San Mateo Colleges of Silicon Valley

View our online brochure here.

Top 10 Reasons for Studying at San Mateo Colleges of Silicon Valley

1. Our three public community colleges (Cañada College, College of San Mateo and Skyline College) are known for their quality transfer programs and services, as well as guaranteed transfers to and partnership with selective universities.
2. Annual tuition of $6456 USD.
3. The three colleges are the safest in California and among the safest in the country.
4. #1 in guaranteed transfers to four-year universities– currently 55 universities offer guaranteed transfers to our students.
5. Onsite transfer advising provided by UC Berkeley representatives and a 165% growth in transfer admission rate to UC Berkeley in the most recent year (89 in 2014 and 213 in 2015).
6. All three colleges offer quality associate, certificate, and transfer programs in state of the art education facilities with award-winning faculty and staff, numerous networking and internship opportunities with the Silicon Valley high tech companies around the colleges.
7. Global Beca scholarship, including full-tuition waivers, available to incoming international students.
8. Priority course registration for international students.
9. Housing coordinator available to assist with housing near our three colleges.
10. Nationally-recognized STEM center at Cañada College and Fabrication Lab at Skyline College.

San Mateo Colleges of Silicon Valley include three outstanding fully accredited two-year community colleges: Cañada College, College of San Mateo and Skyline College. They are located in the heart of California's San Francisco area. All three colleges have "Transfer Admission Guarantees", with perhaps the largest number of public and private universities throughout the United States. This provides students the assurance of getting into a university if the student satisfies the university academic and other requirements and not being subject to the typical university freshman admissions "selectivity hurdle". In 2015, 236 students were admitted to UC Berkeley from the three colleges as transfer students. These students will enter as juniors and only need two more years to complete a bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley. The colleges are known for their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs and Skyline College has an internship with Caltech and UC Berkeley. Cañada College has an award-winning STEM Center, a first among all community colleges in California. Its animation class, for example, is taught by a Pixar employee. Skyline College, only 15 minutes away from San Francisco, offers International Trade and a variety of Biotech and Engineering transfer programs. It also has an internship program with CalTech and UC Berkeley. College of San Mateo is one of the oldest community colleges in California. In the 1920’s, College of San Mateo was to a large degree, a prep school or springboard into Stanford University and the University of California (Berkeley). Studying in Silicon Valley potentially gives students internship and networking opportunities in Google, Apple, Salesforce, Twitter, and Facebook, etc. Each of our campuses is in small and safe communities located near highways that take you directly to San Francisco, San Jose, SFO international airport and other very famous tourist destinations such as Monterey Bay, Yosemite and Lake Tahoe are within driving distance. International students can visit our district international admissions website for more information. U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents can visit our District website for more information.