Great news...Pasadena City College is number one in transfers to UCs and Cal State Universities out of ALL the California Community Colleges! Do we rest on our laurels? No, we do not! One reason PCC has great transfer success is our lauded, award-winning student service program. For example, we greet prospective students in our cheerful and comfortable Welcome Center. Parents and students can chat with a Welcome Center specialist and get help right then and there with their PCC application and their academic direction. Once enrolled, every new PCC student can participate in our award-winning First Year Experience program. This program received nationwide attention for producing outstanding results. It began as a pilot program for a few students. Their success in completing and transferring was so extraordinary that we re-allocated resources and now offer this program to every entering PCC student. First Year Experience students get specialized academic counseling including help with course selection and academic challenges they may encounter. They are assigned a Success Coach to help them navigate their way through college, something especially valuable for our first-generation students. First Year Experience students also get special workshops and events and they receive tailored reminders and announcements via email, text and social media. These services are available both virtually and in person. Here is a link to this amazing program: https://pasadena.edu/academics/support/pathways/index.php
Something new! This fall we placed feedback kiosks in the Welcome Center, Student Services office and Financial Aid office. These kiosks have a screen with five faces. Students tap on the face that corresponds with their feeling about the service they just received and they can write in the comment field if they like. The data gathered from the feedback kiosks will let us know what we are doing well and where we need to improve. This kind of student-centered data gathering is very important and I am so pleased we are doing this.
Many of our students only consider transferring to a UC or a Cal State University. To broaden their horizons, Pasadena City College Transfer Center began an official partnership with the Harvard Alumni Association. Together, the Transfer Center and the Harvard Alumni Association of Southern California created the Harvard/PCC Leadership Academy. Students are partnered with Harvard Alums for inspiration, guidance, and career exploration. During the pandemic, there were two Harvard/PCC Leadership Academies with a total of 98 students participating. The PCC Transfer Center has a long tradition of helping students transfer to the UC and CSU systems. Now they have added support for students applying to private colleges, highly selective colleges and HBCUs. If I may, I would like to brag that we have three recent grads transfer directly from PCC to Yale!
I'd love to hear from you. Give me a call or send me a text or email and we can chat about all things PCC.