All of Us Scholars

SMC’s program helps raise the transfer admission options for students

Joanna Rose has a heartbreaking confession.

“I didn’t believe that college was for people like me,” the SMC student admits. “I grew up a first-generation Mexican American. My mother graduated high school. My father did not.

“And so, college really wasn’t in the cards. Straight out of high school, I went to work.”

Today, things are different. Deciding that she couldn’t defer her dreams any longer, Rose took the plunge in 2020 and enrolled at Santa Monica College. Now, she’s hard at work on making her dreams of transferring to UCLA a reality.

Fortunately, she’s got help for that. For Joanna Rose and thousands of other SMC students seeking a degree from a four-year institution, one of the secrets to transfer success has turned out to be the Scholars Program, an SMC initiative dedicated to preparing students — especially those from underserved schools and communities, first-year students, first-generation college students, and nontraditional students — for transfer to the colleges and universities of their choice.

The Scholars Program functions as a distinct academic community within SMC. At the heart of the program is a network of faculty and staff dedicated to ensuring Scholars Program students are prepared to move toward their education goals and future success. 

And for Scholars Program students, the chances are good, and they’re backed by the UCLA transfer admission numbers from fall 2023:

• Of the 186 SMC Scholars Program students who applied to UCLA, 169 (91%) were accepted; that’s well above UCLA’s overall admission rate for transfer program students at 81%.
• Five out of every six Latinx students and six out of every seven African American students in the Scholars Program were admitted as transfer students to UCLA.

These impressive figures are due in large part to an innovative partnership between SMC and UCLA that began as a pilot program in 1985. Today, that pilot has become the UCLA Transfer Alliance Program (TAP), which enables community college students who complete the Scholars Program to become TAP certified.

“Students who have been certified through the Transfer Alliance Program are given priority consideration in the UCLA admission process for majors in our UCLA College,” says Gary Clark, the Interim Vice Provost of UCLA Undergraduate Admissions. “These students also have the opportunity to be considered for a select group of alternate majors, possibly increasing their chances of gaining admission.” In fall 2023, UCLA admitted 93% of SMC Scholars Program students to their first major, while an additional 18 students in the program were admitted to their alternate major.

Audra Wells, the Scholars Program Leader and one of the program’s counselors, explains that SMC realized early on that the TAP partnership could be an especially valuable opportunity for students who, like Joanna Rose, thought they didn’t have a place at a university like UCLA. 

“When the program was first created, the question was: How do we prepare students for research-based institutions like UCLA?” Wells says. “How do we help a student who either didn’t have the right opportunities out of high school or didn’t have the opportunity to really build the necessary skills before getting into college? How do you prepare students for what’s to come so that they are successful once they transfer?”

To address these needs, SMC designed the Scholars Program as a wraparound support system that both challenges and builds up students in different ways, starting with a team of knowledgeable and friendly counselors. With their expertise in TAP, UCLA, and UC transfer admission requirements, these counselors are known for going the extra mile to help students achieve their college goals.

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Scholars Program students can qualify for priority admissions to schools ranging from UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and Loyola Marymount University, to Amherst College, Yale University, and more.

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“They know how to guide you,” says Melissa Gonzalez, a UCLA pre-med student who completed the program earlier this year. “The counselors are very knowledgeable about the prerequisites for medical school as well as for the UCs. They made sure that I was on track to graduate and that all my Honors classes were done before I transferred. I felt like I was really prepared and well-taken care of.”

A high-touch approach, combined with intentional outreach and annual review efforts, means that counselors meet regularly with each Scholars Program student to check on the student’s progress, answer any questions, and give the moral support the student needs. This strategy has paid off: In 2021-22 alone, the program had a total of 5,524 counseling contacts. That kind of commitment is a boon for students like Kamila Gonzalez. Although she transferred to UCLA this past fall, that outcome was in question at one time.

“I got an e-mail saying I was close to academic probation,” Kamila recalls. “So I set up another meeting with Teresa, one of the counselors, and I just told her: I don’t know what to do. I’m really confused. I don’t know if I want to stay in school. 
I still don’t know what I want to major in, and I’m just really lost.

“And so she really helped me figure out things —  like academic renewal and more, so I could get on the path to salvaging my GPA — before taking the next big steps, like choosing a major or deciding where I wanted to transfer to. And I’ve met with her every semester since then.”

Complementing the program’s academic counseling services are its Scholars Program classes designed to meet the requirements for TAP certification, with an emphasis on writing, exposure to research, critical thinking, and analysis. These classes, by nature, tend to be more intensive than the regular version, as SMC student Melissa Gonzalez discovered when she signed up for a Scholars Program chemistry class.

“It was definitely challenging,” Melissa recounts. “It was probably one of the hardest classes I’ve ever taken. But my professor was really good. He was very engaging and made sure that everybody understood the material. So I feel like I was in good hands.”

“Santa Monica College faculty are the most engaging, student-centered instructors you could ever hope to learn from. Our faculty are motivated by each student’s achievement, and that sense of purpose is clearly reflected in the success of our Scholars Program students” says Jason Beardsley, SMC Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs. 

SMC faculty also take great pains to ensure Scholars Program classes offer fun and innovative ways for students to tackle challenging concepts. Brian Rodas, Assistant Chair of SMC’s Mathematics Department, mentions how students in his Scholars Program calculus class are required to create a short video where they formulate a problem based on the coursework, and then provide a solution.

“They can be as creative as they want to be with this problem, making it very mathematical or making it maybe more in line with real life,” Rodas explains. “Making a connection to real life, where you can see where calculus lives outside of the classroom, is quite remarkable and clever. I am proud of our students.”

Rodas notes that students often demonstrate very creative ways of dealing with the problems that they encounter. In one presentation, a student explained how she was worried about how many toxins were in the leaves of her household plants, which her pet cat had a tendency to nibble on.

“I loved the inspiration of her cat and the concern she had, and then putting it together,” Rodas says. “It’s things like this that the students come up with.”

That emphasis on supporting students on their journey to a four-year college or a university, according to Eric Oifer, the Scholars Program Faculty Leader, is one of the qualities that distinguishes SMC’s Scholars Program from similar programs at other community colleges.
“We have faculty in the program who are knowledgeable in their field and also really effective in sharing their knowledge in the classroom,” Oifer says. “But they’re also really committed to equity, so they prioritize working with students who can benefit the most from what a community college has to offer. There’s a real commitment to helping students.”

That commitment is evident throughout the program. From the counseling and classes to the tutoring, transfer workshops, and new student orientations — everything is geared toward supporting students who don’t see a school like UCLA in their future.

“We work hard to reach students who aren’t necessarily going to come knocking on our door,” Wells says. “We let them know that the Scholars Program can open up worlds of transfer possibilities for them.”

Joanna Rose needs no convincing. She’s already making the most of her time in the Scholars Program, with plans to transfer to a UC campus with two degrees.

“It’s like they plant a seed in your mind, you know?” she says. “And you’re thinking: Wow, you know what? I think I’m up for the challenge.”