Last fall, UCLA received 15,245 applications from students hoping to transfer into the class of 2010. Many of those students were attracted through outreach efforts directed at them by the university.
Each year, through programs such as the Transfer Alliance Program, the Student Transfer Outreach Mentorship Program and many others, the University makes a concerted effort to attract prospective transfers.
As a result of its efforts, the university sees better-prepared students matriculating into UCLA, said Alfred Herrera, assistant vice provost for academic partnerships and director of the Center for Community College Partnerships. Its efforts are led both by the administration and by students. TAP, for example, collaborates with 45 community colleges across the state to create a partnership that provides a guided path for admittance to UCLA. Though students involved in TAP are still required to meet the same admissions criteria as their non-affiliated peers, the benefits they receive through participation are substantial.
“If a student participates in TAP, one thing they get is close attention from counselors and faculty (at their respective community college) to help them transfer. They also get the benefit of the faculty program head serving as an advocate for them,” said Betty Glick, assistant vice provost for undergraduate education and director of TAP.
In addition, the program’s participants are invited to attend UCLA’s annual TAP/Transfer Conference for further insight into the admission process, and if they are admitted, they have the opportunity to apply for scholarships that are only available to program participants.
With these benefits in hand, TAP participants tend to see higher rates of admittance to UCLA than do their non-participating peers. For admission into the class of 2010, of the approximately 1100 students who applied to transfer under the umbrella of TAP, about 86 percent were admitted, according to Glick. Compared to an admittance rate of nearly 35 percent for general transfers, TAP provides a clear avenue for students seeking to transfer to UCLA and plays a significant role in the University’s transfer outreach efforts.
To that end, programs create relationships with prospective transfer students not just on the administrative level, but also on the student level. This is achieved through such programs as STOMP and the peer-mentor program, which is run out of the Center for Community College Partnerships.
Each program sends current UCLA transfers back to the community college setting to help guide their prospective peers through the transfer process with their own personal experiences as a basis for constructive advice.
“We talk to them in a student-to-student dialogue and try to motivate them with the idea that, “˜If I did it, you can do it too,'” said Iris Lucero, a fourth-year women’s studies student who works as a peer mentor for the center.
As a mentor, Lucero, who transferred to UCLA from West Los Angeles College, returns to her alma mater to reach out to prospective transfer students not simply to attract them to UCLA, but rather to motivate them in their pursuit of the four-year university setting in general.
“My job is not just to give them the resources, but also to encourage and motivate them to a four-year institution: not necessarily UCLA, but a four-year institution,” Lucero said.
As Lucero and others mentioned, aside from UCLA’s concerted outreach efforts, there are intangible factors like the reputation of the university, the campus and UCLA family legacies that influence some students’ decisions. For some, including Gavin Shafron, a recent UCLA graduate and Santa Monica resident, attending UCLA was always a dream.
“I felt like it was the closest thing I could come to an Ivy League in Southern California,” Shafron said.