ASSIST Guide:Transferable Courses and Articulation Agreements

ASSIST stands for Articulation System Stimulating Interinstitutional Student Transfer, and its website is assist.org. It is the official database of course articulation information for California colleges and is operated with representatives from all three public systems: the California Community Colleges, the California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC). Community college students can use it to find which courses transfer to UC and which courses meet the requirements of a target major. For students transferring from a community college (CC) to UC, ASSIST is the most important basis for building a two-year course plan. ASSIST itself also advises using it together with a counselor at the student’s own college.

What ASSIST Covers

This section lists the main information ASSIST provides. An articulation agreement is a formal agreement between two institutions that states which requirement at one institution a course from the other institution satisfies.

• UC transferable course listsThe UC Transferable Course Agreement (UC TCA) lists the courses at each community college that transfer to UC.
• General education course listsThese include the Cal-GETC course list, the earlier IGETC list, and the CSU general education course list.
• Agreements by majorThese show which courses at a given community college meet the lower-division requirements of a specific UC major.
• Agreements by departmentThese list course-by-course equivalencies between the two institutions, organized by course prefix.
• General education agreementsThese show how community college courses satisfy the general education requirements of the destination institution.

ASSIST does not cover out-of-state institutions, transfers between community colleges, or graduate programs. Under the 2022 California budget act, ASSIST has begun to include some California private institutions that choose to participate. The area requirements of Cal-GETC are described in Cal-GETC General Education.

Looking Up an Agreement by Major, Step by Step

This section uses a search for the agreement between one community college and one UC campus for a specific major as an example.

1. Open assist.org and select the academic year to search, usually the current or most recent year.
2. In the sending institution field, select the community college the student attends.
3. In the receiving institution field, select the UC campus the student plans to transfer to.
4. Choose to view agreements By Major, which is the default; By Department is also available.
5. Find the target major in the list and open its articulation agreement.
6. To compare two agreements, use the Agreement Comparison feature to view them side by side.

To check transferable courses, select the community college and view its UC transferable course list. The courses needed for the 7-course pattern should also be confirmed on this list; see the 7-Course Pattern.

How to Read an Articulation Agreement

This section explains the common notations in an agreement. One side of the agreement shows UC courses or requirements, and the other side shows the community college courses that correspond to them.

What the agreement shows	Meaning	Recommended action
One-to-one course match	Completing the community college course meets the UC requirement	Schedule the matching course
No Course Articulated	The community college has no course articulated to this UC course	Consult a counselor or contact UC admissions
Several courses joined by And	All listed courses must be completed	Note the prerequisite sequence
Several courses joined by Or	Any one of the listed groups is sufficient	Choose the group that also articulates to other campuses
Academic year at the top	The year the agreement applies to	Confirm it matches the student’s year of entry
Notes in the agreement	Major screening criteria, GPA, or course requirements	Read every note, not only the course table

UC Santa Barbara notes in the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) matrix that the prerequisite GPA requirements for some majors must be checked in the ASSIST agreement by major. This shows that the notes in an agreement are also binding.

Common Misreadings

This section lists the misunderstandings that parents and students most often have.

• Transferable means it counts for the majorA course on the UC TCA counts as transferable credit, but it does not necessarily meet a major requirement.
• Checking only one campusRequirements for the same major differ across UC campuses and must be checked separately.
• Using an agreement from an earlier yearAgreements from 2016-17 and earlier are no longer updated; the most recent agreement should be used.
• No articulation means the course is not neededNo Course Articulated only means that the college has no matching course; it does not mean UC does not require it.
• Using ASSIST in place of a counselorASSIST officially recommends using the site together with a counselor at the student’s own college.

What UC Transfer Pathways Are

This section introduces UC Transfer Pathways. For popular majors, each pathway lists one set of lower-division preparatory courses; a student who follows it prepares for the same major at every UC campus. UC states that some campuses may require fewer courses, but none will require more. Pathways currently cover 27 majors.

The 27 majors are Aerospace Engineering, Anthropology, Bioengineering, Biological Sciences, Business Administration, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Communication, Computer Science, Data Science, Earth Sciences and Geology, Economics, Electrical Engineering, English, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Science, History, Materials Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Statistics.

A transfer pathway does not by itself guarantee admission. Pathways+ combines the transfer pathways with TAG, so a student can use TAG at one TAG campus while preparing for other campuses; see the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG). UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego do not participate in TAG.