San José State is home to many transfer students, but the process may not be as clear as it may seem to students.
Many students choose to attend community college first and transfer to a University in their final two years to finish their education.
San José State has over 3,600 transfer students who are enrolled in the 2025 Fall semester, according to the SJSU News Center website.
Some students, like Michael Martin, a fourth-year Kinesiology major, wish the process were better to help transfer students succeed.
“I feel like they could’ve been a little more supportive in the process. I felt like I was a little bit misled by what SJSU was telling me and how they accepted my application on a contingency – it made me feel a little discouraged while going through the process,” Martin said.
Martin transferred in Spring 2024, but had to return to his community college to fulfill some class requirements that were needed.
He was under the impression that he fulfilled his requirements to graduate after achieving the 60 transferable units to transfer as an upper-division student.
The California State University (CSU) system requires upper-division transfer students to complete 60 semester or 90 quarter transferable units to be considered an upper-division transfer applicant, according to the CSU webpage.
“I think there were some requirements of San José State that didn’t carry over in credit eligibility as I hoped,” Martin said. “When I was coming from Gavilan and USF, I thought I had a sufficient amount of credits, but I guess I was short.”
He chose to take the classes at his community college to save costs compared to taking the classes at SJSU at a higher cost.
The average cost per unit is around $622, according to the SJSU school information webpage.
This is compared to community college, which has a cost of about $46-per-unit which is the lowest in the nation according to the California Community College webpage.
“I had to constantly jump between SJSU and Gavilan College, which is something I did not hope to do, but I’m still doing it because I’m fulfilling certain GE’s.
Although SJSU has counselors for general education and major-focused counselors, some students didn’t feel like they had support during their time at the school.
Yectzi Garcia, a Business Administration alumni from SJSU, had a difficult time during the transfer process.
“Other than the initial orientation and walk-throughs, I had very little knowledge of what support was offered. Most of the support I received was from classmates and professors,” Garcia said.
SJSU hosts a transfer orientation for students and requires students to attend one session and participate for the entire duration of the program, according to the SJSU New Student and Family Program webpage.
The university also doesn’t have a transfer center that supports students, unlike other Bay Area colleges such as the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Clara University.
“I think the community of transfer students is significant enough to where they should have a transfer center,” Garcia said. It would allow students to connect and interact with others who might be experiencing the same transition.”
Although the school doesn’t have a transfer center for students, there are resources available for students who need assistance.
Some include articulation resources such as the Transfer Evaluation System (TES) and students receiving credits from examinations, according to the SJSU Academic Affairs Webpage.
Academic advising is available for students to schedule an appointment, but students like Michael Martin didn’t have a pleasant experience.
“I feel like, as a college student, their jobs should be to guide you in the right direction. I think there was some miscommunication within that process,” he said. “You kind of have to directly go to a counselor and demand that they help you.”
SJSU offers different ways for students to receive support from academic advisors, but it depends on what kind of support is needed.
There are different forms of advising, which require students to be specific about what type of advising they need.
The different types of advising include undergraduate support, general education and department advising.
There are resources provided for transfer students to succeed during their time at SJSU, but they’re not advertised or known as students would like them to be.
“Having flyers across campus and a site where transfer students can access opportunities to learn more about resources, events and contact information would be helpful,” Garcia said. There should be a better way of alerting you of missing documents and incorrect transfer credits.”
