My son was accepted to UCSC in Computer Science. He is considering going to community college and following the TAG program to hopefully get in to a different UC after 2 years. After reading up on TAG, we discovered there are several excluded majors including CS at UCSC. In fact, CS and engineering are excluded at the UCs he is interested in, UCI and UCSB. He was wait listed at UCI and UCSB so we don’t have much hope in those impacted departments.
I guess I’m stating the obvious, that the TAG program does not benefit my son since he is pursuing excluded majors. If he attends community college, we will apply and transfer without any benefit of a “transfer program”.
Our fear is that he will go to community college and not get accepted into CS or engineering at a UC two years later. We will be caught with our tail between our legs thinking we should’ve accepted the UCSC admission.
Are students successfully transferring in to engineering at UCs after community college or is it just as hard after high school?
A common theme here is that a CS degree is highly employable regardless of the college. Unless he hates UCSC (in which case, why did he apply there), he should take his acceptance and thrive there.
I would definitely accept the UCSC admission since it’s already to CS. Better to try to transfer from UCSC to a higher school than a Community College to a higher school. And if you fail to do the transfer, he’s at least already in a CS program. And yes, you are correct about the TAG restrictions, and they seem to be getting worse each year.
Also, it’s not clear to me that the CC CS classes are even transferable - you’d only get your GenEd classes out of the way, and then you’ll be cramming a 4 year program into 2 years or not graduate on time.
https://www.assist.org will show which courses at which California community colleges map to which courses at each UC and CSU.
Still, given the competitiveness of CS transfer admission, if UCSC is direct admission to CS, then it is a less risky option for getting into the major at a UC.
Thanks ucbalumnus! That’s a really awesome resource.
Let me clarify - UCSC will have a list of required courses for graduation in CS. While you might get general credit, I think it will be harder to satisfy particular classes with many of the CC courses. Generally there’s a UC/CSUtag (like Math 1A for Calculus 1) and I haven’t seen those on many of the CS courses.
Yes, as CS and Engineering majors have risen in popularity, the TAG program has been slowly excluding these majors from their program. UCD and UCSC just excluded CS from their TAG program for Fall 2022.
I agree with all the other posters that have stated if he has a direct admit into CS at UCSC, he should highly consider accepting. CS is a very marketable major and with UCSC close to the San Jose/Silicon Valley, I am sure there will be numerous internships and jobs available to him.
ASSIST makes it easy to figure out. For example, a College of San Mateo student trying to cover courses to transfer to UCSC CS can look here: Welcome to ASSIST (BA version) Welcome to ASSIST (BS version)
I agree with others. I would say go with UCSC over trying to transfer (unless costs are an issue). It seemed like a really nice school with a great vibe and location when I attended a conference there a few years ago. If you are hung up on rankings. In CS they are ranked the same as Dartmouth and better than Vanderbilt.