Private For-Profit Schools
San Mateo County Community College District only accepts coursework completed at an United States of America regionally accredited institution (see "Accepted Accreditation").
Independent articulation between a private, for-profit college and the CSU system is applied toward associate degree general education requirements and California State University General Education certification.
Private, for-profit colleges offer courses which may appear equivalent to courses offered by SMCCCD colleges. However, the elements of the course – course content, learning objectives, lecture and/or lab hours, prerequisites/corequisites – may not be congruent with the SMCCCD course. All these elements are taken into consideration when evaluating coursework.
Courses must be at least 3 semester units or 4 quarter units. For application to CSU General Education Breadth (CSU GE) and/or Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) patterns, we adhere strictly to rules set up in the California State University Executive Order 1100 and Standards, Policies and Procedures for Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum, version 2.2
We carefully scrutinize general education courses in written and oral communication, critical thinking and composition, and mathematics and quantitative reasoning that represent the following areas.
For California State University General Education Certification:
- CSU GE Area A1 – Oral Communication
- CSU GE Area A2 – Written Communication
- CSU GE Area A3 – Critical Thinking
- CSU GE Area B4 – Mathematics / Quantitative Reasoning
For Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum Certification:
- IGETC Area 1A – Composition
- IGETC Area 1B – Critical Thinking
- IGETC Area 1C – Oral Communication
- IGETC Area 2 – Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning
Application of courses from private, for-profit schools is often denied because course descriptions are insufficient and do not confirm required course elements as noted above.