Brooke Higgins Uncategorized

How to Guarantee Admission to a UC

Getting into one of the University of California schools is a competitive process; one that requires strong grades and a good test score. And even if you have good grades and a good test score, admission is not guaranteed. 

Or is it?


Good news because if your dream is to attend a UC, there is a way to guarantee admission. 

As of August 2017, six of the nine UCs (Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz) offer a Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) for California community college students who fulfill all transfer requirements. Proper coursework and credits at the community college along with an application submitted on time are the main requirements.

There are some restrictions to TAG, like an exclusion on certain types of degrees at particular colleges. Business Administration at UC Irvine, for example, is a major excluded from this program. Similarly, TAG is not available for students who already have a bachelor’s degree or a graduate degree.

Also, you can only request a TAG for one UC and most UC schools only offer TAG for the fall semester. For complete details, check the admission information at the University California website here. 

TAG offers an excellent way to guarantee admission into highly selective and competitive colleges. And students would potentially save thousands of dollars starting first at a community college. Yet another reason to not stress about SAT and ACT scores during high school. 

For test prep tips on the SAT and ACT, contact CROSSWALK. The Monterey Peninsula’s primary resource for test prep, CROSSWALK specializes in SAT, ACT, PSAT, SSAT and academic tutoring. 

Brooke Higgins Uncategorized

Perfect Test Scores Never Enough

Your test score is only one piece of the college admission pie. 

My students know this the first day we start sessions. And I repeat this mantra over and over. 

The first reason I share this statement with students is to reduce any stress and anxiety they have about the SAT, ACT, PSAT, SSAT or other standardized test. 

Since stress is the enemy of test performance, it is important for students to understand that their test score does not determine everything about the potential for college acceptance. 

The second reason I share this with my students is so that they start to build out the rest of the pie. Admission decisions are based on test scores, GPA, essays, letters of reference, interviews, portfolios and more. Since test scores are only one piece of this, I encourage my students to work on the other pie pieces in conjunction with test scores. 

A college counselor friend of mine likes to tell the story of a student who did not have the test scores for UC Berkeley, or so he thought. He helped his client apply to UC Merced in addition to UC Berkeley so that we would have a viable back up option. His test scores indicated that acceptance to UC Merced was highly probable. Turns out the student did not get accepted to UC Merced but got accepted by UC Berkeley. Something happened along the way that had nothing to do with test scores. 

Another story worth noting happened recently at Harvard. The school rescinded the admission of ten students after the school learned the students had posted obscene messages on Facebook. These students undoubtedly had excellent test scores but test scores were not enough.  

Test scores can matter but a perfect score is not enough. Be sure you work on all aspects of your application, not just the measurable ones. 

For more test prep advice, contact CROSSWALK today.