The college transfer process can be complicated and disappointing.

That’s why Transfer Academy coordinator Angela Warren is really excited about the college’s revamped Transfer Admission Guarantee program.

“This is a most unique opportunity that will really help both us and the students,” Warren said. “It’s just awesome!”

Simply put, TAG guarantees an applicant’s admission to up to seven of the 10 University of California schools, two California State Universities and two private universities. In addition, TAG used to be available only in paper form, but now can be done online.

“It is much more efficient this way,” Warren said. “When an application comes in we can immediately see it in our system, and if there are any mistakes or errors, we can contact the student and help them to correct it right away.”

To be eligible for TAG you need to fulfill the requirement for the specific school you want to attend. That includes having the required math and English classes needed for transfer done by this semester. A student must also meet the desired schools required grade point average.

UCSB’s GPA has increased since last year to 3.2.

TAG also requires a separate application for each college.

The universities that are part of the guarantee program are the schools in the University of California system (except UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco), CSU Channels Islands and private universities Antioch and Brandman.

If you are an international student, you can also choose CSU Northridge and San Francisco State University.

The most popular university the past few years has been UCSB. According to Warren, around 60 percent of the students have UCSB as the goal for their transfer.

One of those students is Alex Hauck. He is planning on majoring in economics and attended one of the workshops the Transfer center is arranging.

“I went to the Transfer Center to get more information on how to get in automatically to UCSB because I knew nothing about it. They told me to come to the workshop and it was good to sit down and do this.”

Hauck got through the workshop in about an hour. Even though he might have been able to do it from home, he found it comfortable to do it in the workshop.

“It’s the small things that can be good to know about, like questions other people ask,” Hauck said.

TAG workshops through September are already full. Students who want to sit with a counselor and go over the program can still make a one-on-one appointment, but they need to move quickly.

The deadline for TAG is Sept. 30.

Cherri Morgan-Gossett, who also is an instructor in the TAG workshops, recommends looking over each school application before making any choices.

“It’s good to get familiarized with the procedure,” she said. “It is fairly user friendly, so if you just have some patience with computers you should do just fine.”

Also, a student can apply to all the schools on the list. But as Morgan-Gossett points out, though it’s allowed, it’s not exactly desirable.

“We would prefer if you only apply for the schools you really want to get into. That will make it easier for those who really want to come in to the other schools to get in there and everybody gets what they want.”