UCI Transfer Rejections

The Sept. 12 Times article, “UCI Rejects Thousands of Transfers--a Campus First,” and subsequent editorial states that the UCI campus has “turned away several thousand qualified transfer students.”

We believe the articles were misleading and implied that UCI did not honor its agreements with community college students. In fact, community college students were given highest priority for admission, and in every case where UCI contracted with students, those contracts were honored.

UCI did receive 4,000 applications from transfer students. However, 25% of those applications were either out of state or from other four-year institutions. Of the remaining 3,000 or so applicants, 35% were ineligible because of incomplete academic classes or failure to meet the required grade-point average. UCI has offered admission to the remaining applicants.

Interest in UCI by community college students has mushroomed. This year there was a 17% increase in transfer applications resulting in a more competitive applicant pool.

UCI is committed to the transfer function of the community colleges and will continue to give highest priority to those students wishing to transfer to UCI.

MANUEL GOMEZ

Associate Vice Chancellor

Academic Affairs

UC Irvine

Editor’s note: As UCI officials have said, the 17% increase prompted UCI to raise the grade-point-average requirement for transfer students from 2.4 to 3.0 for all but those with contractual agreements. And while UCI honored those so-called ZOT agreements, only about 80 of them existed. Previously, students had not needed them to ensure admission.