Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC)

Standards, Policies, and Procedures

Students are advised to use the information below in consultation with a community college counselor.

Completion of the IGETC will permit a student to transfer from a California Community College to a California State University or University of California campus without the need, after transfer, to take additional lowerdivision, general education courses to satisfy campus general education requirements. It is strongly recommended that students complete IGETC prior to transfer. Advantages of completing IGETC include more flexibility in class selection at the university and timely progress to degree completion. However, individual colleges or majors within a CSU or UC campus may not accept IGETC for meeting general education. A list of those UC colleges and majors can be found on the UC website.

Students transferring to a CSU with a completed IGETC will still need to complete 9 semester units of upper division general education and may be held to other campus specific graduation requirements outside of general education and major coursework.

Completion of IGETC is not an admissions requirement or admission guarantee for transfer, nor is it the only way to fulfill lowerdivision general education requirements prior to transfer. For student applying only to the CSU system, the CSU GE pattern is a better choice. For the UC system, each school and college at every campus has its own set of requirements, accounting for more than 40 general education patterns within the UC system. Using IGETC is often the better option, especially for those applying to more than one UC campus or for students applying both to CSU and UC campuses. Engineering students and students completing majors that have high lower division unit requirements are advised to focus on completing the premajor requirements while meeting minimum admissions requirements and to speak with a community college counselor.

It is the student’s responsibility to request IGETC Certification. A student may be IGETC certified if he/she has completed coursework at the California Community College(s) without regard to current enrollment status or number of units accrued at a CCC. The last CCC attended for a regular (fall or spring) semester/quarter provides the certification upon request.

Students who enroll at a UC or CSU campus, then leave and attend a community college, and subsequently return to a different UC or CSU campus may use IGETC. Students who initially enroll at a UC or CSU campus, then leave and attend a community college, and subsequently return to the same campus are considered “readmits” and cannot use IGETC. Questions should be directed to the specific UC or CSU campus.

Foreign courses may be applied to IGETC if the foreign institution has United States regional accreditation and if the certifying community college carefully evaluates coursework equivalency. All other foreign coursework cannot be applied to IGETC. However, IGETC allows eligible foreign coursework completed at a non-US institution to be applied to Area 6. College Board Advanced Placement Exams (AP) and International Baccalaureate Exams (IB) may be applied to IGETC as noted by the charts on the Advanced Placement Exams (AP) page and the International Baccalaureate Exams (IB) page.

A course must have a minimum unit value of 3 semester or 4 quarter units to meet IGETC requirements. A minimum “C” grade is required in each college course for IGETC. The ASSIST website identifies how coursework completed at any California Community College is applied to IGETC certification. Courses from all other United States regionally accredited institutions are carefully reviewed for equivalency (course content, prerequisites, texts, units), and placed, if approved, in the same subject areas as those for the community college completing the certification. Usually, IGETC Area 1B is not met with courses completed outside of the California Community College system since few courses meet the specific composition and critical thinking components unique to this requirement.

Full certification is defined as successfully completing all IGETC area courses required by the specific transfer system (UC or CSU). Partial certification is defined as completing all but two courses on the IGETC pattern. The student petitions for certification and the complete or partial certification is sent by the CCC to the UC or CSU. It is the responsibility of the UC or CSU campus to inform a student that has submitted a partial certified IGETC of the specific timelines, conditions, and courses needed to complete the IGETC. The UC or CSU is then responsible for verifying that the missing IGETC course(s) have been completed.

Area 6, Language Other Than English (LOTE), competence may be demonstrated through one of the following mechanisms and official documentation is required. 

  1. Satisfactory completion to two years of high school coursework of the same language other than English, with a grade of C or better in each course.
  2. Completion of an coursework approved to meet competency listed on the community college IGETC pattern under area 6.
  3. Satisfactory completion, with C grades or better, of two years of formal schooling at the sixth grade level or higher in an institution where the language of instruction is not English.
  4. Satisfactory score on the SATII: Subject Test in languages other than English. Before May 1995 use the first score and if taken after May 1995 use the 2nd score:
    Chinese with listening: 500/520
    Hebrew (Modern): 500/470
    Korean/Korean with listening: /500
    French/French with listening: 500/540
    Italian: 500/520
    Latin: 500/530
    German/German with listening: 500/510
    Japanese with listening: 500/510
    Spanish/Spanish with listening: 500/520
  5. Satisfactory score, 3 or higher, in the College Board Advanced Placement examinations in languages other than English.
  6. Satisfactory score, 5 or higher, in the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examinations in language other than English.
  7. Language other than English “O” level exam with grade of A, B, or C.
  8. Language other than English International “A” Level exam with a score of 5, 6, or 7
  9. Seventh and eighth grade courses with grades of C or higher MAY be considered if the courses are approved as comparable in content to those offered at the high school and the student begins the same language in high school at a higher level.

UC Transfer Admission Minimum Requirements

To be eligible for admission to UC as a transfer student, the following minimum criteria must be met.

  1. Complete 60 units of UC transferable college credit with a GPA of at least 2.4 and no more than 14 units taken Pass/No Pass.
  2. Complete two approved transferable college courses in English composition, 6 semester units.
  3. Complete one approved transferable college course in mathematical concepts and quantitative reasoning, 3 semester units.
  4. Complete four approved transferable college courses chosen from at least two of the following subject areas: the arts and humanities, the social and behavioral sciences, and the physical and biological sciences, 12 semester units.

Transfer Selection Criteria

When the number of applicants to a particular campus or major exceeds the number of available spaces, as is often the case, the campus has to choose among qualified students. In this case, the minimum requirements will not result in admissions, and the campus looks at “selection” criteria. Selection criteria includes completion of lower division major requirements, achieving a grade point average higher than 2.4 and that is competitive with other high achieving applicants, and completing lower division general education requirements. In addition, some colleges and majors have specific GPA requirements for certain courses, or other unique requirements associated with the college or major. Finally, using a process called comprehensive review, admission officers look beyond the required coursework and grades to evaluate applicants’ academic achievements in light of opportunities available to them and the capacity each student demonstrates to contribute to the intellectual life of the campus. More information is usually available on the ASSIST website and the university website.