Community college students who will have submitted Transfer Admission Guaranteed (TAG) applications by the Sept. 30 deadline will be guaranteed admission to the University of California (UC), Sue Oda-Omori, transfer center coordinator, said.

Due to budget cuts throughout the state of California, UC’s as well as California State Universities (CSU) have been forced to cut back on enrollment, so signing a TAG is a secure way to get admitted into the UC for which the student signed a TAG for.

“Students who sign the TAG’s have guaranteed admission as long as they meet the criteria,” Oda-Omori said.

Applicants must have completed at least 30 UC transferable semester units at the time of applying and have a least a 3.0 GPA, but requirements do vary from campus to campus.

“With the budget situation there is not enough money for public universities so there are more students competing for fewer spaces,” Oda-Omori said.

The UC campuses that are participating in the TAG program are Davis, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and San Diego.

“I want to definitely have reassurance to get into a university so tagging with Santa Barbara will give me a piece of mind and it doesn’t hurt that it’s a really good school,” Tara O’Bien, 20, anthropology major, said.

Many students do not know about the TAG program but information can be found in the transfer center located in the Student Services Center.

“I’m tagging with Davis and San Diego because it’s a guaranteed admission and they both have good programs in the field of anthropology,” Meg Palanqui, 20, cultural anthropology major, said.

Aside from submitting a TAG application, students must also file a regular UC application to each of the universities they submitted a TAG for. Even though there is no fee for the TAG applications, there is a $60 for every UC application.

Students who submit a TAG application will have their application preliminary reviewed and will receive early admission notification.

“Last year, 220 EC students signed a TAG for the fall 2010. This year, 282 students have already submitted a TAG for a total of 878 TAG applications with each student averaging three tags,” Oda-Omori said.