Using Pass/No Pass Units

As students register for summer and fall classes, it's good to review the policy on the use of Pass/No Pass units. Many courses at DVC are offered with the Student Choice (SC) grading option. This means that the student can choose either the letter grade (A-F) or Pass/No Pass (P/NP) option. In order to get a Pass, you must make at least a C in the course. However, your transcript will indicate a P. If you earn less than a C, your transcript will show NP for the course. Either way, there is no affect on your GPA. Be advised: Courses that are required for your major must, in most cases, be taken for a letter grade. General education courses and elective courses, however, can be taken P/NP for CSU and UC transfer. The maximum number of units that you can transfer to the UC system with a P grade, however, is 14. Maximums in the CSU system vary from campus to campus, so check the websites of the campuses you want to transfer to. The same holds true for private and out-of-state universities.

Appealing an Admissions Decision

Now is the time of the academic year when transferring students receive notification about their university applications. Some students are happy with the results, and some are not.

If you are denied admission to a university, you have the right to submit an appeal of the decision. However, you should appeal ONLY if you have NEW and/or COMPELLING information that was NOT included in your original application. For example, if you have some low grades because of a health problem, and you did not mention that in your personal statement or in the Additional Comments section of your UC application, and if you were denied admission, you might appeal and include documentation of your health issues.

Here are links on appeals information for three of the most popular UC campuses:
Berkeley, http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/general.asp?id=113&navid=N
Los Angeles, http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/appealstr.htm
San Diego, http://admissions.ucsd.edu/UCSDFall09AppealsProcess.pdf
Other UC campuses, as well as CSU's and private or out-of-state universities, may have appeals information on their websites. Type "admissions appeal" in the search bar of the university's website to search for that information.

Read the information thoroughly and completely, and follow the directions well, especially noting the deadlines. Appeals received after the deadline may not be reviewed.

UCLA to Temporarily Discontinue International Development Studies Major

The International Development Studies major at UCLA will be temporarily discontinued while the program is reassessed for resource allocation. Transfer students admitted for Fall 2009 to that major will be able to continue in it, but transfer admits thereafter will not be able to declare IDS as a major. UCLA has not indicated whether or not this major will be offered again at a later date. Please refer to the note on the IDS website for confirmation of this information: http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/lsmajors/intl_dev.htm

Students who had been planning on transferring to UCLA as an IDS major after Fall 2009 can consider another major, such as one of the area studies (e.g. Asian American Studies, Latin American Studies, etc.) or a broader field such as Political Science or Sociology. Refer to http://www.assist.org for assistance in researching majors offered in the UC and CSU systems.