Transfer App question "have you been physically present in california?"

My daughter is finishing filling out the app to transfer to UC. A question at the end is have you been physically present in CA for the last 3 years excluding brief absences for vacation purposes." She’s in her sophomore year at an out of state 4-year-university so I assume she has to answer ‘no’ to this question. She’s lived in CA her whole life until college, has her car registered here, her drivers license here, etc. We just assumed she’d be considered a California resident still but I am not sure what this question means for her. What effect will this have on her application - will they consider her an out-of-state applicant for tuition purposes? Or for the GPA she must have to be admitted? Or both? Thanks for any help.

Check no, then write in additional comments:

“Born and raised in CA, attended 4 years at CA high school with graduation, a dependent of my parents who live in CA, CA drivers license and voting. Not physically in-state last two years due to college.”

She will technically be considered OOS in terms of college but is a CA resident so won’t get increased tuition.

If her permanent address is in California, and she is under 24, she should be considered a CA resident for tuition purposes.

If she graduated high school in California after enough years of attendance, then she also has the AB540 means of getting resident tuition and FA.

Thanks to all for the replies.

For residency issues with financial aid, they will require to send in proof once accepted. She may be initially set as an “out-of-state” student but she will only have to send in proof of residency to get that changed; i.e car registration, drivers license, and/or her high school transcript.

Thanks all. She submitted her application yesterday. She had sent an email about this also to the admissions counselor she’s emailed with periodically at one of the UCs and got this reply, in case anyone else is following this thread and is interested:

"This is one of many questions on the application used to help determine
if you are considered a California resident. You should answer No to the
question, but it does not mean you will automatically be considered a
non-resident. Other questions, like your permanent address are also
used.

The only difference for admissions purposes between a resident and
non-resident of California is that a non-resident needs to have an
overall transferable GPA of 2.80 or higher. Your GPA is much higher so
this shouldn’t be an issue for you. Also, since you graduated from a
California high school I’m going to guess your family still lives in the
California so more than likely you will be considered a California
resident.

Tuition is determined by the Registrar’s Office. I am not the expert,
but I’m pretty sure you would be considered a California resident for
tuition purposes as well. Here is the Registrar’s Office web site about
tuition https://registrar.ucsc.edu/fees/residency/index.html"

Yes, as I mentioned above they will calculate the applicant as OOS in terms of college, but resident in terms of tuition. They break things down into categories, such as how many applied from OOS colleges, how many from CCC, how many from CSU, how many internationals direct from overseas (which is different from internationals coming from a CCC).