Son currently at UCSC has transfer admission offer from UC Davis into a major of his choice and is considering whether to transfer or not. He does not have the same major at UCSC. He has completed a majority of the GE courses but has not been able to finish all GE courses by the spring quarter to be able to get the reciprocity letter. He has two GE courses left. Can he get the reciprocity letter if he finishes the 2 GE courses in the summer quarter?
If that is not possible, what are his options regarding the GE courses? This question also applies for other UCs whose results are yet unknown and may also apply to other students going from one UC to another.
The UC Davis GE requirements page says the following:
Transfer students who have not completed the IGETC, and who are not entitled to graduate under the provisions of a General Catalog issued prior to Fall 2011 as permitted by the applicable college policy on degree requirement changes,are required to satisfy all General Education components under the current General Education requirement but may offer previously completed coursework toward its satisfaction.
I assume that means that he needs to go through all the GE requirements
at UC Davis and offer the previously completed matching UCSC GE courses as satisfying some of the GE requirements. And then take the remainder requirements at UC Davis. Can he get the decision of which GE requirements he already satisfies before deciding whether to transfer or not?
I would call UCD to get the correct answer to your question since only they could tell you what would be expected if the Reciprocity is not fulfilled. As with the transfer requirements which can be different for each UC campus, I am sure it may be be similar with the answers you receive regrading the GE requirements so the student may end up contacting all the UC campuses of interest before making their final decision.
For some other cases, it is possible to make a reasonable guess even if there is no known transfer equivalency and UCD is not willing to do pre-matriculation transfer equivalency assessments. Given the criteria listed at Transfer Equivalency , pre-matriculation transfer equivalency assessments should be considered unlikely.
An update on this: before doing the SIR (statement of intent to register), he was able to confirm with UC Davis that the reciprocity letter could be provided at any time. It does not have to be present at the time of the SIR - as SIR and the reciprocity letter are two different things. He took the two GE courses over the summer quarter at UCSC - which was not very hard as he could attend those online without staying on the campus. UCSC has given him the reciprocity letter a few days ago. He will forward the letter to UC Davis and likely should be processed sometime during the fall quarter. In any case not having the reciprocity letter at the time of SIR did not hamper him in anyway - he just avoided registering for any new GE courses at UC Davis.
Hopefully this helps some kid in a similar situation in the future years. Still this process was not very smooth as many folks on the helplines are probably other students and are not very knowledgeable of the processes.