I posted this 6 years ago so I’ve updated it with current info/links and because the older version got locked due to age so nobody could post questions.
With admission decisions out in a few weeks I wish everyone luck!! But if you don’t get in there is an alternative approach. In a nutshell: attend Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) and use the guaranteed transfer program (TAG) to transfer to UCSB. A lot of kids do this; according to the SBCC website “UC Santa Barbara leads all campuses with the most SBCC transfer students, who make up about one-third of their transfer pool.” With enough AP credit you’ll spend just 1 year at SBCC and 3 years at UCSB. The big difference is that for a year or two you won’t be taking classes on the UCSB campus and there’s even a partial way around that!
Growth in the number of HS graduates and the increasing cost of privates means more students are turning to the UCs every year. UCs just don’t have room for everyone who is qualified. Students are being turned down who would have been accepted a few years ago. If UCSB is where you really want to be and you’re turned down you’ll need to figure out your best strategy moving forward. This post explains one option.
Many students won’t consider a CC because they want the full “college experience”. That’s where UCSB can be different. It’s one of the few CA colleges where students live on/near campus. Living in Isla Vista (locals call it “IV”) you can participate in intramural sports at UCSB with a slightly higher fee than students pay, you can join many clubs as a non-voting member. See Getting Involved | Student Engagement & Leadership to look up clubs you’re interested in. You can join the UCSB Rec Center https://recreation.ucsb.edu/ and use the weight room, climbing wall, etc. The Rec Center isn’t cheap for non-students but on the other hand UCSB charges almost $15K/year for tuition and fees you’ll avoid as a SBCC student.
A big concern of many frosh is where to live. One advantage of being a 4-year student at most colleges is you start out in a dorm with meals taken care of, an RA for advice, you quickly meet some friends on your floor, etc. Turns out that you can do much the same thing at SBCC. There is a private dorm right by the UCSB campus that accepts SBCC students. See Dorm Style Living - Santa Barbara City College Some dorm deadlines are in the spring so don’t dally if you’re interested. Even though they aren’t official UCSB-owned dorms it will be a similar first-year experience. Second year you find an apartment in IV just like UCSB students do after frosh year. You won’t need a car to get around and few UCSB frosh have one. There’s an express bus from UCSB to SBCC Line 15x – SBCC/UCSB Express – Santa Barbara MTD Given the size of UCSB the friends you make aren’t going to know you go to SBCC until you tell them; they’ll just assume they haven’t run into you in class or on campus.
Now that we’ve gone over being part of the UCSB community lets talk about that UCSB diploma. As a transfer student you get the same one a 4-year student does; nowhere does it say “junior transfer”. Your BA or BS degree is from UCSB, full stop. With the guaranteed transfer program TAG you will KNOW you’re getting in (check your major is part of the guarantee, a few mostly in engineering are not). SBCC students should work with the transfer center SBCC University Transfer Academy - Santa Barbara City College to ensure they meet all the TAG rules. I suggest printing out the rules from the UCSB admission website and putting a check mark next to each as you meet it. Fulfill all the rules and good things happen! One year transfers note especially the requirement to complete one UC-M and UC-E class by the end of fall semester.
The SBCC transfer center has counselors who know what you need to do. SBCC offers honors courses as well as counseling and contact with UCSB counselors. After you’ve completed one semester at SBCC you can even take a UCSB class for credit each quarter (paying a LOT less than the UCSB students, BTW!). You can get TAG from any CCC including the one in your community. But you’ll miss out on the setting and social environment that probably is part of why you wanted to go to UCSB in the first place.
How does the one-year TAG plan work? Reaching junior status so you can transfer is defined only by how many college units you have (90 quarter-units min), not by years at a CCC. These days a lot of kids have taken 5+ AP classes in HS. According to Santa Barbara | UC Admissions most of them are worth 8 quarter-units. If you have 45+ transferable AP quarter units after HS then in one year at SBCC you’ll have enough to use the TAG guarantee (for most majors) to transfer and spend the next 3 years at UCSB. If you’re close to 45 then go to summer school at a CC right after HS since TAG requires having 45 by Sept 30th your last academic year at a CC.
You might worry you’ll have only 2 years left at UCSB starting as a junior transfer after one year at a CC but you can ignore the AP credit once you’re at UCSB (except you can’t duplicate classes you already have AP credit for).
The units granted for AP tests are not counted toward the maximum number of credits required for formal declaration of an undergraduate major or the maximum number of units a student may accumulate prior to graduation from the University. Students who enter the University with AP credit do not have to declare a major earlier than other students, nor are they required to graduate earlier
AP credits | UC Admissions
Verify with UCSB this still applies to transfer students with AP credit.
You may want to live in UCSB housing after you transfer since the UCSB apartments are a bit nicer than the average rental and may be less expensive. UCSB doesn’t have a housing guarantee for transfers but they say “New transfer students are given priority consideration for housing in UCSB apartments or residence halls as long as they return a Statement of Intent to Register and adhere to application procedures and deadlines.”
In sum, even if you aren’t fortunate enough to be accepted to UCSB as a frosh there are ways to enjoy most of the same things those enrolled for all 4 years do, including ending up with that UCSB diploma.