Credit Transfer to a UC School

I'm looking into transferring to a University of California school and wondering how the credit transfer works. What should I know about UC's credit transfer policies, and is there a simple way to check if my courses will qualify?

Let's talk about the University of California (UC) credit transfer process. Firstly, the UC system generally looks favorably upon community college classes taken in California. If you're a California community college student, your path to transferring credits could be relatively straightforward.

The system has something called the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC), a series of courses prospecting California community college students can complete to satisfy lower-division general education requirements at UC campuses. You can find out more about this on the UC's official website or by speaking to your community college advisor.

That said, UC schools also accept credits from regionally accredited colleges and universities across the United States. One tool that can help is Assist.org. While primarily geared toward California community college students, it provides detailed outlines of how specific courses transfer to UC campuses.

Something important to note is that UC campuses have a minimum grade requirement for transferable courses. The grade in each transferable course has to be a C or better.

An important caveat is that UC campuses do not accept credits from vocational, technical, and career programs outside of those agreed upon by the UC and the community college under the IGETC. However, UC campuses may accept some of these credits on an ad hoc basis.

In general, the most accurate advice on this topic will come from the admissions office at the specific UC campus you're interested in transferring to, so it's always a good idea to reach out to them.