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Onboarding opens by asking whether you are applying from high school or transferring from college. Answering “transfer” changes the product, not just a label.
There is no single transfer requirement. Rules differ by system and again by campus. Anything on this page or in the product is a starting point for a conversation with the receiving institution, never a substitute for it.
| Area | First-year | Transfer |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation | Activities, honors finder, testing, UK/UCAS | Those are removed; the transfer track replaces them |
| Milestones | College list, activities, essays, recommenders | Units, the unit threshold, major prep, college GPA, personal insight questions |
| Readiness | List, essays, activities, recs | Units, transfer list, essays, aid |
| Opportunity library | The full catalog | Only entries open to someone already in college |
| Graduation year | When you finish high school | The autumn you intend to enrol at the new university |
Transfer admission turns on units completed, major preparation and college GPA. Extracurriculars carry far less weight than they do for a first-year applicant, and the honors finder, testing tracker and UCAS track are all gated to secondary school. Leaving them visible would send a transfer applicant to spend time on things that do not affect the decision.
Most of the catalog is age- or enrolment-gated to secondary school. A college student cannot enter the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards or attend a rising-senior summer programme. Each entry carries an audience of high_school, college or both, defaulting to high school, and transfer applicants see only the last two, plus a transfer-specific set: the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, Phi Theta Kappa, the Cal Grant Transfer Entitlement, TRIO, ASSIST, TAG and the Transfer Academic Update.
All nine undergraduate campuses, Berkeley included. UC applies one systemwide minimum across every campus, then each campus and major layers its own major preparation and a far higher effective GPA on top.
All 23 campuses. Similar unit threshold to UC but a different general education pattern, and the Associate Degree for Transfer changes the calculation completely.
Everywhere else. No shared rulebook. Unit thresholds, credit caps, GPA minimums and whether your high school record still matters are all set institution by institution.
The 60-unit threshold shown in the unit tracker is a UC rule. A great many private and out-of-state universities admit sophomore transfers from around 24 to 30 credits, and credit caps and GPA minimums are set institution by institution.
Six UC campuses offer a written guarantee if you meet an agreed GPA and coursework: UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz. UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego do not. The track checks your college list and tells you which of your targets fall on each side. TAG is filed in September, a full year before you enrol, and you may only hold one.
Records completed and planned transferable units, your current college and your college GPA. The college GPA is mirrored onto the profile the PDF export reads, because for a transfer applicant that is the GPA that matters.
Only count units that actually articulate. In California, ASSIST is the record of which course at your college satisfies which requirement at which university, and it should be checked before you register, every term.
Applicant type is set during onboarding and stored on your profile. There is no in-product switch yet; a student who picked wrong currently needs a new account.