📘 TLC Guide Available
This topic includes a full-length TLC Guide for deeper exploration.
► Cultivating a Transfer-Receptive Culture
► Making Your Classroom a Transfer Student Hotspot
Who Are Our Transfer Students at UCSC?
In Fall of 2024, 1,275 students transferred to UC Santa Cruz, most from California Community Colleges, and most commonly with junior standing for Fall admissions. Sophomore transfer, dual admissions, and winter admissions are also pathways at UCSC (UCSC by the Numbers). Transfer students make up about 16% of UCSC undergraduates and represent an increasing share of the UC system overall.
Transfer students bring many strengths to our classrooms, including diverse career experiences, military service, parenting, and first-generation pathways into higher education. These varied experiences enrich class discussions and contribute to the diversity of thought on our campus.
Why Transfer-Inclusive Teaching Matters
While transfer students bring valuable strengths, they also face unique barriers when transitioning to a four-year university. These include:
- Navigating new physical and administrative systems.
- Adjusting to the faster pace of the quarter system.
- Building academic and social networks in a compressed two-year timeline.
- Gaining access to departmental connections and research opportunities early on.
These challenges are often compounded for transfer students of color, first-generation students, and those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Becoming aware of these barriers, fostering belonging in classrooms and departments, and prioritizing institutional support can help close equity gaps and remove obstacles to success.
Practical Ways to Support Transfer Students
Faculty and instructors can make a difference in everyday classroom practice. A few ways to start:
- Review practical strategies in Making Your Classroom a Transfer Student Hotspot (TLC Resource). This guide includes ideas such as adding a transfer-friendly welcome in your syllabus, supporting time management during the quarter transition, scaffolding group work, and explicitly pointing students toward key resources.
- Explore broader frameworks in the Cultivating a Transfer-Receptive Culture Toolkit (TLC + HSI Initiatives). This resource highlights the importance of equity-minded teaching, racial equity frameworks, and departmental practices that go beyond the classroom.
- Encourage campus connections. Direct students to the STARRS program, which supports transfer, re-entry, and resilient scholars, including veterans, parents, foster youth, and students returning after time away.
- Recommend Kresge 25. This two-credit course cultivates belonging and supports the retention and academic success of incoming and continuing transfer students.
- Integrate career and research pathways. Discuss graduate school or career goals in the context of compressed timelines, and share opportunities for undergraduate research as early as possible.
Explore More on Transfer Student Success
- Learn more about the transfer student experience by exploring the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students, The Power of Transfer Stories, or California State University’s News, Reflections on the Transfer Student Experience.
- Learn about the institutional barriers facing transfer students in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s The Transfer Maze article.