Student & Alumni Success

This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2025 semester.

One could say UC Merced has always been part of incoming Bobcats Ella and Satchel Ortez’s lives. The twins’ father worked for the 10th UC campus when it opened, and they lived with the campus as their backyard view until moving down Highway 99 in 2013.

UC Merced remains one of the top universities in the nation according to Money’s 2025 “Best Colleges in America” report.

The university earned 4.5 stars out of 5 in Money’s latest poll, which scores over 700 schools. The ratings are based on several factors, including graduation rates, cost of attendance, instructor access and economic mobility.

A group of dedicated UC Merced alumni have come together to launch an endowed fund focused on supporting LGBTQ+ student initiatives, programs and priorities.

Spearheaded by University of California Regent Emeritus Keith Ellis ’12, the LGBTQ+ Lambda Student Engagement Endowment was created to foster a more inclusive and affirming environment for students from diverse sexual and gender identities, now and for generations to come.

The region has nearly 170 newly certified community health workers after the first cohort completed a specialized training program at UC Merced.

When Nicolette Lecy began her graduate studies at UC Merced, life was anything but typical.

It was August 2020, in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lecy’s classes were held remotely, and she had limited access to campus.

Another challenge that could have hindered Lecy’s academic goals — she became a mother during the Thanksgiving break of her first semester at UC Merced.

This summer, 2024 UC Merced graduate Tatiana Howell is set to begin working as a wealth management analyst with Goldman Sachs. She got the job through tenacity, a strong work ethic and participation in an innovative program that prepared her and other students to work in the financial sector.

The UC Investments Academy educates, motivates and professionally trains students for careers in investing and finance, at no cost.

This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2025 semester.

Leslie Perez-Cruz will start at UC Merced with several accomplishments already under her belt - she took classes at Merced College while attending high school and is a certified nursing assistant, on her way to become an emergency room technician and ultimately attend medical school.

At UC Merced's biggest lab, students work from before sunrise to well after dusk. They are operating the university's Experimental Smart Farm, 40 acres of dirt and plants, research and experiments.

They study everything from pollinators to hydroponics, but there are more than just academic endeavors happening: Students say they have plans for community engagement opportunities including a corn maze and pumpkin patch. They also have been planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, kale, arugula and melons.

Growing up in Watsonville, a vibrant agricultural community on California's Central Coast, Adamaris Alvarez always knew she wanted to work in agriculture. She worked on her family's berry ranch, Alvarez Farms, where she grew a deep appreciation for the hard work agriculture demands.

But it wasn't until she saw an Instagram post about an internship at UC Merced's Experimental Smart Farm that she realized she could help shape the future of farming.

UC Merced’s graduating Class of 2025 recently celebrated its achievement at the campus’s spring commencement, joined by family members, close friends and loved ones.

For two graduates, Jahaira Morales and Bryan Gutierrez, the ceremony also was an opportunity to meet with a couple of other individuals who have been invested in their higher-education journey at UC Merced – their scholarship benefactors, Dar Chen and Cheryl Matsubara.