Application deadlines for six University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campuses have been extended past the Nov. 30 deadline, according to Transfer Center Director Sunday Salter.
Applications for UC Merced, UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz are open until Jan. 3, Salter said at the Academic Senate meeting Monday.
Salter said these extensions help students who may not have been aware they missed the application deadlines for UCs and CSUs.
“Students are relieved to know that there’s still some options for them,” Salter said. “They can still apply somewhere.”
Deadlines have been extended because these universities receive fewer applicants than other campuses and are less impacted, said Salter.
Career Guidance Counseling Assistant James Morris explained why schools have extended their deadlines.
“They’re just looking for students to check out their amazing campus, so they wanted to keep it open,” Morris said. “They’re definitely all great schools to check out.”
Despite most of these schools being hours away from Los Angeles, Calif., Morris said he recommends that students give them a chance.
“I’d love to see students getting out of their comfort zone and going to Central California, the Bay Area and Northern California,” Morris said. “I don’t know if [the extensions] will necessarily ramp up the interest, but I would hope so.”
The CSU application system crashed on the Nov. 30 deadline, prompting CSU to push the deadline to the next day, according to Salter.
“We have a lot of students who procrastinate across the state,” Salter said. “The system gets overloaded every year. We were grateful to find out they extended it for a day.”
Academic Senate President and Communication Studies Professor Barbara Anderson said she has seen students experience difficulty making time for their college applications since deadlines are around finals week.
“Students are faced with these challenges of so many things happening and are then expected to drop everything and do these preparations for transfer,” Anderson said. “Unfortunately, it’s sort of a nightmare for a student.”
Anderson said the CSU application system crash is a warning to students who procrastinate.
“It’s another word to the wise about trying to take care of these things earlier on,” Anderson said.
Some CSUs are still accepting applications for their online programs, Salter said.
More information on the campuses and programs that are still open will be available on the Transfer Center’s website.
Deadlines have also been extended for three California State Universities. Applications for Sonoma State University are open until Dec. 15. Applications for CSU Bakersfield are open until Jan. 6, 2020, and applications for Humboldt State University are open until Feb. 28, 2020, according to Morris.
