SDSU rejects transfers

It is getting hard to find a slot at SDSU and community colleges across the region are calling for a more trans­parent enrollment process at the state's most impacted university.

The university turned away a record 500 Southwestern College students and 2,500 transfer students from across the county. This year there were 61,800 applicants com­peting for 6,158 slots at SDSU.

Transfer stu­dents ran into problems last year with SDSU's supplemental ap­plication, a form very few universi­ties in California use. Counselors accused SDSU of throwing students out of the pool of applicants on tech­nicalities and computer glitches. This year SDSU increased the requirements of its transfer guarantee program, which resulted in many transfer de­nials, said Interim Transfer Director Jaime Salazar.

"They added new courses that only San Diego State offers or they are offered only at other community col­leges," he said. "Well Southwestern didn't get the word about those changes until they actively apply, and it was a little too late, and that is why there are so many denials."

Now, an organized body that repre­sents community colleges throughout San Diego and Imperial County has called for counselors to proactively call in students that have been denied and review their application for pos­sible appeal or to search for alternative transfer options.

He said transfer directors from com­munity colleges across the two counties were calling for transparency in the application process along with better communication and an agreement that the local universities will not change their rules in the middle of the transfer process.