Into the Valley of Hasty Planning & Inadequate Funding, Rode the 5,000

Mihai Gherghina sacrificed sleep, study time and Thanksgiving holiday fun to make the application deadline for a long-cherished goal: transfer to a UC campus. When he clicked the "submit" button Nov. 29, a day before the deadline, the Orange Coast College student said he felt huge relief. But that emotion turned to fury when UC officials announced three days later that they would extend the deadline to Jan. 4 for those who missed it — but not those who made it, like Gherghina. The 26-year-old student said he has learning disabilities and could have used the extra time to hone his essay and burnish his application with another honors program he subsequently learned he had been admitted to...

The deadline extension, the first in years, has created major buzz — and decidedly mixed reactions — up and down the state. UC officials said they extended the deadline to expand the pool of high-quality transfer applicants needed to help fill the 5,000 additional seats being earmarked for California students next year and 5,000 more over the following two years. The expansion was approved last month by the UC Board of Regents, which has come under political pressure to allot more seats to Californians after years of increasing spaces for out-of-state and international students who pay full tuition...

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-transfer-20151214-story.html