Students Attempting UC-to-UC Transfer Are Enrolling in Community College. Here’s Why

Darra Lewis always knew she wanted to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Growing up in New Jersey and moving to California for her senior year of high school, Lewis applied to UCLA but ultimately was rejected. Instead, she was accepted to another top university in the UC system: Berkeley.

“I had no clue what Berkeley was,” Lewis told BestColleges. “I was a UCLA-or-bust sort of person.”

Shortly into her first year at Berkeley, Lewis said she wanted to transfer.

“I just knew Berkeley wasn’t my fit. I think I only chose it because people were telling me to go there, and it was a good school. But I knew by probably the third week that I was there that I couldn’t see myself graduating from there,” she said.

UC-to-UC transfers can be challenging. However, UC has an agreement with California Community Colleges (CCC) to guarantee admission for qualified community college students. That means students have much better odds of getting into their dream UC campus if they transfer from a community college.

“Going from UC Berkeley to UCLA is very hard and competitive, and I knew that if worse came to worse, I didn’t get in, I didn’t want to spend another year at Berkeley,” Lewis explained.

“So I ended up going to Santa Monica College, which is the No. 1 transfer community [college] for UCLA, where I wanted to go. And honestly, it was the best experience I’ve ever had in my whole life.”

In fall 2024, 92.6% of admitted transfer students to UCLA came from California community colleges. Only 5% were UC-to-UC transfers in 2023.

The data is similar at other popular UC campuses, with transfers from California community colleges constituting at least 90% of transfers at each UC campus with undergraduate education, reaching as high as 95.4% at UC Santa Cruz.

“The UC system gives priority to students transferring from a California community college over students transferring directly from another four-year institution or from a community college outside of California,” Dr. Janet Robinson, transfer center faculty leader at Santa Monica College (SMC), and Estela Narrie, articulation officer, wrote in a joint statement to BestColleges.

“We see ‘reverse transfer’ students all the time who previously attended another four-year institution and now they are attending SMC with the goal of attending one of the UC campuses — it is very common.”

A 2018 memorandum of understanding between CCC and UC emphasizes the state’s commitment to “a high-quality, low-cost, postsecondary system that provides access that is inclusive of all Californians who wish to pursue a four-year degree and the associated academic challenges — and discover the educationally transformative qualities of — a four-year college degree.”

Six UC campuses offer guaranteed admission to students from all 116 California community colleges through the Transfer Admissions Guarantee (TAG) Program who meet TAG qualifications and campus-specific requirements.

Three UC campuses not included in the TAG program — Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego — give priority to transfer students from California community colleges.

At UCLA, the UCLA Transfer Alliance Program (TAP) “enhances” students’ chances of transferring to UCLA for their junior year from over 50 state community colleges.

Robinson and Narrie described the transfer process at the Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego campuses as “very competitive,” though not impossible if the transferring student has completed the necessary coursework, performed well in those classes, and followed any other steps necessary for transfer outlined by the campuses.

The major a student selects for transfer should also be heavily considered, they recommend, as some majors and academic programs are more selective than others and could impact the admissions process.

Lewis said that she was apprehensive at first about going from a four-year college to a community college and the stigma that may be associated with attending community colleges.

“On the East Coast, it’s more [that] you don’t go to community college unless you don’t know what you’re going to do, or you have other circumstances like you don’t get into anywhere for college,” she explained.

“But [in] California, you have some of the smartest kids and some of the most talented kids going to community college to save money and ultimately get into their dream school.”

Alicia Chen, a junior business administration major at Berkeley, had a similar experience to Lewis. Chen attended UC Santa Barbara after high school, majoring in economics. After her first year in Santa Barbara, she knew she wanted to transfer.

“It just wasn’t really for me, considering the cost of the school itself and the struggles with having to find places to live for my sophomore year, it was a lot of stress,” Chen told BestColleges. “… I felt like the transfer route from UC to [community college] back to a UC would be like a second chance for me to try again.”

Despite transferring out of a university, Chen wanted to stay on track with her four-year degree plan. She did this by enrolling in two community colleges simultaneously, “doubling up” on classes to ensure she could transfer out of community college in just one year.

At Diablo Valley College, she took classes on a semester system, whereas her courses at De Anza College were on a quarter system.

“It was hard. At one point I was taking five courses simultaneously, and this was while I was living at home, too, so I was also working full time,” she explained. “So, I really had to plan out my day and make sure that I was completing all these requirements.”

Both Chen and Lewis spent one year in community college before transferring to their dream schools, made possible by transferring the majority of their credits from their first universities to their community college.

Chen and Lewis recalled positive experiences with community college counselors and the ease of the transfer process from community college to UC. Lewis added that, in hindsight, she wished she had gone straight to community college from high school.

“If I had the choice, I would have just done two years at Santa Monica and just transferred in from there,” she said.

“The counselors were great. The classes were great. Even getting help with transferring and the credits and stuff like that, they made it super easy … and I felt supported by not only the staff but also the other students there.”

Chen and Lewis are now juniors at their respective universities and are excited to attend classes on their dream campuses.

They echo each other in recommending their transfer journey from a four-year university to community college back to a four-year university to other students who may not feel like they fit on campus and may be hesitant to make a change.

“A lot of people will attend universities for [many] reasons — maybe their parents wanted them to go to that specific school, or they didn’t really like it, and that’s the only one they got into, which was my case,” Chen said.

“I definitely think that CC is sort of a redemption for students who want to try to get into other schools. I don’t think there’s any shame involved in going back to a CC. I think it’s very reasonable to want to retry for the CC-to-UC pipeline. I highly, highly recommend that.”

Lewis advised students to not give up on their dream college if they don’t get accepted as a first-year student.

“If you know that you want to go to a college, and that’s been your dream forever, I’d say, keep on following that dream. I always wanted to go to UCLA, and I never gave up on it, even when I thought there was no chance that I was ever gonna step foot on that campus,” she said.

“I’m really grateful for my community college experience and also my experience at Berkeley, for sort of opening my eyes and helping me grow and see that I have to start taking these steps and do what makes me happy, instead of doing what other people want me to do.”