PolyTransfer efforts triple transfer enrollment
By Melanie Arias, February 10, 2026
Cal Poly Pomona’s 2026 spring semester welcomed more than 1,250 new transfer students, tripling the number of transfers from 572 in spring 2025.
Enrollment for the 2025-2026 academic year steadily increased since 2024-2025, according to Senior Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management and Services Jessica Wagoner. This year’s total is projected to be 27,740 students and last year’s was 27,462. This increase comes after an enrollment drop across the CSU system. Campuses like California State University, Los Angeles and San Diego State University had a drop in their enrollment for the past couple years. Since 2017, Cal State LA had a 25% percent drop and for San Diego State, since 2015, there has been a drop by 26%. In the fall 2025 semester, CPP failed to meet its targeted enrollment by 6%.
As a way to increase enrollment, CPP offered guaranteed admission to California resident transfer students who meet the general California State University transfer requirements for the first time ever in fall 2025. This helped enroll 99 students, according to Wagoner, and is one of many efforts to help increase enrollment.
CPP also counted fall work-in-progress coursework toward spring eligibility, which helped an additional 375 transfer students enroll.
“We usually require coursework to be completed at the end of summer for spring enrollment,” Wagoner said.
To ensure CPP could handle the additional student, Wagoner explained the colleges and departments planned appropriate class schedules prior to the spring semester. In the past, CPP couldn’t enroll so many transfer students at once because the majority of CPP’s majors were regarded as impacted by the Chancellor’s Office, The Poly Post reported. Since CPP is categorized as non-impacted now, more majors are open for CPP transfer students.
The university admissions departments also worked with CPP’s PolyTransfer to organize the on-site admission for community college students in early August 2025, admitting a total of 70 transfer students, according to Wagoner. PolyTransfer, modeled after the University of California, Los Angeles transfer center, is an experience program for transfer students that supports them throughout their first academic year at CPP, guiding the students through their transition from a 2-year to a 4-year.
CPP’s PolyTransfer Advantage Advising Specialist Angel Cruz said the early engagement efforts that support prospective transfer students help bring in students.
“We do an immersive engaging campus experience,” Cruz said. “This shows everything the university had to offer and tailor made for transfer students.”
With the PolyTransfer Advantage’s on-site promoting CPP at community colleges, they focused on showcasing the idea of “having a transfer receptive culture” at CPP, according to Cruz.
“We want our students to feel a sense of belonging,” Cruz said. “Our goal is to introduce, connect and equip students successfully.”
CPP gender, ethnicity and multicultural studies student and PolyTransfer mentor Ashley Gallardo noticed the increase of transfer students during the PolyTransfer’s spring transition program.
“I remember telling my bosses, why does it look like we have more students than last semester?” Gallardo said.
Gallardo said she was a transfer student from Rio Hondo College and remembered her group of mentees being smaller last semester.
“The more people the better, because that means more support,” Gallardo said.
Furthermore, there might be talks of future on-site admissions, but nothing is decided yet, according to Cruz.
Feature image courtesy of CPP Assistant Communications Specialist Christie Counts