Back from visiting USC and four UC schools

State Forums
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Reposting this since I had expected a bit more response:


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Hello - we just got back from California

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USC was on break, so no “buzz” about the big scandal there, even though Lori Loughlin’s daughters still have not been booted out of the school. (Supposedly, it’s under review). It was probably too new to be mentioned at UCLA

Our first stop was Monday at UCSD. That was the least favorite for all of us, and we usually don’t agree on a lot of these sorts of things. My daughter, who usually doesn’t notice these things, sounded like a realtor when she said that all the buildings look dated. For San Diego, I was disappointed it wasn’t more colorful - many of the buildings were white concrete blocks and the grounds were a lot of dirt covered by mulch, it seemed. It was also telling that the tour did not take us inside buildings - not even the library with the views. The weather was rainy/drizzly and mid 50s as well.

Tuesday we went to UC-Irvine. Yes, my daughter had heard about the stabbing, but it was not a huge concern to us as these sorts of things can happen at many schools in, or near, big cities. We all liked the charm of this campus - the tour guide was great and described the school & campus perfectly - “we think we’re cool, but we’re really not.” We got to meet one of the department heads on our own, and he was fantastic to speak to and also got us chatting with a couple of his students there and let us sit in on a pre finals presentation by his students. The weather was much sunnier. We rated UCI a solid #3 for the week.

Wednesday, we journeyed up to Santa Barbara on Tuesday night for a tour on Wednesday. Shout out to the Pacifica Suites hotel - only 5/6 minutes from campus, and they had a free shuttle bus to and from campus and also greeted us with a bottle of wine. On to the school itself - even though I’m decently fit for my age, I liked that UCSB was on flat ground, so we had a break from going up and down hills that we had at UCI the day before. I liked the tour, the location and the campus, but were scared off a bit by our tour guide saying that only about 4% of students were out of state and 8% international. So, I’d be concerned about an out-of-stater fitting in there. My daughter said it seemed too much like a summer camp.

Thursday, we went to UCLA and we all loved it - the campus was beautiful, the day was sunny and around 70, the tour guide was wonderful and the school seemed to fill most of my daughter’s academic wants. Unlike UCSB, they have a much higher percentage of out of state students (16 or 18%?) and international. The architecture on the older buildings had an east coast flair to it, so it was also somewhat familiar/comfortable, but just had palm trees. She also got to sit in on a class (the one that fit into our schedule was History of Chinese Cinema, which she said she enjoyed, though it’s not really related to anything she plans to study) - we also met up with a boy that is a current freshman at UCLA and lived across the street from us in Connecticut until 3 years ago, so he spent a little time (between studying for finals) to promote the school to us as well.

On Friday, we went to USC and we also all loved it quite a bit as well. The campus was also beautiful, but in a different way than UCLA. UCLA has more green and is hilly. USC is flat and had a lot of well maintained concrete walkways. We went to the 1 hour admissions presentation, then had a 90 minute tour and then a 1 hour presentation at the Dornsife college of liberal arts. However, since my daughter is interested in a couple of majors, we asked to sit in on an afternoon information session for the Dept of Dramatic Arts, which we liked as well (though, oddly, they’re in a small white building while most of the rest of the campus are these huge and impressive brick buildings) - in between, we went to the USC village and had lunch. My wife and her sister (both Chinese) loved the food they got at a Chinese food truck and my daughter got a “make your own” ice cream sandwich at another place. Dramatic Arts seems to be a bit more open to having a double major at USC than it was at UCLA.

Fun note - this year, my daughter’s high school was the first in the nation to get the rites to perform the Musical Fable “The Old Man and the Old Moon” - which they had just done in February. The show’s original creators - PigPen Theater (a group of Carnegie Mellon grads) - said they were inspired by the school’s Instagram posts on the show and decided to give a series of performances of the show again - and, they just happened to be performing at the Wallis Annenberg Theater in Beverly Hills this past weekend, so we got to see them perform the show and my daughter got to meet all the guys from PigPen after the show. (We also noticed that both UCLA and USC have buildings named after Wallis Annenberg as well)

After the trip, I think my daughter’s top 2 schools are USC and UCLA. She loved Southern California overall. UCI is still on her list as well. However UCSB and UCSD are probably off her list.

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I’m glad you managed to get a productive week in! I hope you managed to do some touristy activities as well.

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Sounds great - we totally agree that UCSB feels like camp - but after visiting that was at the top of my kid’s list! Glad you had fun.

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@NewJeffCT Sounds like a great trip! So happy your daughter found some schools she’s really excited about! I had to laugh- yep, UCSB is a lot like summer camp. That’s probably what I loved most about it. Isla Vista is such a college town— all residents are students, the grocery store, eateries, etc, are run by students. We never felt the need to leave our little oasis. Many tears were shed when we graduated and “summer camp” came to an end :-). Best of luck to your daughter with pending decisions. Keep us posted— we’ve loved following your journey.

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@ProfessorPlum168 - unfortunately, we were usually too worn out to do many touristy things other than the show on Sunday and a bit of site-seeing in that area.

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@NewJeffCT since so much of your initial thread was about managing multiple tours and traffic, do you have any reflections on what worked and what didn’t for future visitors? For example, are you pleased you didn’t do USC and UCLA in the same day or do you think it could have worked?

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Hi @lkg4answers - good questions. I was very happy we did the two schools over both days. We ended up at USC for over 7 hours, and at UCLA for a good 5-6 hours. USC offers free Lyft/Uber rides within (I think) 3 miles of campus and I think UCLA has them at a flat $5 for within 5 miles of campus.

Traffic was a nightmare - my wife and her sister wanted to go to an outlet mall in Camarillo and insisted on leaving Irvine ASAP to make it there before closing, and we ended up in bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way from Irvine until well into the Valley. I told her afterwards that if we had just stayed in Irvine to eat dinner and left there at 7pm or so, we probably would have made it to Camarillo around the same time as we did when leaving at the height of rush hour at 5pm.

And, the place we stayed at in LA was somewhere in between USC and UCLA, but it still took us close to an hour to get to UCLA, even though it’s under 20 minutes without traffic. Getting to USC wasn’t bad from where we were, though.

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@NewJeffCT, I’m glad your daughter got to experience SoCal.
You’re spot on about UCSD. I always tell students that they HAVE to visit. It is definitely not a typical campus look nor feel. Both UCI and UCSD are hilly, so biking around is an issue.
UCLA is always a good tour. USC feels like a campus on the east coast.
Santa Barbara is a drive.
Sorry about the traffic. Hopefully, you weren’t stuck too long on the 405. Camarillo is FAR given the traffic issues.
Glad you had your happy trails!

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You’re practically a native now @NewJeffCT - you are so right about waiting out traffic! Oh well. Glad you ended up with a good tour of those schools!

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I just got admitted into both UCLA and USC but last time I visited was more than a year ago and I won’t be able to visit again before decisions and I sort of forgot how they were… What would you say was the main difference between the two?

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@lond0n I graduated from UCSB, and my best friend went to UCSD. There’s definitely some truth to both reputations. UCSD turns into a bit of a commuter campus after freshman year, with most kids finding housing off-campus in the neighboring area. It’s a gorgeous area, however it can feel a bit isolated and lonely on weekends. She had a mostly positive experience, though she was outgoing and determined to find like-minded friends. Even so, she spent many weekends visiting me in SB and there was no question that SB offered a better “college environment”. In SB, most everyone lives in Isla Vista after freshman year, so the college town environment can create an opportunity for block parties, etc. However, the streets in Isla Vista are almost “themed” in a way— with most of the parties taking place on Del Playa (the street across from the ocean). The further the street is from the ocean, generally the more “mellow” the environment. If your son isn’t interested in parties, he can find like minded people and choose not to live on Del Playa (or choose on-campus housing). My experience at UCSB was wonderful. Always something to do (outdoor concerts in the park, board games at friends, studying at the beach), but surrounded by really smart and academically oriented students. UCSB is typically in the Top 10 for happiest students and I’m never surprised. There’s truly something for everyone, and great year round weather. I hope that helps! Good luck to your son! :-).

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@land0n oops— that message was intended for someone else. Sorry!

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@NewJeffCT Your assessments are pretty close to mine, although I like UCSB more and UCI less. But that’s just personal preference. I think you got a pretty good read on everything though, including traffic.

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I’m also a UCSB grad with a kid who is at UC Davis. Both offer a classic college town experience.

At UCSB, I’ll add that the party scene is bigger the closer you are to the beach and the closer you are to campus. The 6500-6700 blocks of DP, Sabado Tarde and Trigo have more happening than if you live in 6800+ blocks.

I agree with @youcee in that UCI doesn’t appeal to me. It goes to show what a good/poor tour guide can do to influence opinion. Our worst tour guide was at UCSC and neither of my kids have any interest in going there.

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And I replied to your post!

Ignore the first two statements above. :blush:

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You drove from Irvine to Camarillo to the outlets? That is so far! lol…you know the Cittadel outlets is off the 5, not far from Irvine and WAYYYY better than Camarillo.

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@ktop3 - we were on our way to Santa Barbara so Camarillo was on the way no matter the time we left.

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@lkg4answers I liked UCSB more than my daughter and my wife. I loved the location - it was flat and had the water on two sides and the mountains in back. And, it was the first campus where I noticed several of the stereotypical “California” girls - tall slim & pretty blondes.

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@lond0n - congrats on being accepted to both schools.

I felt UCLA had more green around campus - with grass, trees, bushes, etc. It had more of an East Coast feel with the greenery, just mostly palm trees instead of deciduous trees. The location is more residential than USC, even if the residents nearby are mostly students. From what I heard from both our tour guide and the young man that was a neighbor of ours, you do NOT need a car on campus and it’s generally discouraged. Beyond the core buildings, UCLA felt more like it grew as needed over time where USC has more of a planned consistency feel to it.

USC had less greenery and the buildings were mostly large, impressive brick structures. While the buildings looked like bigger versions of something you’d find at an Amherst College, the campus had a lot of clean, wide concrete walkways flanked by bushes and trees, but it had more of a planned feel than UCLA. USC is gated and closes the gates after 8pm at night because it is in more of an urban location than UCLA. The tour guide said that if you don’t have a car on campus, it’s a good idea to know somebody that does have one. However, USC does offer free Lyft/Uber rides within 3 miles of campus. (UCLA, I think, had a flat $5 fee within 5 miles)

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@NewJeffCT , my D is an SDA major at USC. The drama dept facilities are adequate though spread out, but I agree they pale in comparison to, say, the Cinematic Arts buildings. Until a major Spielberg/Lucas type donor steps up to fund new drama buildings, they work with what they have.