The San Mateo Colleges are Your Bridge to Top Universities!

The San Mateo Colleges (Cañada College, College of San Mateo, and Skyline College) are consistently ranked near the top of California community colleges. The three colleges are known for their small class size, individual attention, and outstanding student support services.

The San Mateo Colleges are located between San Francisco and Silicon Valley in one of the most affluent communities in the United States.

Our Transfer Opportunities

• Highest number of transfer students to the University of California including Berkeley and UCLA; the California State University system including San Francisco State University and San Jose State University; and private universities including Stanford, the University of Southern California, Notre Dame de Namur, and many others
• Transfer Guarantee Agreements with 7 University of California campuses and six of them issue Conditional Admission Letters to qualifying applicants of the San Mateo Colleges
• One out of three transfers to the University of California (UC) were UC Berkeley transfers. Over 75% of our UC transfers entered UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Davis in 2009-2010
• UC Berkeley accepts 100% of our int’l transfers since 1997 (College of San Mateo data)

Academic Excellence

• More than 100 university transfer majors including business administration, communication studies, marketing, engineering, and multimedia
• Small class size in many desirable fields including allied health, biotechnology, accounting, business administration, computer information science, multimedia, and interior design
• Half of our professors graduated from the Top 100 Universities
• New state-of-the-art classrooms, laboratories, and athletic facilities
• Highest number of MESA (math, engineering, and science achievement) scholarships from the National Science Foundation among community colleges
• Since 1995, we have invested close to $1,000,000,000 in modernizing classrooms, laboratories, and facilities

Support for International Students

• Dedicated scholarships are available through the Global Beca Foundation on a competitive basis
• 10-day application turnaround time
• Mandatory orientation with comprehensive academic, immigration, and cultural counseling
• Extensive and personalized support from the international student staff, counselors, and faculty at each college because international students are only 1% percent of the total student population
• Daily opportunities to interact with American students and other international students in the classroom, through college-sponsored activities, and through informal conversations and meetings
• Tuition only $5,088 for an academic year (significantly below the cost of attending a four-year institution for one year)

Language Requirements

• TOEFL requirements are 480 (paper), 56 IBT, IELTS score of 5.5, Pearson PTE Academic Score of 42, or iTEP Level of 3.5.
  If your TOEFL, IELTS, or ELS scores/levels are below the above, you may still receive conditional admission to the San Mateo Colleges. To gain required English proficiency levels, students can participate in intensive English training at our local language schools. For conditional admission based on eventual completion of ELS language training, please contact www.ELS.edu. Please contact each college for other language training opportunities offered by local language schools.

Dominic Wong transferred to UC Berkeley Haas Business School