Transfer fair one of the state’s largest
SANTA MONICA COLLEGE Jeanine Saldana stood in the middle of the campus courtyard Tuesday juggling a pile of textbooks. Surveying the scene before her — a swarm of students pouring over college catalogues and drilling university representatives with questions — she let out a sigh.
For a student used to small college transfer fairs that typically drew about 10 universities, the much larger SMC iteration — with more than 80 colleges and universities on hand — was a lot to take in.
“Wow,” Saldana said. “That’s a lot of schools.”
Lying on top of Saldana’s books were pamphlets from her wish list — San Francisco State University, UCLA and UC Irvine — institutions with solid business programs.
“I was leaning toward San Francisco, but I’m leaning toward UCLA now,” Saldana said.
Each year, Santa Monica College — the number one feeder school to the University of California and University of Southern California — holds one of the largest college fairs in the state, attracting both local institutions, such as Loyola Marymount University, and distant schools like Cornell.
The 25-year-old event draws anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 students during a 2.5-hour period.
“It really starts to put a face to an actual goal that they might have,” said Dan Nannini, the transfer center coordinator.
The SMC fairs have helped schools like Loyola Marymount University increase its transfer student population.
Loyola Marymount has been trying to encourage more transfer enrollment in recent years, working with community colleges to create a plan outlining the courses that junior college students would need to take in order to make a smooth transition to the four-year Catholic university. The school has an enrollment of about 5,700 undergraduate students. “(College fairs) have been very helpful in getting the word out,” said Christina Parra, the assistant director of admission. “It gives you face-to-face contact with prospective students.”
On Tuesday, many of the students seemed to flock toward the local universities, crowds forming at tables represented by UCLA, USC and Long Beach State.
Khalid Namtoos, a freshman, started gathering catalogues for UCLA, Berkeley, Cornell and UCSD. While UCLA is his first choice, Namtoos said he learned from the representative at USC that he would be able to transfer in as a sophomore, and is now considering becoming a Trojan. UCLA only accepts junior transfer students. “(The fair) is pretty helpful,”he said. “It shows what majors there are, how competitive certain schools are.”
The fair included an eclectic mix of schools, from big names, like Columbia, to the lesser known, like Yo San University, a Los Angeles school specializing in traditional Chinese medicine.
Emperor’s College, an acupuncture school on Wilshire Boulevard and 18th Street, has participated in the fair almost every year since its inception in 1983. The small Santa Monica school has an enrollment of about 2,500 students, approximately 10 percent of which are SMC transfers.
The acupuncture school visits various college fairs throughout the year, but SMC’s is the busiest by far, according to Mary Good, the director of outreach and admissions. Anywhere from 50 to 100 students usually drop by the booth at SMC.
It seemed as though every major school in California was represented in the fair, but Drew Jeffries, a freshman, had trouble locating the school of his choice — Stanford University.
Wandering around the courtyard for close to 20 minutes, he came back with only packets from Drew University and Cal State LA.
Though he seems set on attending Stanford, Jeffries said he’s still open to other possibilities.
“I’m wondering which one is the best college, if the teachers are good or are just trying to make money,” Jeffries said. “I want a school that has a good name, but also has a good program.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 3, 2007. Read the original PDF.