does not track TAG students specifically in terms of performance.

“I think that UCSD is more accelerated because it is on the quarter system,” Allen said. “I would recommend that anyone starting out (after transferring) take only the minimum 12 units and then work up to 16 so they can get acclimated.

“The classes aren’t taught less professionally at Mesa, but the fact is that UCSD is more exciting,” Allen said.

So far, TAG has not attracted a large number of black or Latino students, which disappoints those counselors who thought it might spur students from under-represented groups to aim for four-year institutions.

“We are disappointed,” Hunter said, “but we are part of a nationwide decline in the number of Hispanics and blacks going to college.”

Hunter pointed out that the 56 courses required under TAG are “not the easiest in the world” and said community colleges need to give more counseling and academic help for students who come from high school unprepared for the rigor of the core classes.

In addition, UCSD may move shortly to make TAG requirements more difficult by increasing the grade-point average required for the guarantee from 2.4 to 2.8. Administrators expect to include the 2.8 minimum in the upcoming agreement with Saddleback and want to revise the existing agreements with the four community college districts in San Diego County.

“The general feeling is that the higher the grade-point average, the better they will do at UCSD, “Bowker said. “In addition, the faculty feels that since we are so selective in admitting freshmen--the fact that our median GPA is 3.89, and it goes up every year--that we should be a bit more selective in whom we guarantee a transfer to.”

Bowker said a community college student with a 2.4 average would still be given second priority for admission after TAG-eligible students.

Nunn of City College said counselors there have mixed feelings about raising the minimum to 2.8.

“Sure a student who has better grades will have a better chance of succeeding at UCSD, but there are always those students who get more serious once they get there and could make it” even with a 2.4, Nunn said. “But I don’t think it will hurt that much, since it doesn’t take that much more from a student to get a 2.8.”