CSUs impacted, transferring now more competitive

Community college students seeking to transfer might find the process more challenging this year than in the past.

With the California State University system battling a $584 million reduction in the 2009-10 budget, the schools are required to decrease new student enrollment.

Meanwhile, applications have dramatically increased.

Having to admit fewer students, partnered with an increase in applications, has caused several of the 23 CSU campuses have had to declare themselves impacted, which has changed the way they admit students.

Representatives from CSU Fullerton, Cal State L.A., CSU San Bernardino, Cal Poly Pomona and several other local campuses were on the Citrus College campus on March 25 to address the Transfer Task Force regarding changes caused by impaction.

Currently, Cal Poly Pomona, Fullerton, Long Beach, San Diego and Sonoma are designated as impacted.

"Campus impaction says that you have to define what your service areas are," said Ed Trotter, CSU Fullerton's acting associate vice president of undergraduate programs. "We've always had service areas. But what's happened is that this is the first year we've had to strongly enforce them."

A greater emphasis will now be placed on a student's GPA.

"A vast majority of our transfers come from Citrus and Mt. SAC who are in our service area," said Cal Poly Pomona senior media coordinator Tim Lynch. "We have substantially fewer seats available so the bar has been raised."

According to Cal Poly Pomona's admissions Web site, notifications to waiting list applicants will be sent in April and tell if accommodations can be made to admit additional students.

"There are more people wanting to come to the CSUs than our budget can accommodate," Trotter said. "It's not only transfers; We had to cut our freshmen class as well."

According to Trotter, CSU Fullerton is admitting students with 3.8 GPAs and above. Students with lower GPAs will be admitted as space permits.

Tammy Leung, Assistant Director, Office of Outreach, Recruitment & Orientation at Cal State LA also attended the meeting.

"We made a commitment that we are going to take whatever resources we have and commit them to our current students, who were former transfer students," she said.

Because of this, CSULA had to declare impaction

"CSULA thinks they will not fall below 2.7 GPA for out-of-service-area students. Cal Poly Pomona doesn't think they will admit anyone with lower than a 3.0 GPA, and CSU San Bernardino plans to give first priority to residents of San Bernardino and Riverside counties," Justina Rivadeneyra, Citrus College Career/Transfer Center coordinator said.

So many transfer students were not admitted during early rounds of the admissions process that many CSU campuses have instituted waitlists.

Transfer applicants are eligible for CSU Fullerton's waitlist if  they have a cumulative transfer GPA of 3.30 to 3.69 and were in good standing at the last college or university they attended, earned 60 or more transferable units, completed 30 semester units of college coursework with a grade of C or better, and completed of the General Education requirements or Inter-segmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC).

If CSU Fullerton utilizes the waitlist, applicants will be admitted based on GPA from highest to lowest, according to CSU Fullerton's  admissions website. If the waitlist is used, the CSUF admissions committee will start selecting students in late June or early July.

This is the first year that a waitlist has been instituted at Cal State L.A. Leung did not say what the GPA cutoff would be for admission, but she did say students have already been informed if they have been waitlisted. Those students will be notified again if there are seats for them in late May or early June.

"I'm hoping that the CSUs can find a better way to solve this problem," said Karlyn Bradley, president of the Associated Students of Citrus College. "There needs to be a more fair way than just relying on local service areas because relying only on that may hurt someone who has a higher GPA if they live outside of the service area."

Citrus College is working to ensure that students are as prepared as possible for the transfer process.

"Citrus College will continue to advocate for priority admission to our local CSU: Cal Poly Pomona. We will continue to prepare our students for transfer to the CSUs and we will work to ensure that our students are aware of the competitive environment in terms of transfer," said Citrus College superintendent/president Geraldine M. Perri, Ph.D.

"Now more than ever, we will encourage our students to take full advantage of the various support services that are afforded to them to assist them in successfully completing their classes at Citrus. As the competition to the CSU grows, it will be critical for our students to be as best prepared as they can be and to have competitive GPAs."