Really? Interesting.
@luckie1367, here it is for freshmen:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/how-applications-reviewed/index.html
The fourteenth of 14 points:
@luckie1367, here it is for transfer students:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/transfer/reviewed/index.html
The eighth of nine criteria for assessing/admitting transfer students:
Whew, I found it! I was worried it was just a rumor, and I might steer some poor soul wrong!
Someone buy me a beer.
@ItsJustSchool
Thanks
I didn’t even know that getting an ADT helps me for UC transfer.
@bomerr, I didn’t either. I thought it was just sort of gravy.
@ItsJustSchool
I know an ADT forces at least 1 CSU to offer admission. But I thought it was limited to the CSUs and not the UCs.
Wow! Thanks @ItsJustSchool! You rock!
I had no idea, thats so wierd! I guess they don’t really mention it since it is not a huge factor.
I owe you a drink 
I just don’t think that is true re: AA degree, even though it says it on that link. I repeatedly see reference on UC sites that they don’t care about AA degrees. I just grabbed this quick link, which happens to be Merced, that says AA is irrelevant. So that’s kind of contradictory (which I have noticed before on UC pages).
http://admissions.ucmerced.edu/faq/transferring-uc-merced
Also, the two pages that note “location of college /high school” ^^^ could simply mean California. While I know some CCCs are feeders, usually it’s because the student going there wants to be near home, so chooses a close-by UC (meaning the student chooses a certain zip code UC). The vast majority from SMC are choosing UCLA. Does that mean the ones in the Bay Area choosing UCLA (way less) don’t have a chance? I don’t believe that.
I guess my viewpoint is you need to know all the parameters to figure it out, and without knowing the entire process, promoting certain CCCs over others to gain entry into a particular UC, kind of stresses students who aren’t there. My experience has been kids with high GPAs usually get in no matter where they attend. So that’s the position I take, whether right or wrong. And God knows, I could be wrong. I’m just making a personal choice. 
@lindyk8
AA/ASs don’t matter. Reason being is they are created by the individual CC. In the past people would get AAs at CC and then realize they didn’t even meet the pre-reqs for their transfer major. Thus the ADT (AA-T/AS-T) was born. This is a state program and so it carries weight.
As for local proximity. As I said with Cal/UCLA admission almost at the HS level of competition, any advantage a student can get makes a world of difference. UCLA TAP offers a 90% admissions rate O_o And I have seen under qualified students get in because of it.
But aren’t the AA-T/AS-T just for CSU? We’re talking UC. That UC link mentioned AA as a consideration, but I have not witnessed that.
And yeah I get it re: feeders. I just notice that some students freak out if they feel they aren’t at SMC, for instance, and I’m just saying, it’s not the end of the world. I remember two years ago when I chanced upon that CCC transfer page to the UCs, and CSM (my daughter’s CCC) sent 12 students to UCLA, and down the road about twenty minutes De Anza sent like 350 (something like that…). I almost had a heart attack! Anyway, it’s partly (not totally) because CSM just doesn’t have as many applying to UCLA.
Although I will also add her advisor stunk, so I’m sure some applicants either didn’t have pre-requisites or had lower GPA. De Anza students are higher international, and more focused, in general. They are in the Bay Area and have a very high UCLA transfer rate. But, like SMC, they are considered serious contenders.
Use http://www.assist.org to see which community colleges offer the courses that cover as many as possible of the pre-transfer required and recommended courses for public health at UCI. For example, Orange Coast College has all but two courses covered for either the public health policy or public health sciences major at UCI.
http://www.assist.org/web-assist/reportOnly.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&rinst=left&EM=1&sia=OCC&ia=OCC&ria=UCI&oia=UCI&ay=14-15&dora=PHLTHPOL
http://www.assist.org/web-assist/reportOnly.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&rinst=left&EM=1&sia=OCC&ia=OCC&ria=UCI&oia=UCI&ay=14-15&dora=PHLTHSCI
@lindyk8, I think you are viewing this as an all-or-nothing. I suspect that you are right that
and over time, UC apparently has tweaked its weighting algorithm to accept these students and make everybody happy. If they did not “put their thumb on the scale,” so to speak, students would be sent haphazardly all over the state regardless of what they want. Even convicted felons get to be placed geographically close to home. I think you are also correct in saying,
This shows that the student choice and performance takes precedence over geography. So a kid going to SMCC may get accepted to UCLA and UCSB, but not UCB, whereas an identical DeAnza student may also get admitted to Berkeley.
No, of course not. But if they are on the borderline, they would not get in, whereas if they were borderline from an LA-area CC, they would get in.
It’s true @itsjustcollege, there can be both. 
I really wish they would be a bit more transparent in terms of the process, but that’s their prerogative. There’s no doubt that those top CCCs get the students into the UCs! And I will say, knowing certain ones deliver has the advantage of the UC anticipating, in a general sense, how well the student is likely to perform at a UC.
Ok, I just found a UCLA transfer rate by CCC from a few years back. It shows admit percentage by CCC, based on the number of applicants. There are numerous Bay Area and other CCCs with a higher transfer rate than SMC. This is what I meant - you can’t just go by isolated numbers.
A few examples:
Admit percentage based on number of applicants:
SMC - 39%
College of San Mateo -32.58%
San Jose City College - 50%
San Francisco City College - 41.51%
Shasta College - 47%
Skyline College - 39.58%
Napa Valley College -41%
Laney College - 42.7%
Plus, there were some smaller CCCs with a 50% admit rate.
This does not seem to indicate that SMC has much of an edge.
https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof09_CAcc.htm
Admit rates do not necessarily mean that the particular CC is any better or worse – a higher admit rate may just mean that the CC has a stronger group of students applying to UCLA or whatever.
Admit rate doesn’t tell the full story.
SMC has the largest amount of students applying to UCLA and thus it has the most students admitted into UCLA . So size of the student body applying is a large factor.
Furthermore admit percentage doesn’t tell us the stats of the applicants. How does a borderline 3.6 student without TAP do at De Anza v one at SMC with TAP?
Admit rates only tell the percentage of students admitted from a certain college.
I would like to address the “Location of the college and your residence” criteria. In my opinion, this is referring to the distance from your house to your current college(s) and not your proximity to the UC. They might consider the latter, but I doubt it would be a deciding factor/criteria in their comprehensive review. Again, just my opinion Thoughts? @ItsJustSchool @lindyk8
Except that 61% of students applying to UCLA from SMC did not get in. So, yes, there are more people applying from the feeder school and simply because of sheer numbers, more are getting accepted. These high figures can look like SMC is just shoveling them in with admit rates astronomically higher than other CCCs. But that’s not really the case. Again, almost two-thirds did not make the cut, a figure reflected at numerous other CCCs.
UCB does not have figures, as far as I can tell. But I believe if they did, we’d obviously see way more bay area people getting accepted,. But that doesn’t mean by default that the Bay Area feeder school has the edge over others because the related applicant pool would be substantially higher as well.
I’m just pointing out that simply looking at admit numbers in isolation does not give a full picture.
@anothertransfer, there is a presumption that people perform better when they are in their familiar territory; that the roots and ties they have to friends, family, and place (and places) have not only a draw of the familiar and the comfortable, but serve as their support network. Jobs, volunteer activities, church, family- there are many things that tie one to “place.”
Certainly for Freshmen, the guidance counselor explicitly said this referred to the location of the high school relative to the UC, as well as the location of the home address relative to the UC. For transfer students, especially since they are older, and perhaps more independent and have started forming adult networks of their own, the arguments above are even more germane. I believe it refers to the location of your permanent (home) address and its proximity to the UC, as well as the proximity of your current college to the UC.
The added benefit this gives you is probably not super-strong, but it is a factor according to the official UC website.
Why would UC consider the distance between your home address and your current college as a factor in the acceptance to a UC? I am not following.
This is my opinion, too; just what makes sense to me in how to interpret that statement about transfer students.
@bomerr here is the next part of this friendly debate. You talk about a borderline student perhaps getting an edge at SMC. I do agree with that assessment. But then, that opens up the next part: if the student were not given the extra perks and judged just as he or she would be elsewhere, then by your own assessment, that student would not get admitted. So, the reality is that the SMC stats would be LOWER if they were playing by the same rules.
Now a person might counter with, yeah, but they grade harder at SMC, that’s why they’re easier on borderline. Well, if that’s the case, then you won’t be borderline somewhere else and will have a higher GPA because they grade easier.
The point is, whatever is going on over there, the admit rate is nothing out of the ordinary.